The conclusory statement defendant’s attorney waived a motion to suppress was meaningless on an IAC claim. State v. Rohm, 2013 Iowa App. LEXIS 1158 (November 6, 2013).*
The appellate court could not determine the waiver of search claim on appeal as IAC, so defendant should raise it in a post-conviction proceeding. State v. Clark, 2013 Iowa App. LEXIS 1186 (November 6, 2013).*
Petitioner’s IAC claim that defense counsel failed to file a meritorious motion to suppress loses because it wasn’t meritorious. United States v. Brown, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 159344 (N.D. Ill. November 7, 2013).*
Comments Off on IA: Conclusory IAC statement defense counsel waived motion to suppress inadequate
An officer’s inability to read a temporary license plate that was otherwise in order led to a stop that was without reasonable suspicion. Defendant did nothing wrong. State v. Carmody, 2013 Iowa App. LEXIS 1145 (November 6, 2013):
Two anonymous calls that were recorded provided no indicia of reliability. The police tried to call back and got no answer. United States v. Freeman, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 22594 (2d Cir. November 7, 2013)*:
Officer who arrested 1983 plaintiff for possession of a semi-automatic weapon who was clearly on a “journey,” a complete defense at the time [since strengthened by new state law], had no qualified immunity. Because of the complete defense, there was no probable cause for the arrest. Stoner v. Watlingten, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 22586 (8th Cir. November 7, 2013).
The product of wiretaps was attested to by four officers on the search warrant affidavit. Defendant was talking about packaging and distributing drugs. That was probable cause. United States v. Dowdell, 546 Fed. Appx. 128 (4th Cir. 2013).*
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on CA8: Arrest for possession of a weapon in the face of a complete “journey” defense was w/o PC, so no QI
Officers were called to a domestic disturbance, and they approached plaintiff’s house in the dark without sirens and saw him come out with a shotgun pointing down. They shot him without warning. They were not entitled to qualified immunity in a 1983 case. Cooper v. Sheehan, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 22616 (4th Cir. November 7, 2013)*:
AOL’s computers scan attachments looking for known child pornography hash values, and the information is all reported to NCMEC with the IP addresses. It can lead to opening an investigation. United States v. Keith, 980 F. Supp. 2d 33 (D. Mass. 2013): Continue reading →
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on D.Mass.: AOL’s system IDs emailed CP and reports IP addresses involved
A First Circuit warrantless cell phone search pre-Wurie (United States v. Wurie, 728 F.3d 1, 13 (1st Cir. 2013)) violated the Fourth Amendment. “Thus, it is simply inappropriate to analogize cell phones to cigarette packs, purses, and address books; the more apt comparison is to computers.” The Davis good faith exception, however, applies. United States v. Mayo, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 158866 (D. Vt. November 6, 2013):
Old outdated information that wasn’t corroborated didn’t provide reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop. Thus, the detention thereafter failed, too. United States v. Cardona, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 158103, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 158126 (E.D. Pa. November 5, 2013):
An Ohio “statute, by negative implication, prohibits an officer from arresting and detaining without a warrant any person outside the officer’s territorial jurisdiction.” A violation of that statute is not subject to an exclusionary rule; that’s for constitutional violations unless statute otherwise provides. State v. Wilson, 2013-Ohio-4799, 2013 Ohio App. LEXIS 5006 (10th Dist. October 31, 2013).
Being in a car on the edge of a large parking lot slumped down is not reasonable suspicion of a crime, and the detention thereafter was unreasonable. State v. Fox, 2013-Ohio-4786, 2013 Ohio App. LEXIS 4986 (5th Dist. October 30, 2013).*
Marijuana seen in plain view in a car supported a search of the whole car for more drugs. State v. Thompson, 2013-Ohio-4825, 2013 Ohio App. LEXIS 5029 (2d Dist. November 1, 2013).*
Comments Off on OH10: Extraterritorial arrest not subject to exclusionary rule
After defendant succeeded in suppressing a child pornography search, the government indicted him for conspiring to receive child pornography with a higher mandatory minimum. The district court held that the defendant made a case of government retaliation for winning the suppression motion, which he had a right to file. After considering all the countervailing arguments, the district court’s opinion is affirmed and was not an abuse of discretion. United States v. Ladeau, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 22313, 2013 FED App. 0320P (6th Cir. November 4, 2013):
The Ninth Circuit below in finding no qualified immunity for an entry in misdemeanor pursuit necessarily included that the officers were “plainly incompetent.” In light of the split in the case law, that court was wrong. Maybe the entry was constitutional, maybe it wasn’t, but they weren’t “plainly incompetent” in making the entry. “Stanton may have been mistaken in believing his actions were justified, but he was not ‘plainly incompetent.’” Stanton v. Sims, 2013 U.S. LEXIS 7773 (November 4, 2013) (per curiam):
“Because Champers’ observed conduct was objectively suspicious [for criminal trespass], Deputy Sturrup did not violate Champers’ Fourth Amendment rights by briefly detaining him to investigate his presence on the property. Accordingly, we reverse the suppression order and remand for further proceedings.” State v. Champers, 2013 Fla. App. LEXIS 17325 (Fla. 5th DCA November 1, 2013).*
The trial court made a credibility determination, which was its province, and sided with the state on whether the police could come to the door. It discounted the defendant’s testimony because the photographs were apparently manipulated. State v. Phillips, 2013 MT 317, 2013 Mont. LEXIS 443 (October 29, 2013).*
Defendant’s conditional plea did not conform to the rule so there is no jurisdiction for the appeal. Southern v. State, 2013 Ark. App. 623, 2013 Ark. App. LEXIS 643 (October 30, 2013).*
Comments Off on FL5: Defendant’s conduct was objectively seen to be trespassing, and that was PC for arrest
Plaintiff in this 1983 case was held overnight in jail for a seatbelt violation for which she could only be sentenced to a fine of $15. She was also primarily held on the officer’s conclusion that she was a person named in a probation violation warrant although she didn’t match the description. Atwater v. City of Lago Vista made the jailing reasonable for the seatbelt violation mooting the other claim. Cruz v. Davidson, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 22194 (11th Cir. October 31, 2013):
GPS monitoring can be a valid and constitutional condition of juvenile probation. Here, however, the record was muddled on it. In re A.M., 2013 Cal. App. LEXIS 881 (1st Dist. October 30, 2013). Official summary of the court:
"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.
