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Appeals Court Says Nebraska Search Did Not Violate Rights

ne-court-of-appealsOMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A federal appeals court has found that an Omaha police officer did not violate a Pennsylvania man’s constitutional rights by detaining him after the man was given a warning, then searching his truck.

The ruling Wednesday by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling last year of a lower court that threw out the search of Brent Englehart’s truck.

The lower court pointed to a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in another Nebraska case that said traffic stops cannot be extended to seek evidence of unrelated crimes, even if only for a few minutes.

But the appeals panel said the officer rightly based the search on an 8th Circuit precedent that says detaining a person for less than 10 minutes — even without probable cause — does not amount to unreasonable seizure.

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