The video of execution of the search warrant was sufficiently authenticated to be admissible at trial despite coming in through a witness other than the one who took it. United States v. Reyes-Rosario, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 16316 (1st Cir. June 5, 2025).
The probable cause for defendant’s arrest included probable cause to search his backpack too. United States v. Brito, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 126351 (E.D.N.Y. July 2, 2025).*
A private search of defendant’s cell phone resulted in four search warrants, all with probable cause. United States v. Lawson, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 126221 (E.D. Mich. July 2, 2025),*
When defendant doesn’t dispute material facts of the stop, a hearing isn’t required. Based on the video and the statements of witnesses, there was probable cause for his arrest. Then the vehicle search was proper as a search incident. United States v. Morfin, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125265 (C.D. Cal. July 1, 2025).*
Officers were doing a marijuana flyover looking for another operation and saw what appeared to be a grow operation on defendant’s property. The affidavit for probable cause only said that the officer saw and photographed evidence that could indicate a grow operation but did not actually see marijuana, except with a powerful zoom. That wasn’t enough to see marijuana undercover from ⅔ of a mile above. Here, the zoom of the camera made individual plants under plastic sheeting visible, and that was a search of a private place that couldn’t be done with the naked eye. State v. Nakhiengchahn, 341 Or. App. 516 (July 2, 2025):
“[T]he warrant in this case authorized collection of location data and certain message content surrounding the crimes. While the warrant could have been more particular by limiting each category using the language ‘related to the crimes,’ the warrant’s incorporation of the attached affidavit served the same function. Moreover, unlike the search in Herrera, which extracted personal data and text messages, the search of records and cell phone location data did not involve the extraction of files from Rodriguez-Ortiz’s phone or a search of its ‘entire contents.’ Id. The officers used the search of outgoing and incoming calls and text messages to establish Rodriguez-Ortiz’s communications before, during, and after the crimes.” People v. Rodriguez-Ortiz, 2025 COA 61, 2025 Colo. App. LEXIS 904 (June 26, 2025).
The juvenile’s claim that she was unreasonably arrested with force such that it was an unreasonable seizure was not presented below and waived. In re A.D., 2025-Ohio-2349 (9th Dist. July 2, 2025).*
Defendant wasn’t seized until actually detained. The officer was on foot patrol in a high crime area known for drug sales. Defendant’s presence alone wasn’t reasonable suspicion, but here the officer had more. Shining his flashlight on defendant wasn’t yet a seizure. Defendant discarded a gun in flight, and that was abandonment. United States v. Wright, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125571 (E.D. Va. July 1, 2025).*
WaPo: What is and isn’t legal when ICE officers make an immigration arrest by Arelis R. Hernández (“Videos showing masked officers whisking people into unmarked cars have sparked outcry. A look at ICE’s powers as Congress prepares to give the agency a giant infusion of cash.”)
Posted inImmigration arrests|Comments Off on WaPo: What is and isn’t legal when ICE officers make an immigration arrest
CNS: Washington allows state, local police to execute tribal arrests by Edvard Pettersson (“A change in state law will allow tribes certified by the attorney general’s office to avoid extradition proceedings to have wanted individuals returned to tribal lands.”)
Posted inArrest or entry on arrest|Comments Off on CNS: Washington allows state, local police to execute tribal arrests
Defendant succeeds in a Franks challenge: Defendant’s case arose because the officer swore that defendant matched a surveillance video of a robbery. He really believed it, but he was wrong because there were obvious reasons to discount his belief. The court finds that defendant prevailed in his Franks burden of showing recklessness and that it was all material to the probable cause finding. The search of his house is suppressed. United States v. Broadus, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 122021 (W.D. Pa. May 27, 2025).
