King5 News: Washington’s I-502 helps put drug dog out of work by Drew Mikkelsen:

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Merely hanging out with a drug dealer is not reasonable suspicion for a stop, but here there was more, and it indicated that defendant was a drug dealer too. Therefore, the stop was valid. Holt v. State, 435 Md. 443, 78 A.3d 415 (2013):

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Florida’s drug testing of welfare recipients violates the Fourth Amendment. Lebron v. Wilkins, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 182492 (M.D. Fla. December 31, 2013), on remand from Lebron v. Secretary, Florida Department of Children and Families, 710 F.3d 1202 (11th Cir. 2013) (posted here) (NYT: Florida Law on Drug Tests for Welfare Is Struck Down):

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WaPo: Technology? Some justices want to keep distance by AP:

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ACLU: Drone Test Site Selections Belie State Anti-Privacy Argument by Allie Bohm:

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Seemingly shifting the burden of proof (“Having failed to present any factual or legal support, Defendant’s contention is without merit.”) the seizure of defendant’s property pending obtaining a warrant was valid. United States v. Bigbee, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 694 (M.D. Tenn. January 3, 2014).*

Defendant’s claim that consent was coerced by a threat to shoot defendant’s dogs is rejected on the facts. United States v. Mason, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 866 (D. Ore. January 6, 2014).*

The stop was justified at its inception by a traffic offense and a tip, and it was not unreasonably extended. United States v. Segura, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1044 (W.D. Tex. January 6, 2014).*

In a computer search warrant, the failure to abide by a date search filter did not make the search constitutionally overbroad. United States v. Rarick, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 953 (N.D. Ohio January 6, 2014):

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The existence of Knotts as authority for pre-Jones GPS placement was good enough for application of the Davis good faith exception. Add to that the disarray of the courts, and the Second Circuit hadn’t ruled. United States v. Aguiar, 737 F.3d 251 (2d Cir. 2013):

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Privileged information in a search warrant application must be disregarded under F.R.E. 1101. And here, after a Franks hearing, the motion to suppress is denied. “The Court attributes any differences in the witnesses’ testimony to the passage of time and the fallibility of memory.” United States v. Carlson, 946 F. Supp. 2d 1115 (D. Ore. 2013):

[T]he Court reads Federal Rule of Evidence 1101 as directing judicial officers, including magistrate judges, to identify and disregard privileged information when reviewing warrant applications. For judicial officers, including magistrate judges, to follow this instruction, however, law enforcement officers must not withhold material information from the judicial officer regarding a privileged source of evidence.

Officers had a report of a man with a gun walking toward a certain intersection, and they went looking for him. They found a man matching the description with the bulge of a gun under his clothing. When he saw the police car, he reached for it to check on it. The stop was with reasonable suspicion. State v. Michael, 2013 Ohio 3889, 2013 Ohio App. LEXIS 4063 (10th Dist. September 10, 2013).*

In a 2255 post-conviction case, defense counsel was not ineffective for not challenging his state arrest that led to a later federal indictment because the state arrest warrant did not comply with federal law. His federal arrest was based on an indictment. He could not prevail on this issue. United States v. Parada, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130793 (D. Kan. September 12, 2013).*

In a synthetic marijuana case, “[t]he search warrants described the items to be searched and seized with sufficient particularity and, therefore, were not a ‘general warrant.’” United States v. Carlson, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130893 (D. Minn. July 25, 2013).*

The warrants here were issued with probable cause. United States v. Milliner, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130217 (E.D. Mo. September 12, 2013).*

A two-year-old order just released, the District of Maryland holds that the government’s generalized assertions of needs for secrecy of search warrant materials were insufficient. The investigation seemed over, and the target has a right to know why the government seized his stuff. The government has to provide a redacted affidavit now. In re 14416 Coral Gables Way, 946 F. Supp. 2d 414 (D.Md. 2011):

