Botched Interview Taints Conviction for Aiming Laser at Plane

Statements a suspect made to an FBI agent about pointing a laser at a police aircraft in flight in violation of federal law must be suppressed, because the agent tied the interview to an earlier unconstitutional encounter between sheriffs and the suspect, the Ninth Circuit said.

The pilot of a Portland, Ore., police aircraft flying over Gresham, Ore., was temporarily blinded when someone on the ground pointed a laser at the plane. The plane’s equipment determined the source of the laser was Nikolay Bocharnikov’s house.

Officers from the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Department went to the house. When they arrived, Bocharnikov ...