The fact the RI license plate was registered to a different vehicle was justification for this stop in Idaho. State v. Sherwood, 2025 Ida. LEXIS 71 (June 30, 2025).*
A 19 year old was having sex with a 16 year old and recorded it. He threatened to “post your shit to Facebook.” A search warrant for the phone produced the images, and he was convicted of child pornography. United States v. Lee, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 16022 (10th Cir. June 30, 2025).*
Conflict of laws: Defendant’s arrest and search was in Kansas City, Missouri, but his offense was tried in Kansas City, Kansas. State law on this doesn’t matter. Applying the Fourth Amendment, it was all legal. State v. Green, 2025 Kan. LEXIS 149 (June 27, 2025).
The weapons surrender statute for orders of protection didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. He had production immunity. In re Domestic Violence Prot. Ord. for Montesi, 2025 Wash. App. LEXIS 1273 (June 30, 2025).*
Defendant’s cell phone was searched under a state warrant, but the case went dormant. Three years later, a federal search warrant was issued. The state warrant was without probable cause, but good faith saves it. Defendant’s claim on the federal warrant depends on that. (Reasonableness of the delay apparently not argued.) United States v. McGee, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 123935 (E.D. Mich. June 30, 2025).*
Prison strip searches after video visitation were committed to the discretion of the warden. The fact nothing was found isn’t really material. Ingram v. Squier, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 123892 (W.D. Va. June 30, 2025).*
Three-day delay between seizure of defendant’s car and getting a warrant to search was reasonable. People v. Mills, 2025 CO 47, 2025 Colo. LEXIS 572 (June 30, 2025).
Defendant’s cell phone was linked to his prostitution/human trafficking case, so there was probable cause for the warrant to search it. Jackson v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 4597 (Tex. App. – Houston (14th Dist.) July 1, 2025).*
Defendant claims false testimony was used to get an indictment, and he requests a Franks hearing. Franks is a Fourth Amendment issue; indictments is a Fifth Amendment issue. Denied. United States v. Twitty, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 123997 (S.D. Ga. June 30, 2025).*
The trial court credited the officer’s testimony that the license plate light was out justifying this stop. State v. Davis, 2025-Ohio-2322 (5th Dist. June 27, 2025).*
The trial court erred in applying the attenuation doctrine here. Defendant claimed he was illegally stopped, but he fled and discarded contraband in flight. Commonwealth v. Diaz, 2025 Mass. LEXIS 300 (June 27, 2025).
This geofence warrant was supported by probable cause. De H Nguyen v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 4532 (Tex. App. – Austin June 27, 2025).*
Defendant’s Terry stop was “intrusive and aggressive,” but the officer had reasonable suspicion defendant was a felon in possession when confronted in a bodega. United States v. Rhodes, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 121818 (S.D.N.Y. June 26, 2025).*
The omissions from the affidavit don’t do anything to undermine the probable cause so a Franks hearing was properly denied. United States v. Higgins, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 15877 (6th Cir. June 27, 2025).*
Posted inAttenuation, Franks doctrine, geofence, Stop and frisk|Comments Off on MA: Defendant fled his allegedly illegal stop, so he can’t argue attenuation when he discarded contraband in flight
Where it couldn’t be established that the officer swore to a notary or clerk when applying for a search warrant for blood, the motion to suppress was properly granted. The state doesn’t get the benefit of the good faith exception because didn’t argue it below. State v. Shelton, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 4502 (Tex. App. – Dallas June 26, 2025):
Flicking a cigarette butt to the ground in a bar parking lot was not reasonable suspicion for a stop. State v. Popp, 2025 Ida. LEXIS 69 (June 27, 2025).
