Pubdate: Fri, 21 Jun 2002
Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (AR)
Copyright: 2002 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.ardemgaz.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/25
Author: Michael Rowett

JUSTICES SAY RIGHTS VIOLATED, TOSS DRUG CONVICTION

Drug task force detectives violated the constitutional rights of a Decatur 
man convicted of manufacturing methamphetamine, the Arkansas Supreme Court 
ruled Thursday in tossing out the conviction.

James Patrick Keenom's appeal of the 2001 conviction, for which he was 
sentenced to 20 years in prison, contended that Benton County Circuit Judge 
Tom Keith should have granted Keenom's motion to suppress evidence obtained 
by the detectives.

Keenom said they violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable 
search and seizure by authorities. The high court's 5-2 decision agreed.

Keenom was arrested the night of March 7, 2001, by two detectives working 
for the 19th Judicial District Drug Task Force. The arrest was prompted 
when detective David Jones observed Keenom shopping at the Wal-Mart 
Supercenter in Bentonville. Jones later testified that he thought Keenom 
looked suspicious because he had long hair and a beard and was pushing a 
shopping cart containing various chemicals that could be used to make 
methamphetamine.

Jones followed Keenom to his car in the parking lot, wrote down the car's 
license plate number and using this information learned Keenom's name and 
address. Jones contacted fellow detective Tony Noblin and they decided to 
go to Keenom's residence to perform a "knock and talk," to see if they 
could get consent from Keenom to search his home and thereby catch him in 
the act of making methamphetamine.

The two detectives were accompanied by Decatur police. Keenom met the 
officers outside his trailer before they could knock on the door. Jones 
asked for permission to search the trailer, and Keenom refused, suggesting 
they come back in 10 minutes. The officers said they couldn't do that and 
continued to question Keenom.

Keenom testified that it was cold and raining and he was wearing only a 
pair of jeans, but the officers refused to let him go back inside his house 
and threatened to confiscate all his belongings if he tried to go inside. 
After more questioning, Keenom acknowledged that he had a quarter gram of 
methamphetamine inside the trailer.

Jones testified that Noblin then advised Keenom of his Miranda rights 
because he had begun to implicate himself in criminal activity. Keenom 
denied he was advised of these rights. Responding to a question from Jones, 
Keenom said he had accepted payment from friends to allow them to make 
methamphetamine in his trailer.

By this time, after 20 to 45 minutes of questioning (the accounts of 
prosecution witnesses differed on the length of questioning), the 
detectives arrested Keenom for conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine, 
and later denied that they ever took him into custody before that point.

Jones obtained a search warrant from a magistrate, who specified that the 
search warrant couldn't be served until daybreak the next morning. The 
search netted weapons, drug paraphernalia and lab materials, and Keenom was 
charged with manufacturing methamphetamine and possession of both drugs and 
firearms.

The Supreme Court in its Scott v. State decision this year set the standard 
for determining when a "knock and talk" becomes a seizure under the Fourth 
Amendment: "when a reasonable person would not feel free to leave."

The detectives' "persistence in the face of [Keenom's] efforts to terminate 
the encounter and his request that the officers leave, resulted in his 
being seized in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights," Justice Ray 
Thornton wrote in Thursday's ruling. "Such prolonged questioning, leading 
as it did to [Keenom's] unsuccessful attempts to return to the safety and 
solitude of his house, would surely lead a reasonable person to believe 
that he could not ignore the officers."

Justices Tom Glaze and Robert L. Brown issued separate dissenting opinions. 
Glaze wrote that he would have affirmed Keith's ruling not to suppress, 
because the evidence indicated that Keenom wasn't precluded from ending his 
conversation with police.

Brown wrote that the police conduct was "highly questionable" but 
reasonable under the Fourth Amendment because the search wasn't actually 
performed until after a search warrant had been obtained.
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