Police use of information off of defendant’s WMATA fare card first to find him to arrest him for a robbery on a train and then to place him on a train at the time of the robbery was reasonable. This is not at all like Carpenter and is more like the beeper in Knotts tracking him in a public place. Kelly v. United States, 2022 D.C. App. LEXIS 297 (Sep. 1, 2022).
No warrant is needed to forensically test DNA that was abandoned. McCurley v. State, 2022 Tex. App. LEXIS 6665 (Tex. App. – Ft. Worth Aug. 31, 2022).
The affidavit for warrant did not violate Franks. The witnesses gave a description that generally fit defendant, despite some contradictions. They also unequivocally identified him from a surveillance video. State v. Brown, 2022 S.C. App. LEXIS 103 (Aug. 31, 2022).*
There was probable cause for plaintiff’s arrest, so the officers prevail on summary judgment. Jackson v. Cowan, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 24736 (11th Cir. Sep. 1, 2022).*
Here, the protective sweep claim of the government was factually based on speculation, and was unreasonable. United States v. Iverson, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 156914 (D. Idaho Aug. 29, 2022).
Defendant’s stop for suspieion of criminal activity was reasonable. United States v. Pollard, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 156769 (W.D. Pa. Aug. 25, 2022).*
Bivens would not be extended to search of a prison cell. Hower v. Damron, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 24676 (6th Cir. Aug. 31, 2022).*
The officer here saw a gun in the car when defendant was outside it. It was reasonable for him to enter the car to unload it, and, when he did, he saw another gun, and it was lawfully seized. United States v. Lingelbach, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 157716 (D. Mont. Aug. 30, 2022).*
The requirement that an arrest for a misdemeanor have occurred in the officer’s presence is a statutory rule [I thought common law], but not a Fourth Amendment requirement. Here, the officer still had probable cause, but didn’t see it. Not a Fourth Amendment violation. Vanegas v. City of Pasadena, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 24544 (9th Cir. Aug. 31, 2022):
The community caretaking function justified the warrantless entry here into defendant’s apartment. Officers responded to a shots fired call at an apartment complex, saw bullet damage to cars, and had a report of a person slumped over a balcony railing. State v. Youm, 2022 Iowa App. LEXIS 676 (Aug. 31, 2022).
There were sufficient exigent circumstances for seizure of defendant’s cell phone when he was questioned for a murder. The search warrant for it was issued two days later [, and he doesn’t complain about the delay, but he really couldn’t anyway]. Defendant also consented to the officer scrolling through the phone during the police interview. Rafiq v. State, 2022 Tex. App. LEXIS 6575 (Tex. App. – Beaumont Aug. 31, 2022).*
Accessing defendant’s call logs and subscriber information was not a search. The warrant for 74 days of CSLI in this homicide case was based on probable cause and was with good faith. Martinez v. State, 2022 Tex. App. LEXIS 6562 (Tex. App. – San Antonio Aug. 31, 2022).*
In this NCO stalking case, flying a drone over the complainant’s house as a part of the stalking violated her reasonable expectation of privacy. Rosaly v. Konecny, 2022 Fla. App. LEXIS 5901 (Fla. 4th DCA Aug. 31, 2022).
The defense in a criminal case in its investigation sought access to the complainant’s cell phone as a part of the defense investigation. Ordering production of the phone without input from the child’s parents, however, was an abuse of discretion. Remanded. State ex rel. Wadsworth, 2022 Tex. App. LEXIS 6640 (Tex. App. – San Antonio Aug. 31, 2022):
On the totality, there was probable cause for cell phone search warrants. One can attempt to explain away the pieces, but the totality shows it. A dog sniff in the breezeway of an apartment complex violated no reasonable expectation of privacy. “ More importantly, it would be improper for this Court to apply the exclusionary rule given that the investigators never relied upon the results of that warrantless K9 sniff in any search warrant affidavit.” United States v. Miller, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 156497 (W.D. Wash. Aug. 30, 2022).