Idaho declines to impose higher standards for dog sniffs under state constitution. State v. Fletcher, 2025 Ida. LEXIS 68 (June 27, 2025).*
On the whole, defendant consented to a search of the car, and being made to wait away from it wasn’t inconsistent. There’s also this: “Here, the Court concludes that Hill walking toward the door, complying when told to sit down, and sitting silently for several minutes while the search continued was not clearly inconsistent with his consent to search and did not constitute an unequivocal withdrawal of consent. This appears to be consistent with Hill’s interpretations of his actions as well: After officers discovered the scale in his trunk, he remarked, ‘If I thought I had anything, I wouldn’t have even gave consent, I would have made you go and get a search warrant.’ … Hill validly consented to the search and did not withdraw his consent, so the search of his Impala was lawful.” United States v. Hill, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 122244 (W.D. Ark. June 27, 2025).*
Officers got a search warrant for defendant’s premises and searched. Two days later, they discovered through a source that they missed a cache of drugs in the house. They came back with another. The results of the first search were admissible at trial to help show possession. People v. Phillips, 2025 NY Slip Op 03893, 2025 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3942 (4th Dept. June 27, 2025).*
“[W]e discern no error in the district court’s determination that the officer who stopped Bethea had a reasonable basis for conducting such an investigative stop. Considering the totality of the circumstances-including Bethea’s obvious impairment, his paranoid behavior in the minutes leading up to the stop, the position of the firearm in his hands, and the arresting officer’s knowledge of the area and previous experience responding to calls there-the officer had reasonable, articulable suspicion that Bethea was involved in illegal activity justifying the stop.” United States v. Bethea, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 15818 (4th Cir. June 26, 2025).*
Idaho’s standing cases for the driver of a rental vehicle not on the contract were essentially overruled by Byrd. Remanded. State v. Gonzales, 2025 Ida. LEXIS 70 (June 27, 2025).*
Search of an international letter on arrival in D.C. was valid as a border search. United States v. Martin, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 123023 (D.D.C. June 27, 2025).*
There was reasonable suspicion for the officer’s encounter with defendant who was suspected of being an armed security guard without a license to carry. Defendant wasn’t restrained or disarmed, just asked a few questions. State v. Weaver, 2025-Ohio-2256 (2d Dist. June 27, 2025).*
In a traffic stop, the smell of marijuana was obvious as the officer walked up to the car without the windows even having been rolled down. That justified the vehicle search. Enriquez v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 4474 (Tex. App. – Eastland June 26, 2025).*
Defendant’s drug sale journal was squarely within the scope of the warrant that included documents and journals. United States v. Keller, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 15958 (9th Cir. June 27, 2025).*
Opening a refrigerator wasn’t justified by any exigent circumstances in an entry to interview children about alleged abuse. McMurry v. Weaver, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 15956 (5th Cir. June 27, 2025).
The dueling experts’ reports show a triable issue of excessive force. Grant of summary judgment reversed. A.B. v. Cty. of San Diego, 2025 Cal. App. LEXIS 399 (4th Dist. June 26, 2025).*
Plaintiff’s complaint the government used falsified information to get a search warrant was untimely filed. Faller v. DOJ, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 15796 (6th Cir. June 25, 2025).*
2255 petitioner’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim for not filing a motion to suppress that would never be granted fails. United States v. Goodin, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 122962 (W.D. La. June 27, 2025).*
Reason: Using the National Guard in DEA Raids Is the Worst Kind of Drug War Mission Creep by C.J. Ciaramella (“The Trump administration deployed National Guard soldiers to assist the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and other federal law enforcement agencies during a large-scale marijuana raid last week in a stunning example of drug war mission creep. The Los Angeles Times reported that about 315 National Guard troops assisted the DEA during a June 18 raid on suspected illegal marijuana farms in Thermal, an unincorporated desert community on the southeast edge of Riverside County. The Defense Visual Information Distribution Service posted photographs showing soldiers carrying riot shields next to Humvees. The raid, completely divorced by geography and purpose from the Trump administration’s original justifications for deploying troops to Los Angeles, is a compelling argument for why the president’s sweeping emergency powers should be restricted.”).
