Checking criminal history doesn’t require probable cause, and defendant doesn’t cite any authority other than the Fourth and Fifth Amendment should be liberally construed. Motion in limine denied in one 711 word sentence. United States v. Green, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 52962 (M.D.Pa. April 20, 2016):
AND NOW, 20th day of April, 2016, upon consideration of the motion (Doc. 631) in limine by pro se defendant Leon Green (“Green”), wherein Green requests that the court exclude from admission at trial evidence seized by authorities during a November 7, 2013 search of his residence, and it appearing that Green contends: first, that probable cause for the November 7, 2013 search was based, in part, on an “illegal background search” by a New Jersey law enforcement officer in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution (see Doc. 631 ¶ 4); second, that law enforcement exceeded their authority when executing the search warrant by searching an attic crawl space, accessible through Green’s kitchen, which Green alleges was “not … part of [his] leasing agreement,” (see id. ¶ 5); and third, that his arrest was the “fruit[] of a poisonous tree” as a result of the preceding alleged violations (see id. ¶ 6), and further upon consideration of the government’s brief (Doc. 645) in opposition, wherein the government contends: first, that federal law authorizes the creation and use of criminal justice information systems for the purpose of making information available to law enforcement officers in carrying out their investigative functions (see id. at 7-8); second, that law enforcement did not exceed the scope of the search warrant in executing same on November 7, 2013 (see id. at 8-10); and third, that, given the validity of the search warrant and lawfulness of the attendant search, Green’s arrest was not the “fruit of a poisonous tree” (see id. at 10), and the court observing that the Fourth Amendment protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures, see U.S. Const. amend. IV; Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 133, 110 S. Ct. 2301, 110 L. Ed. 2d 112 (1990), and that generally a search is reasonable only if effectuated with a warrant supported by probable cause, see City of L.A. v. Patel, 576 U.S. ___, 135 S. Ct. 2443, 2452, 192 L. Ed. 2d 435 (2015), and further observing that the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule is intended to deter unlawful police conduct, see United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 906, 104 S. Ct. 3405, 82 L. Ed. 2d 677 (1984), but that suppression of evidence pursuant to the exclusionary rule is unnecessary and indeed “is inappropriate” when authorities, in good faith, objectively rely on a warrant’s authority, United States v. $92,422.57, 307 F.3d 137, 145 (3d Cir. 2002) (quoting United States v. Williams, 3 F.3d 69, 74 (3d Cir. 1993)); see Leon, 468 U.S. at 906, and the court finding: first, with respect to Green’s argument that authorities violated the Fourth Amendment by accessing a criminal justice information system to ascertain Green’s alias, parole status, and criminal history after the grand jury returned its indictment against him, that such information-sharing systems are expressly contemplated and authorized by federal regulations, see 28 C.F.R. § 20.1 et seq., and that, except for his contention that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments should “be liberally construed” in his favor, (Doc. 648 at 2), Green offers neither argument or evidence that any information-sharing among law enforcement violated applicable regulations or constitutional protections during the investigative process in this matter; second, with respect to Green’s argument that law enforcement officers violated the Fourth Amendment by searching the attic crawl space of his apartment because the space was not part of his leasing agreement, that a valid search warrant authorized law enforcement officers to search “the premises” of Green’s apartment, (see Doc. 631, Ex. 1 at 1), that law enforcement officers relied in good faith on their authorization to search “the “premises” when searching the apartment and attic crawl space accessible through the kitchen of said premises, see $92,422.57, 307 F.3d at 145 (quoting Williams, 3 F.3d at 74); see also Leon, 468 U.S. at 906, and that Green’s argument regarding his personal access to or possession of the crawl space is a potential defense at trial but has no bearing on admissibility or excludability of evidence found therein pursuant to the lawful search undertaken by law enforcement; and third, having found no Fourth Amendment violations, the court finding Green’s fruit of the poisonous tree argument to be moot, it is hereby ORDERED that Green’s motion (Doc. 631) in limine is DENIED.
by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com / The Book www.johnwesleyhall.com
"If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It isn't, and they don't." —Me
"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well." –Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw), Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (1868) (erroneously attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, among others)
“I am still learning.” —Domenico Giuntalodi (but misattributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (common phrase throughout 1500's)).
"Love work; hate mastery over others; and avoid intimacy with the government."
—Shemaya, in the Thalmud
"It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers."
—Charles Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc.” 255 (1848)
"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced."
—Williams
v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold,
J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984).
"The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws,
or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence." —Mapp
v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961).
"Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment."
—Yale Kamisar, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 36 n. 151 (1987).
"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that
bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the
police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater
than it is today."
— Terry
v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting).
"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their
property."
—Entick
v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765)
"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have
frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And
so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his
case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth
Amendment."
—United
States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting)
"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated
here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth."
—Chapman
v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
"A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the
bottom of a turntable."
—Arizona
v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987)
"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly
exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth
Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in
an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected."
—Katz
v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967)
“Experience should teach us to be most on guard to
protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born
to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded
rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men
of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
—United
States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)
“Liberty—the freedom from unwarranted
intrusion by government—is as easily lost through insistent nibbles by
government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose
it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark.”
—United
States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989)
"You can't always get what you want /
But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need."
—Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
"In Germany, they first came for the communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for
the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came
for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration
camp]
“You know, most men would get discouraged by
now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
---Pepé Le Pew
"The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers,
is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which
reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that
those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being
judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting
out crime."
—Johnson
v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948)