In United States v. Walker, No. 18-3729 (2d Cir. July 14, 2020), the Second Circuit reversed the district court's denial of the defense's motion to suppress statements made and narcotics discovered during a search incident to arrest. The Court held that "the officers lacked an objectively reasonable belief of legal wrongdoing to justify stopping Walker." The Fourth Amendment requires that officers enacting an investigatory stop have reasonable suspicion that the detained individual is committing, or has committed, a criminal offense—and "courts agree that race, when considered by itself and sometimes even in tandem with other factors, does not generate reasonable suspicion for a stop." Nonetheless, the officers in this case stopped Walker on the basis of a photograph that provided little meaningful identifying information to the police besides the race of a suspect. Jaquan Walker is a black male. And even the additional details of "medium-to-dark skin tone, glasses, facial hair, and long hair," the police therefore lacked specific and articulable facts giving rise to a reasonable suspicion of criminal wrongdoing. Accordingly, the Court held that the stop violated the Fourth Amendment.
Given the justification for the stop fell "woefully short of what the Fourth Amendment requires," and "involved impermissible and manifest stereotyping, which cannot be characterized as merely negligent conduct," the Court rejected a finding of attenuation and granted the motion to suppress.