Court Invalidates Evidence Discovered After Group Detention Expires

• Searches of a vehicle on less than probable cause are illegal. 
• Once the reasonable suspicion of a group engaging in criminal activity dissipates via the arrest of one member of the group, all the other members must be released. 
• Probable Cause Searches of a Vehicle
• Vehicle Searches Conducted during an Unlawfully Prolonged Detention
• Prolonged Detentions and De Facto Arrests

The warrantless search of a person’s vehicle under the Automobile Exception requires that there be probable cause.  The recovery of a firearm from another person at the scene, with all those present being gang members, does not provide the necessary probable cause.  A continued detention of everyone at the scene of one subject’s arrest for possession of a firearm, where only one firearm is observed by witnesses prior to the contact, is illegal; any reasonable suspicion having dissipated upon the recovery of the one firearm. 

On July 5, 2023, a citizen reported to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office that a group of men were in the apparent process of creating a music video in the parking lot of an apartment in Rancho Cordova.  One of the men was observed to be holding a handgun.  The caller described the man holding the gun as thin, approximately 16 to 17 years old, and ....