Defendant’s Facebook page was subject to being searched because there were interactions on it with a coconspirator, and that showed probable cause. United States v. Daprato, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78626 (D.Md. May 2, 2022).*
“Frey’s motion to suppress evidence obtained pursuant to the Cell Site Information Warrant and the Electronic Device Warrant is denied. Both warrants are particularized, are not overbroad, and are linked to the probable cause set forth in their supporting affidavits. Nonetheless, were the warrants invalid, the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies.” United States v. Frey, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78292 (E.D.N.Y. Apr. 29, 2022).*
“First, Defendant seeks to suppress the evidence found as a result of searches of cell phones and cell phone records, including location data, conducted pursuant to multiple warrants and orders. … Second, Defendant seeks to suppress the evidence resulting from searches of 2762 Willakenzie Drive in Eugene, Oregon; 1146 Brockton Place in Eugene, Oregon; FOE Media Group, 1650 West Eleventh Avenue, #6 in Eugene, Oregon; Defendant’s DNA; and 1712 Elkay Drive in Eugene, Oregon. … Third, Defendant seeks to suppress the evidence resulting from searches of his cell site location information (‘CSLI’), call detail records, subscriber information, and precision location information. …” A hearing was held, and defendant has no standing in any of it. United States v. Rhodes, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77231 (D.Ore. Apr. 28, 2022).*
J6 Committee’s subpoena for records to the RNC does not violate the Fourth Amendment; it’s within Congress’s power. Republican National Committee v. Pelosi, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78501 (D.D.C. May 1, 2022):
TechStory: FBI searched data of millions of Americans without warrants by Disha Mitra (“These specific ‘queries’ were reportedly made somewhere between December 2020 and November 2021 by the FBI personnel. Apparently, they were looking for indications of threats and terrorists among the electronic data legally collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. An annual transparency report issued Friday, April 29 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence disclosed these aspects of the case. This surge reportedly came as the FBI took a step to stop hacking attacks. However, the American Civil Liberties Union referred to it as a breach of privacy ‘on an enormous scale.”)
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“Searches and seizures in violation of the Fourth Amendment do not require dismissing an indictment; instead, the remedy is suppressing the evidence at trial.” United States v. Ramirez-Aleman, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77436 (S.D.Cal. Apr. 26, 2022).
Defendant officers have a complete defense for an arrest on probable cause. Novak v. City of Parma, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 11682 (6th Cir. Apr. 29, 2022).*
Two police officers’ observations of defendant’s car speeding was justification for the stop. United States v. Holley, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77900 (W.D.N.Y. Apr. 29, 2022).*
Defendant doesn’t show that a Franks challenge would change the outcome of the warrant. United States v. Smith, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78170 (D.Md. Apr. 29, 2022).*
Defendant had no standing to challenge pings of another’s phone. State v. Farra, 2022-Ohio-1421, 2022 Ohio App. LEXIS 1321 (2d Dist. Apr. 29, 2022).
Even a locked safe in a car is subject to the automobile exception. State v. Malone, 2022-Ohio-1409, 2022 Ohio App. LEXIS 1299 (4th Dist. Apr. 21, 2022).
A warrant for state probation’s GPS tracking of a probationer was reasonable. United States v. Goncalves-Mendes, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77973 (D.Mass. Apr. 29, 2022).
The stop was extended with reasonable suspicion when he had a 12-year-old runaway in his car. United States v. Brumfield, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77904 (N.D.Okla. Apr. 29, 2022).*
Defendant’s former girlfriend found child pornography on his computer. She took the computer to the Reno sheriff’s office, and the police there had her show them what she did and go no farther. This was admitted by the government to be a search, but it was reasonable because of her prior search under Jacobsen. The court rejected the “common-law trespassory test” from United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400 (2012), applies and requires suppression here. United States v. Phillips, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 11678 (9th Cir. Apr. 29, 2022).
The specifics of defendant’s particularity challenge was waived by not raising it below. The warrant was valid on all grounds, so the good faith exception doesn’t even have to be applied. Eyewitnesses connected defendant’s car to a crime, so there was probable cause for its search and seizure. State v. Hudgen, 2022 R.I. LEXIS 35 (Apr. 27, 2022).*
Defendant’s challenge to the warrant affidavit as lacking probable cause is conclusory and doesn’t warrant a hearing. In any event, the good faith exception applies. United States v. Cruz-Vega, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77682 (W.D.N.Y. Apr. 28, 2022).*
Defendant’s innocent explanation for his behavior still left probable cause. United States v. Clark, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 11504 (11th Cir. Apr. 28, 2022).
Defendant was arrested two weeks after a string of robberies, and his cell phone was taken from him. A search warrant was issued for the phone to link him to the robberies. The good faith exception applied in any event. Abney v. United States, 2022 D.C. App. LEXIS 131 (Apr. 28, 2022).*
Defense counsel’s failure to file a motion to suppress was not ineffectiveness because it didn’t have any effect on the outcome. State v. Antio, 2022-Ohio-1398, 2022 Ohio App. LEXIS 1293 (8th Dist. Apr. 28, 2022).*
The dashcam video shows that defendant was not following too close, so the stop was unjustified. State v. Hampton, 2022-Ohio-1380, 2022 Ohio App. LEXIS 1274 (1st Dist. Apr. 27, 2022).*
Defendant had the burden to show the extent of his privacy interest in his Instagram account. Were the parts to be evidence obtained from the private or public parts? He doesn’t show. The Terms of Service would limit it in the private part, but we have nothing. United States v. Weber, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77321 (D.Mont. Apr. 22, 2022):
A vehicle is mobile for the automobile exception even though the driver is detained. United States v. Washington, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 11511 (6th Cir. Apr. 28, 2022).
A bald tire in the back of a rental truck was so out of place as to constitute reasonable suspicion, along with a few other factors. United States v. Sanchez, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77141 (W.D.Mo. Mar. 9, 2022),* adopted, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77143 (W.D.Mo. