Defendant’s house was the subject of what fireman quickly decided was a meth lab fire. The fire marshal’s later entry was for a “cause and origin” determination, and it was justified by Tyler and Clifford. A police officer called during that entry was still justified in his entry. Later entries were by search warrant and were clearly justified. United States v. Mayne, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 163898 (N.D. Iowa November 15, 2013).
Officers found in a records check that defendant had a firearms prohibition. Based on another record, the affiant erroneously concluded that it was for domestic violence. The database consulted was regularly checked by LEOs and there was no reason to doubt its veracity. Therefore, the false statement was not recklessly nor maliciously made, and the Franks challenge fails. United States v. Franck, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164451 (E.D. Wis. November 18, 2013),* R&R 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164452 (E.D. Wis. September 30, 2013).*
Defendant knew exactly what the police were looking for when he confessed to having child pornography on his computer before originally denying it. He was advised of his right to refuse consent and then consented to a search. United States v. Williams, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164177 (N.D. Ga. November 18, 2013).*
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Defense counsel was not ineffective for not predicting the outcome in Jones when he recommended to defendant to plead guilty based on GPS evidence. State v. Miranda, 2013-Ohio-5109, 2013 Ohio App. LEXIS 5303 (10th Dist. November 19, 2013):
The warrant was partially general, but the remedy would be to suppress the parts of the warrant that are overbroad and that seized under it, not the whole search. United States v. Couch, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164827 (E.D. Ky. November 20, 2013):
Defendant was not unreasonably detained when he was stopped for suspicion of DUI when he attempted to enter a military base. MPs had to be called to the gate who could do a DUI investigation. United States v. Tataw, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164826 (W.D. Ky. November 19, 2013).*
Defendant did not show in his 2255 that his girlfriend did not actually consent to the search of the premises, so defense counsel was not ineffective. Penney v. United States, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 165019 (E.D. Tenn. November 20, 2013).* [Implicit in the discussion to me is whether she had any authority whatsoever to consent, and apparently that wasn’t pursued.]
Defendant police officer was questioned about sexual molestation of a 15 year old girl. He was not in custody but he was told Garrity applied, up to his taking a polygraph, which wasn’t. Then he admitted he was with the girl. Lengsfeld v. State, 2013 Ga. App. LEXIS 933 (November 18, 2013).* [Can a police officer actually say that he didn’t know his Miranda rights?]
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Attempting to seize documents by an IRS summons is not a Fourth Amendment seizure. United States v. Sanders, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 145711 (S.D. Ill. October 9, 2013).
“We conclude that the intervening circumstances, including the traffic infraction, the discovery of Jackson as the driver whom the police had probable cause to arrest, and the position of Jackson’s pants, were sufficient to dissipate any taint caused by the illegal reliance on the GPS device.” Jackson v. State, 996 N.E.2d 378 (Ind. App. 2013).*
“Here, Holbert acknowledges that officers had reasonable suspicion to initiate a Terry stop [for burglary] but contends that that suspicion did not justify placing him in handcuffs. … Holbert also asserts that the officers did not have proper justification to pat him down and that the officers could not have recognized the marijuana on his person through the plain feel doctrine. We cannot agree with any of these arguments.” Holbert v. State, 996 N.E.2d 396 (Ind. App. 2013).*
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Officials in Grenada passed on an anonymous tip that the defendant’s ship was transporting cocaine. It was boarded in international waters by the Coast Guard, and it passed inspection and an ION test for drugs and explosives. They tried twice to do an “at-sea space accountability inspection”[n.1] to see if there were hidden compartments, but the seas were too rough. The ship was ordered to a Virgin Islands port, the nearest one. There, two drug dogs alerted on the ship, and a hole was drilled in the stern finding 250 packages of cocaine. The contact with the Captain on the ship at sea ripened into reasonable suspicion because of his vagueness about his travel plans. The court assumes the Captain of a ship has standing to contest a search of the vessel (still an open issue). United States v. Benoit, 730 F.3d 280, 59 V.I. 1145 (3d Cir. 2013).
Officer encountered the defendant at a DV call, and defendant had his hands behind his back. The officer asked if he had weapons, and he said no. The officer asked if he could search him, and he let him. It was by consent. State v. Bell, 122 So. 3d 422 (Fla. 2d DCA 2013).*
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Defendant sought a subpoena to test the software used on a P2P search of defendant’s computer. The subpoena is quashed because the information sought is not relevant to the Fourth Amendment issue which is settled, and defendant will lose for lack of a reasonable expectation of privacy. United States v. Brashear, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 163865 (M.D. Pa. November 18, 2013).*
The arresting and searching officer had PC to believe defendant had a gun in the car, and that authorized a search. United States v. Sands, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 163889 (N.D. Ill. November 18, 2013).*
Defendant’s admission he had a gun justified a pat down. United States v. Hines, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164056 (N.D. Ga. November 18, 2013).*
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“File names and opinions of qualified investigating officers that images downloaded from a suspect’s computer are ‘child pornography,’ even without a factual description of the images downloaded, may establish probable cause that child pornography will be found.” “Also, unsworn statements that are submitted with and that are, as a matter of common sense and realistic construction, considered part of the affidavit of a search warrant application may be considered as support for a magistrate’s probable cause determination.” United States v. Bursch, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 23278 (9th Cir. November 19, 2013).*
The GPS tracking warrant was issued with PC and the good faith exception applied. United States v. Rios-Lopez, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 23280 (9th Cir. November 19, 2013).*
A claim that plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated by not letting her go to the bathroom after was in jail didn’t lie against the arresting officers. Davenport v. Dovgin, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 23111 (7th Cir. November 14, 2013).*
The government had two valid reasons to pull defendant over: that his DL was suspended, and a detailed statement from a probationer that defendant was involved in a crime were both enough to be PC. United States v. Ove, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 163799 (D. Minn. October 4, 2013),* adopted 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 163452 (D. Minn. November 18, 2013).*
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Defendant failed to appear to serve a federal sentence, and he was found in New Mexico in a hotel room under an alias. His use of an alias to rent the hotel room did not deny him standing. United States v. Donahue, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164351 (M.D. Pa. November 19, 2013):
A motion to exclude evidence under 404(b) does not work like a motion to suppress under the Fourth Amendment. Taking it on plain error, it isn’t even error because the stuff was taken from a storage unit that was abandoned. Also there was a computer search issue, but there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in the computers because defendant gave them to her daughter to sell. United States v. Kannell, 545 Fed. Appx. 881 (11th Cir. 2013).
Defense counsel was not ineffective for not arguing the issue in Jardines long before it was decided; it wouldn’t apply to these facts anyway, and, even if it did, Davis good faith would apply. United States v. Lozano, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 163670 (D. Minn. November 18, 2013).*
Defendant’s ducking to his right as he was pulled over for a seatbelt violation was a furtive movement justifying a frisk. United States v. Tillman, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 23146, 2013 FED App. 0983N (6th Cir. November 14, 2013).
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There is no per se rule that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a police interview room. Here, the microphone was hidden in the thermostat. It should have been suppressed; however, the harmless error rule applied. State v. Williams, 2013-Ohio-5076, 2013 Ohio App. LEXIS 5278 (11th Dist. November 18, 2013):
Officers had both exigent circumstances and consent for an entry. Neighbors complained of a strong chemical smell coming from defendant’s house, and officers determined it was obviously from a meth lab. When they knocked, the fan turned off, and the people inside wouldn’t respond for a while. United States v. Reed, 545 Fed. Appx. 579 (8th Cir. 2013).
The warrant for search of one defendant’s house was valid. Excluding the evidence challenged under Franks, there was still probable cause for the warrant. United States v. Gray, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 23120 (11th Cir. November 15, 2013).*
Defendant’s motion to suppress merely argued he was a passenger in the back seat of a car that was not even alleged to be unlawfully stopped, so his motion to suppress is denied for lack of standing. United States v. Allie, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 163350 (W.D. Pa. November 18, 2013).*
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N.D. Ga. follows Wurie and Smallwood and holds search incident of cell phone unreasonable under Gant. United States v. Dixon, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 163674 (N.D. Ga. August 29, 2013):
The CI’s “controlled buy” wasn’t controlled at all, and there was no way to credit what the CI said about the defendant. The police saw nothing corroborative. Chatham v. State, 323 Ga. App. 51, 746 S.E.2d 605 (2013):
"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, Let it Bleed (album, 1969)
"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]
“Children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom.” – John le Carré, The Night Manager (1993), line by Richard Roper
"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)
The book was dedicated in the first (1982) and sixth (2025) editions to Justin William Hall (1975-2025). He was three when this project started in 1978.