Petitioner’s 2255 was barred by Stone and the fact he had no standing whatsoever by disavowing the contents of the place searched. United States v. Crawford, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155513 (D. Mont. Aug. 26, 2022).*
An anonymous call here justified at least defendant’s brief detention for allegedly seeking to break into an apartment. Reliance on anonymous callers are not precluded under Terry. It was thus not an unreasonable seizure before probable cause finally developed. United States v. Astorga, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 156088 (D.N.M. Aug. 29, 2022).*
The record supported plaintiff’s excessive force claim for actions occurring after a flashbang exploded with no qualified immunity. Robinson v. Sauls, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 24449 (11th Cir. Aug. 30, 2022).*
Plaintiff’s probable cause determination in his underlying criminal case was given preclusive effect in his later § 1983 case. Wilcox v. City of L.A., 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 24350 (9th Cir. Aug. 29, 2022).
Plaintiff overcame qualified immunity. “Under Louisiana law, ‘the physical attack of a private citizen by a police officer absent a valid arrest constitutes a battery.’ ‘Louisiana’s excessive force tort mirrors its federal constitutional counterpart.’ The pertinent factors for assessing excessive force under Louisiana law align with those under the Fourth Amendment.” Greene v. Demoss, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 24329 (5th Cir. Aug. 29, 2022) (footnotes omitted).*
The search warrants for defendant’s cell phone information were not tainted by any prior illegality and were issued with probable cause. United States v. Gist-Holden, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 154916 (N.D. Ind. Aug. 29, 2022).*
Considering the “great deference” given the probable cause showing for a search warrant, this warrant was issued with probable cause. Moreover, the good faith exception applies to it. United States v. Blume, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155033 (S.D. W. Va. Aug. 29, 2022).*
The taking of a blood sample by a nurse at a hospital is not a Fourth Amendment search. State v. Ragalis, 2022 Conn. Super. LEXIS 2025 (New Britain Sept. 8, 2022).
Custody under Miranda is not the same as a Fourth Amendment seizure under Berkemer. “The distinction between custody and arrest, on the one hand, and a brief investigatory detention, on the other hand, is significant.” People v. Eugene, 2022 COA 99, 2022 Colo. App. LEXIS 1322 (Sept. 1, 2022) (dissenting opinion).*
The search of defendant’s person was unreasonable because the state never showed a basis for a warrantless search of the person; i.e., probable cause even to arrest. State v. Willis, 2022 La. App. LEXIS 1425 (La. App. 4 Cir Sept. 1, 2022).*
The traffic stop before the dog arrived was not unreasonable. “In this case, we do not find there is evidence to suggest that Harvey’s detention for the traffic violation was of sufficient length to make it constitutionally dubious.” State v. Harvey, 2022-Ohio-3111, 2022 Ohio App. LEXIS 2939 (5th Dist. Sept. 2, 2022).*
USA Today: Cold cases cracked by cellphones: How police are using geofence warrants to solve crimes by Christopher Damien & Nick Penzenstadler (“Mike Price, litigation director at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Fourth Amendment Center, said innocent bystanders of crimes are inevitably being scooped up in the dragnet. Price says police are ‘hitting the easy button’ on their investigations and allowing Google far too much control over their process as ‘adjunct detectives.’ ‘By design, these warrants seize data from innocent people. Every time the government does one of these searches, they’re searching everyone’s account that’s enabled,’ Price said. ‘It’s not Constitutional for any use. These are general warrants and the very thing the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent.'”)
Posted inGeneral warrant, geofence|Comments Off on USA Today: Cold cases cracked by cellphones: How police are using geofence warrants to solve crimes
The time limits to file a motion to suppress include statements made at the time of the search. United States v. Castro, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155886 (D. Nev. Aug. 30, 2022).*
In the Carter Page FISA application Fourth Amendment lawsuit, the court declines to apply Bivens to FISA application suits. Page v. Comey, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 158410 (D.D.C. Sept. 1, 2022).*
Officers had a search warrant for plaintiff’s hotel room searching for evidence of a drug operation. They called the issuing judge for permission to search plaintiff’s home under the same affidavit, which was orally granted, but the warrant was not amended. The search of the home violated the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement, but the officers get qualified immunity because there never was a case like this that anyone could find. Manriquez v. Ensley, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 24419 (9th Cir. Aug. 30, 2022).
