The Associated Press
Salt Lake City (AP) -- Two sisters became the targets of a drug raid when they moved into an apartment previously rented by drug suspects.
Tina Janelle Peterson and Margie Martina Peterson sued, alleging they were handcuffed and put on the floor when six members of the Davis Metro Narcotics Strike Force arrived to serve a warrant while the sisters were moving in.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver has upheld a decision by U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell that the search warrant was valid but declining to throw out the sisters’ claims that their civil rights were violated.
The suit contends that the officers arrived at the Petersons’ door on April 4, 1999, four days after a search warrant was obtained.
Though the sisters produced identification and said they were just moving in, the officers continued to detain and interrogate them, the suit contends.
Plaintiffs attorney D. Bruce Oliver said the 3-week-old information used to get the warrant was stale and the police waited too long to conduct the search.
The officers’ attorneys said the warrant covered the premises and anyone present, and they dispute that the officers were required to stop the search until they had determined whether it was true that the sisters had just moved in.
“If that were true, then police officers would never be able to fully execute most search warrants,” they wrote.
Two men visiting the sisters appeared to be “stoned” and a search turned up marijuana, the lawyers said. The drug was confiscated but no charges were filed.
The lawyers also said that once the officers identified the Petersons, they apologized and left.