RI District Court and Traffic Tribunal Case Law

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Richard DiPrete v. State of Rhode Island, A.A. No. 10-0173 Reasonable Suspcion to Stop

Defendant appealed the decision of the Appeals Panel sustaining the violation of 1956 § 31-27-2.1 (refusal to submit).  The Court concluded that the decision of the Appeals Panel regarding the Fourth Amendment issue was not supported by reliable, probative, and substantial evidence of record, as an arrest made by an officer on the basis of departmental knowledge is validated in one of two ways: “(a) when an arrest has been made pursuant to a warrant, its validity must be examined—including a determination of whether the facts contained in the application constituted probable cause; (b) when a warrantless arrest has been made, it is the knowledge possessed by the officer (or officers, since this principle may operative collectively) who instigated the arrest, the ‘communicating’ officer, that must be evaluated.”  Car stops based on departmental knowledge are generally warrantless, thus the second course applies here.  The Court held that the arresting officer acted properly, but the prosecution did not meet its burden to show that the stop in the instant case was legally justified because it failed to show that the seizure was validated on the basis of the knowledge of the investigating or communicating officer, in this case the dispatcher. Accordingly, the Court reversed the decision of the Appeals Panel. 

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