“Harvard argues that trial counsel should have objected on hearsay grounds to the testimony of an investigator with the sheriff’s office that M. W. disclosed that Harvard had asked her to watch pornography. But this testimony was not hearsay, as the investigator did not offer it for the truth of the matter asserted, but to explain why he looked for Harvard’s computers when executing a search warrant.” Harvard v. State, 2022 Ga. App. LEXIS 416 (Aug. 30, 2022).*
The court considered the bodycam videos on a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Without ambiguity, they show plaintiff reaching for a gun after being told to put her hand up, and then she was shot. She cannot prevail. Robinson v. City of Huntsville, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 24438 (11th Cir. Aug. 30, 2022).*
Police seized 46 firearms from a murderer’s parents that had nothing to do with his crimes and they were never used in any proceeding. Eight years later after the son’s death sentence was affirmed on direct appeal and habeas, the Third Circuit holds that the seizure violated the Fourth, Fifth, and Second Amendments. The government’s right to keep property for potential use ran out here. At common law, unnecessary seizures of property were a trespass. Frein v. Pa. State Police, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 24414 (3d Cir. Aug. 30, 2022);
Blanket full searches of cell phones without a particularity or time limitation can violate the Fourth Amendment and become a general search. It is suggested there be a search protocol if possible to limit the officers’ discretion. Despite all those misgivings, this search at least was saved by the good faith exception. Richardson v. State, 2022 Md. LEXIS 343 (Aug. 29, 2022).
Prior to pleading guilty, defendant disclaimed interest in property. In his 2255 he claimed the search was invalid. All this was waived. United States v. Crawford, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155513 (D. Mont. Aug. 26, 2022).*
Plaintiff was lawfully arrested for obstructing an investigation by not giving his name, and his § 1983 claim fails. Brienza v. City of Peachtree, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 24372 (11th Cir. Aug. 30, 2022).*
Plaintiff parents stated a claim for malicious prosecution over the arrest of their children. Crider v. Williams, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 24374 (11th Cir. Aug. 30, 2022).*
Just because the driver isn’t the owner doesn’t mean the car is stolen. See Kansas v. Glover. This was extending the stop without reasonable suspicion. State v. Dunlap, 2022-Ohio-3007, 2022 Ohio App. LEXIS 2828 (11th Dist. Aug. 29, 2022); State v. Lewis, 2022-Ohio-3006, 2022 Ohio App. LEXIS 2833 (11th Dist. Aug. 29, 2022).
A search warrant was properly used to get CSLI connecting defendant to a robbery-murder. United States v. Holden, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 154916 (N.D. Ind. Aug. 29, 2022).*
Plaintiff’s civil Franks claim fails because there was probable cause without it. Laviage v. Fite, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 24333 (5th Cir. Aug. 29, 2022).*
DC Metro police seized numerous cell phones from BLM protestors, and they sued to recover them. The DC police policy wasn’t followed, but only by negligence, and that doesn’t state a claim against it. Rule 41(g) applies despite lack of a criminal case, and it provides safeguards for a post-deprivation hearing. Cameron v. District of Columbia, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 154589 (D.D.C. Aug. 29, 2022).
After monitoring telephone calls, officers had probable cause for a vehicle stop and search. State v. Rosario, 2022 ME 46, 2022 Me. LEXIS 47 (Aug. 25, 2022).*
Qualified immunity denied for shooting eight times into a house with unarmed and nonthreatening people during a welfare check. Campbell v. Cheatham Cty. Sheriff’s Dep’t, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 24291 (6th Cir. Aug. 29, 2022).*
The search warrant for Sen. Burr’s cell phone is unsealed in part after about a year under the common law right of access to judicial records. In re L.A. Times Communs. LLC to Unseal Court Records, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 154587 (D.D.C. Aug. 29, 2022), on remand from See L.A. Times Communs., LLC v. United States (In re L.A. Times Communs. LLC), 28 F.4th 292 (D.C. Cir. 2022):
"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.
