This juvenile was subjected to a patdown for weapons and none were found. He refused to identify himself, so the officer searched for ID, finding instead a credit card that belonged to someone else. The frisk for the ID was unreasonable. In re D.B., 214 N.C. App. 489, 714 S.E.2d 522 (2011):

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Landlord’s entry was based on an effort to see if the defendant damaged the property, and a body was found. A police officer was nearby and watching the entry. It was still a private entry. State v. Marshall, 410 S.W.3d 663 (Mo. App. 2013).

Smell of intoxicants, admission of drinking, and blood shot eyes was enough for a FST. State v. Patel, 2013 Ohio 3300, 2013 Ohio App. LEXIS 3370 (5th Dist. July 15, 2013).*

Defendant’s admission he was driving and the car having signs of being involved in the reported hit and run was probable cause. State v. Moore, 2013 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 633 (July 25, 2013).*

ACLU: DOJ asks court to give police the benefit of the doubt on murky surveillance law by Kade Crockford:

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The New Yorker: How to Tell When the N.S.A. Is Lying by Amy Davidson:

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NYT: About New York: Vowing to Slay the (Already Subdued) Stop-and-Frisk Dragon by Jim Dwyer:

Standing next to the next police commissioner on Thursday morning, Bill de Blasio promised that he would bring an end to ‘stop-and-frisk as we knew it.’

Wired: NSA Wrongly Says Warrantless Mobile-Phone Location Tracking Is Legal by David Kravets:

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Even a mistake of law can be reasonable without violating the Fourth Amendment, following United States v. Martin, 411 F.3d 998 (8th Cir. 2005). State v. Heien, 366 N.C. 271, 737 S.E.2d 351 (2012):

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CNN: The wrong people decide who goes to prison by U.S. District Court Judge Mark W. Bennett and Professor Mark Osler:

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WaPo: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show by Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani:

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NYT: Internet Firms Step Up Efforts to Stop Spying by Nicole Perloth and Vindu Goel:

After surveillance by the National Security Agency, major Internet companies like Microsoft and Yahoo have moved to strengthen protections of users’ data.

The Recorder: In Privacy Opinions, Koh and Grewal Air Differences by Julia Love:

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Human Rights Watch: Forced Guilty Pleas in Drug Cases:

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A 1983 pro se plaintiff’s computer search was suppressed under the Alaska Constitution, but that did not govern the Fourth Amendment analysis in a 1983 case. Every step of the way, the officers involved prosecutors and supervisors in their actions. They were entitled to qualified immunity under Messerschmidt v. Millender. Armstrong v. Asselin, 734 F.3d 984 (9th Cir. 2013).*

Plaintiff’s disorderly conduct arrest was without arguable probable cause because she said “hell” and “damn” in a loud voice when told to move her legally parked car. Wilkerson v. Seymour, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 22058 (11th Cir. October 30, 2013).*

The district court erred in not considering the Fourth Amendment reasonableness of defendant’s take down in the jail during booking in a 1983 excessive force claim. Reversed. Burgess v. Fischer, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 22279 (6th Cir. November 1, 2013).*

Defendant was stopped for a traffic violation and said he was on his way to his PO for a drug test on supervised release. In the car in plain view was a bladder for falsifying the UA. That was reasonable suspicion to detain longer, and the PO was called. At the scene they saw a gun, too, and defendant was arrested. A search of the car found methamphetamine. The detention and search were reasonable. United States v. Cash, 733 F.3d 1264 (10th Cir. 2013).

An officer does not have to “know” that a bill is counterfeit to make an arrest on PC for defendant passing it. United States v. Jones, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 22381 (5th Cir. November 4, 2013).*

Wallace v. Kato changed the limitations period for certain § 1983 cases in Utah, and this plaintiff is entitled to equitable tolling where Wallace came after his claim accrued and then ostensibly cut it off. Garza v. Burnett, 2013 UT 66, 2013 Utah LEXIS 160 (November 1, 2013) (on certification from the Tenth Circuit for an opinion on state law).*

There were three people in the car stopped on a long road trip. The driver consented to a search of the car. The trunk had multiple dufflebags. It was unreasonable for the officers to think that they all belonged to the driver, and most didn’t. He couldn’t consent to them, and their search is suppressed. (Also, judicial notice taken of distance between points off Google maps.) United States v. Iraheta, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 53283 (W.D. La. March 18, 2013), adopted 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 53321 (W.D. La. April 11, 2013).

“In this case, while the search warrant describes certain broad categories of items to be searched for and seized, such as ‘documents related to fraudulent activities; photographs; any other stolen property;’ it also lists two North Carolina crimes: possession of stolen property, and obtaining property by false pretense, in violation of N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 14-71.1 and 14-100. Thus officers were instructed to look only for items related to those particular crimes.” Thus, it was not overbroad. [Still, however, a lot is left to the discretion of the officer, so the defense has to show that something, anything was seized that should not have been seized. But that’s not enough if just a few things were seized that shouldn’t have been because that won’t lead to suppression of the other stuff properly seized.] United States v. Davis, 939 F. Supp. 2d 535 (E.D. N.C. April 12, 2013), R&R 939 F. Supp. 2d 535 (E.D. N.C. November 16, 2012).*

The trial court erred in granting suppression based on a Franks motion because the defendant did not properly support his motion by showing intentional omissions designed to mislead the issuing magistrate. Extraneous or marginal information doesn’t need to be in a search warrant application, and leaving it out is not misleading. State v. Petroni, 123 So. 3d 62 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013):

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State officials got a court ordered GPS installed on defendant’s car, and the court finds that it was installed utterly without probable cause. Motion to suppress should have been granted. Hamlett v. State, 323 Ga. App. 221, 746 S.E.2d 843 (2013):

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Cell phone search incident is valid in drug cases, citing Florida cases but [disingenuously] not Smallwood. [If they don’t know about Smallwood, then they sure don’t know about the cert. petition in Wurie.] Sinclair v. State, 214 Md. App. 309, 76 A.3d 442 (2013):

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The NSA says it ‘obviously’ can track locations without a warrant. That’s not so obvious by Andrea Peterson:

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UPI: Anti-surveillance groups seek to use state laws to block NSA:

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