Posted inWarrant execution|Comments Off on Reason: Using the National Guard in DEA Raids Is the Worst Kind of Drug War Mission Creep
“This appeal asks us to decide whether Department of Labor and Industries (DLI) inspectors possessed authority to tailgate a fitness club member through an otherwise locked door into the fitness club to ask for permission to inspect the business premises for employees working during the COVID-19 pandemic when the business should have been closed. In answering this question, we interpret RCW 49.17.070, which authorizes inspectors to enter commercial premises at ‘a reasonably recognizable entry point.’ We also apply Fourth Amendment principles. We conclude that tailgating behind an entrant who opened an outside door with her keycard constituted an unreasonable point of entry and violated the fitness club owner’s reasonable expectation of privacy. Thus, we affirm the superior court’s dismissal of a citation against Bradshaw Development, Inc. for violating Proclamation by Governor Jay Inslee, No. 20-25.4 (Wash. May 31, 2020), … and WAC 296-800-14035.” Bradshaw Dev., Inc. v. Wash. State DOL, 2025 Wash. App. LEXIS 1261 (June 26, 2025).
After defendant pled guilty and was sentenced, he filed a 2255 claiming ineffective assistance of counsel for not moving to suppress. Defense counsel told him one would fail, without explanation. The plea waived the search claim. “Third, the government responds that, while defendant now faults counsel for failing to seek to suppress evidence seized from the searches, he fails to identify any ‘unlawful’ search or seizure or that a motion to suppress would have been successful. The United States is correct on all counts.” Blackburn v. United States, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 121657 (E.D. Tenn. June 26, 2025).*
Posted inAdministrative search, Ineffective assistance|Comments Off on WA: Admin. search entry through employee entrance tailgating employee into building violated statute and was suppressed
Defendant was stopped on a bicycle with backpack and bedroll with another in New Hampshire by a CBP officer who suspected they’d illegally crossed the border. They admitted they had. Suspecting they were involved with human smugglers, the officers searched defendant’s computer looking on WhatsApp for information about smuggling, instead finding child pornography. This led to a further warrant. The search was valid as an extended border search. Every circuit and every other district in the First Circuit recognizes it. United States v. Garcia, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 121221 (D.N.H. June 26, 2025).
“In sum, the Court holds that the brief interaction between when Detective Brandefine seized Mr. Rhodes and when Detective Brandefine discovered Mr. Rhodes’s gun was a Terry stop, not an arrest. While perhaps more intrusive than the average Terry stop, Detective Brandefine’s actions were a reasonable response to encountering an individual suspected of being armed, particularly given that the individual—Mr. Rhodes—was in a relatively small space with several innocent bystanders nearby.” “In this case, Detective Vargas suspected that Mr. Rhodes was armed based on numerous factors, including his observation of Mr. Rhodes’s movements, his knowledge of Mr. Rhodes’s prior arrests, and his understanding that the intersection where he observed Mr. Rhodes was a high-crime area where the NYPD had investigated multiple shootings and recovered multiple guns. This suspicion was reasonable based on the detective’s training and experience as a police officer.” United States v. Rhodes, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 121818 (S.D.N.Y. June 26, 2025).*
The protective sweep was valid, but it did not permit going into dresser drawers. Commonwealth v. Hightower, 2025 PA Super 129, 2025 Pa. Super. LEXIS 277 (June 25, 2025); Commonwealth v. Layer, 2025 PA Super 128, 2025 Pa. Super. LEXIS 276 (June 25, 2025)* (codefendant).
Even if this state search warrant violated Rule 41, that alone is not enough to suppress. There’s no constitutional violation. United States v. Cook, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 119021 (D. Kan. June 23, 2025).*
During a vehicle inventory, the officer found a gun and stopped to get a search warrant. If anything, the officer did more than the law required. (The inventory policy did not even contemplate this.) United States v. Holmes, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 15451 (11th Cir. June 23, 2025).*
Involving a warrant for storage units, there was plenty of probable cause shown to the magistrate. There was mistake of fact in it that was only negligent at best and not even material in light of all the other evidence. United States v. Lampkin, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 118259 (E.D. Mo. May 30, 2025),* adopted, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 117559 (E.D. Mo. June 18, 2025).*
by John Wesley Hall Criminal Defense Lawyer and Search and seizure law consultant Little Rock, Arkansas Contact: forhall @ aol.com / The Book www.johnwesleyhall.com
"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]
“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!” ---Pepé Le Pew
"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.
