CA9: Shaving a spot on cattle to look at a brand doesn’t violate 4A

Shaving a spot on cattle to look at a brand doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. [Actually, nowhere does anything say that so qualified immunity must apply. The case doesn’t say that, but that’s the bottom line.] Gillette v. Malheur County, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 15535 (9th Cir. June 8, 2018).*

“Even if suppression was an available remedy [because of Hudson], the government has demonstrated that a no-knock entry was permitted, because the authorities had a ‘“reasonable suspicion that knocking and announcing their presence, under the particular circumstances, would be dangerous or futile, or that it would inhibit the effective investigation of the crime.”’ (D.I. 77 at 5) (quoting Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 385, 394 (1997)). Here, the authorities’ no-knock entry was permissible, because (a) arrests of all co-defendants were being done simultaneously and extra time would have given Velez a chance to warn the others, (b) the known layout of the apartment created a heightened safety risk, and (c) the phone that the investigators were after could have been destroyed (and was indeed snapped in half). …” United States v. Velez-Encarnacion, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 95841 (D. Del. June 7, 2018).