CA7: FBI’s enlisting govt employee to take records from another’s office was unreasonable search

A government employee, like a private employee, has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his or her office. A co-worker at the insistence of the FBI gathered evidence from defendant’s office and violated the Fourth Amendment. But for these illegal searches that made it into the affidavit for the warrant, the search warrant would not have issued. United States v. Shelton, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 14340 (7th Cir. May 14, 2021).

There were no exigent circumstances permitting a warrantless search of defendant’s blood. There were multiple officers on the scene and none of them attempted to contact the on-call state’s attorney or the duty judge. Dusan v. State, 2021 Fla. App. LEXIS 6893 (Fla. 5th DCA May 14, 2021).*

The state established an exception to knock-and-announce because it was a certainty defendant knew the officers were outside. Commonwealth v. Bellamy, 2021 Pa. Super. LEXIS 300 (May 14, 2021).

Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the ICU while he was recovering there after surgery. Medical staff and law enforcement officers were coming and going, he talked to both freely, and defendant was passing notes to both. When officers saw notes to medical staff, it wasn’t private. Commonwealth v. Welch, 2021 Mass. LEXIS 290 (May 14, 2021).