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Defendant was arrested outside his mobile home at night. Merely having information of guns inside, noise [it turned out to be a dog] inside, and officer safety doesn’t justify this entry. Officer safety was accomplished by the arrest outside. Many homes have guns, and the state’s rule would make every home with a gun subject to search. Noise from inside is to be expected if there is anybody else there, but it doesn’t mean there’s a threat. Brumley v. Commonwealth, 413 S.W.3d 280 (Ky. 2013):

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Defendant confessed after an illegal arrest. Miranda warnings and not being treated confrontationally during the illegal arrest by the police did not purge the taint. Suppressing here serves the purposes of the exclusionary rule. Not suppressing evidence on these facts would reward illegal police and likely cause future violations. State v. McDonald-Richards, 2012 Minn. LEXIS 724 (January 23, 2012):

The district court improperly admitted McDonald-Richards’ statement because the court did not consider the statement’s admissibility “in light of the policies served by the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule.” Weekes I, 312 Minn. at 7, 250 N.W.2d at 594. One of the purposes the exclusionary rule serves is to deter police violations of the Fourth Amendment. Brown, 422 U.S. at 599. There is no dispute in this case that McDonald-Richards’ Fourth Amendment rights were violated when the police seized her without probable cause. Indeed, police witnesses at the pre-trial suppression hearing conceded that they had no information regarding McDonald-Richards’ participation in the robbery and murder at Avi’s and considered her merely a person of interest when they arrested her. Based on the information known to the arresting officers at the time of McDonald-Richards’ arrest, there was no objective basis for a reasonable officer to conclude there was probable cause for her arrest. See State v. Munson, 594 N.W.2d 128, 136 (Minn. 1999) (noting that probable cause is measured objectively). When police arrest someone without probable cause and fail to articulate any other lawful basis for their conduct, the police violation of the Fourth Amendment is flagrant. See Weekes II, 268 N.W.2d at 710 (noting that “[t]he most important factor in the determination that the confession was illegally obtained was the flagrant nature of the police action.”); see also Weekes I, 312 Minn. at 7, 250 N.W.2d at 594 (noting that police action is considered flagrant when it is “clear that [the] defendant was taken into custody and confined without a warrant and without probable cause” because “absent probable cause there is not and never has been any lawful basis for holding a person for investigation or on suspicion.”) (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). Such unlawful seizures will not be deterred if, as the district court held, the giving of a Miranda warning, two hours of confinement, and a non-confrontational police interrogation are sufficient to purge the taint from the constitutional violation.

Foreign Policy: FBI Drops Law Enforcement as ‘Primary’ Mission by John Hudson:

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A typo in the date of a warrant (June 6th instead of July 6th) did not require suppression where there was no dispute that the warrant was signed and executed on July 6th. The affidavit referred to July 6th. This is not a constitutional or rule violation. State v. McKnight, 2013 Haw. LEXIS 427 (December 31, 2013), aff’g State v. McKnight, 128 Haw. 328, 289 P.3d 964 (App. 2012):

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Defendant’s warrantless arrest for shoplifting by the police when he was detained by store security was without exigent circumstances and violated the state constitution, so the search incident was invalid. New Mexico follows the common law rule, and that violates the state constitution. State v. Paananen, 2014 N.M. App. LEXIS 1 (January 2, 2014).*

Both defendant probationer and his wife separately consented to the search of their premises. Defendant was found to have consented before being placed in custody, but if it was the other way around it wouldn’t be per se coerced. People v. Nichols, 2014 NY Slip Op 44, 2014 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 15 (4th Dept. January 3, 2014).*

NYTimes: Listen to Pandora, and It Listens Back by Natasha Singer. The question should be: can any of this “information,” their conclusions about us, be subpoenaed or obtained by search warrant?

Deep in:

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NYTimes: The Commish, the 2nd Time Around by Maureen Dowd, about the new NYPD Commissioner and stop and frisk. I avoid most opinion pieces, but this is interesting about the attitudes of the NYPD in the post-“stop-and-frisk” world and the new Mayor. From page 2:

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The Daily Dot: The NSA has nearly complete backdoor access to Apple’s iPhone by Jay Hathaway:

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Der Spiegel: Part I: Inside TAO: Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit

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