Defendant hired a woman who stayed in his house to take care of his dog. There were no restrictions on the use of his computer, and she went into his bedroom and moved the mouse and tried to copy a song to her phone. She copied the song to the computer then tried to remove it, and she found child pornography which she reported. There were no restrictions on her use of the unpassword protected computer. It never came up. She had apparent authority as far as the police were concerned with her private search. Baird v. State, 398 S.W.3d 220 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013) (concur) (dissent).
Two trash seizures yielded drug residue, and the second confirmed the first and kept it from being stale. Common sense, contrary to the trial court’s finding of none, dictated that the mail found in the trash bin was related to the drug residue. State v. York, 404 S.W.3d 681 (Tex. App. – Ft. Worth 2013).*
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The government had no probable cause under Samson to believe that the defendant was actually living in the place they entered to find him. He had a key, and he’d been seen there some, but surveillance did not show that he actually lived there. There was also a “property under your control” condition, and the court declines to expand that to include a place he happened to have a key to. The court was applying Ninth Circuit precedent under Samson, which it did not find inconsistent. United States v. Grandberry, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 19180 (9th Cir. September 17, 2013):
A window tint stop based on inability to see the occupants was reasonable and justified, despite the fact it turned out the window tinting was actually legal. Before learning the tint was legal, it was discovered defendant’s DL was expired which lead to a search incident to his custodial arrest. Johnson v. State, 992 N.E.2d 955 (Ind. App. 2013):
A general motion to suppress did not preserve the specific question of legality of a DUI roadblock that stopped the defendant. The pretext argument for the roadblock was not litigated in the trial court. Snow v. State, 2013 Ark. App. 494 (September 18, 2013):
The government argued that the hotel manager could consent to an entry of a hotel room to get alleged unregistered guests staying with the registered guests out. It was not reasonable for the officers to think that the hotel management could consent to that or that he had apparent authority to consent even if that were lawful. United States v. Nghe, 925 F. Supp. 2d 1142 (W.D. Wash. 2013).*
The odor of marijuana to a trained drug dog is probable cause, relying on Florida v. Harris. Phippen v. State, 2013 WY 30, 297 P.3d 104 (2013).*
Suppression of evidence is not a remedy for a violation of Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. State v. Ramos, 2013 OK CR 3, 297 P.3d 1251 (2013).
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Plaintiff alleged in his 1983 case he was held for three months without probable cause. He stated a claim for “Fourth Amendment malicious prosecution.” Here, plaintiff didn’t even match the description of the person the police were looking for. Hernandez-Cuevas v. Taylor, 723 F.3d 91 (1st Cir. 2013):
There was nothing but a hunch here, and defendant’s “standing on his rights” and refusing to cooperate with the officers’ questions was not reasonable suspicion of anything. Wade v. State, 2013 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1314 (September 11, 2013):
Consent to “look in” or “search” a cell phone does not include permission for the officer to answer the phone and pass himself off as the defendant. “An individual who gives consent to the search of his phone does not, without more, give consent to his impersonation by a government agent, nor does he give the agent permission to carry on conversations in which the agent participates in his name in the conduct of criminal activity.” Defendant also had standing in the cell phones because he was asked for them. United States v. Lopez-Cruz, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 18930 (9th Cir. September 12, 2013).
Out-of-county vehicle with unfamiliar driver buying lye was not reasonable suspicion. State v. Taylor, 2013 Ohio 3906, 2013 Ohio App. LEXIS 4067 (9th Dist. September 11, 2013).*
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Search warrant for drugs and records of a business included defendant’s attache case that was there when the warrant arrived. The warrant was conceded to be otherwise valid. United States v. Votrobek, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 185962 (N.D. Ga. June 25, 2012).*
Defendant’s stop on a motorcycle was for speeding. A drug dog alerted on the saddlebag, and that was probable cause. United States v. Gunnell, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 185931 (W.D. Mo. December 17, 2012).*
The prosecution put on evidence of the drug dog’s training and experience. “In short, it is difficult to contemplate a more complete and compelling record that could be before the court regarding this drug dog’s abilities.” The extra time of conversation with the defendant was de minimus. United States v. Givens, 923 F. Supp. 2d 803 (E.D. Va. 2013).*
The entry into the house was with the consent of defendant’s parents. The search of his room was with his consent. A shotgun was in plain view. United States v. Carter, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 186034 (D. Me. November 30, 2012).*
When the registered owner of a vehicle is shown to have a suspended DL, a stop of the vehicle is justified if the officer cannot tell that the operator is a different person (such as different gender, much different age). United States v. Barber, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19596 (N.D. Iowa January 25, 2013).*
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The community caretaking function did not support defendant’s “stop” with blue lights in a parking lot at night. Defendant was already parked with lights on, and the officer decided to see what was going on. Defendant was arrested for DUI. The opinion exhaustively discusses the community caretaking function. State v. Moats, 403 S.W.3d 170 (Tenn. 2013):
The defendant medical practice was indicted for alleged fraud. After the indictment, the state got a search warrant for the principals’ Gmail accounts, obtaining 80,000 emails for a four year period. The issuing magistrate was not told defendants were already indicted, which also meant that some of the emails may have been attorney-client privileged. The state argued that new potential offenses were under investigation, and the warrant was not being used to further investigate the original case. First, a search warrant can be used post-indictment. [And isn’t that more protection than a mere subpoena for records?] Second, a search warrant for e-mail of a defendant under indictment requires a taint team to protect attorney-client confidences. Preventive Med. Assocs. v. Commonwealth, 465 Mass. 810, 992 N.E.2d 257 (2013):
Because the defendant’s truck was not on the property when the warrant for the property was issued, it wasn’t subject to the warrant. However, the truck was left unlocked and with the key in the ignition, and the court finds that shows a lack of a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in the truck. United States v. Conrad, 923 F. Supp. 2d 843 (W.D. Va. 2013).*
Defendant kept drugs in a camper on another’s property. He agrees he doesn’t have standing in the curtilage there, and he argues just in the camper, a “place of business.” There was no Fourth Amendment protection from surveillance of the camper. There was probable cause for the search in the two affidavits. A GPS device had also been placed with a warrant. United States v. Belisle, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17805 (D. Me. February 11, 2013).*
The warrant for the cell phone was properly issued. United States v. Satchell, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19725 (E.D. Mo. February 14, 2013).*
Pro se defendant does not argue the application of the good faith exception in the USMJ R&R, and the motion to suppress is denied. United States v. Hunter, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19751 (D. Minn. February 14, 2013).*
Defendant’s ineffective assistance claim that defense counsel did not present some important evidence at the hearing on the motion to suppress is denied. That which wasn’t presented wouldn’t change the outcome. United States v. Harris, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19672 (W.D. Pa. February 14, 2013).*
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Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a stolen RV he was living in, that apparently he stole. This is a form of Rakas “wrongful presence.” State v. Woodrome, 2013 Mo. App. LEXIS 1040 (September 10, 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.
