Police can’t hold onto people’s possessions indefinitely after an arrest, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled on Friday, in a decision that revives lawsuits against the D.C. police from 2020 racial justice protesters. The ruling also goes against what most other appellate courts in the country have said. Only one, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, has ruled similarly that property is subject to the same constitutional protections against indefinite police detention as people. It’s a “significant precedent” in favor of a broader view of the Fourth Amendment, Michael Perloff of the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C., who litigated the case, said in a statement. “When the government seizes property incident to a lawful arrest, the Fourth Amendment requires that any continued possession of the property must be reasonable,” Judge Gregory G. Katsas wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel. “The plaintiffs’ allegations raise serious questions about the reasonableness of the [D.C. police’s] handling of their property for months or years after their release from custody without charges.”
The lawsuits came from five protesters and a journalist who were arrested during racial justice protests in August 2020. All were detained briefly and released without charges; no warrants were issued to search their phones. But they were unable to get their phones back until they went to court, roughly a year later, despite having repeatedly contacted the police and D.C. prosecutors. The journalist, who was jailed overnight, did not get his camera back for nearly a year. Most appellate courts have ruled that the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition “against unreasonable searches and seizures” of “houses, papers, and effects” applies only to how property is searched and seized — not how long it is retained. But the D.C. Circuit ruled that there was “no good reason why” the Constitution should be read as saying “people and effects are different” when it comes to “ongoing seizures.” A seizure of a phone can be lawful and reasonable for a day, the court wrote, but unlawful and unreasonable for a year.
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