Case Summaries - Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (July 2021)

This post summarizes published criminal and related decisions from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals released during July 2021 which may be of interest to state practitioners. Summaries are also emailed to subscribers of the SOG criminal law listserv. Previous summaries of Fourth Circuit decisions are available on the SOG website, here. Reasonable suspicion existed to detain armed man despite open-carry laws; type of weapon is relevant to reasonable suspicion analysis; summary judgment to officer on Fourth Amendment wrongful seizure claim affirmed Walker v. Donahoe, 3 F.4th 676 (June 7, 2021). One week after the Parkland, Florida high school shootings in 2018, the plaintiff was walking through a suburban area near a school in the Southern District of West Virginia while armed with an AR-15 assault rifle and dressed in military-style garb. In response to a 911 call about the armed man, police briefly detained the plaintiff. Open carry of weapons is permitted in the state, although state law restricts open carry to persons 18 years of age and older. The plaintiff was 24 years old at the time, but the officers believed he could have been under the legal age to carry based on his appearance. The plaintiff was polite but largely uncooperative during the encounter, refusing to answer questions about the gun or his business and disputing the justification for his detention. After a background check revealed that the defendant was eligible to possess and carry the weapon, he was released. The interaction took less than nine minutes. The [...]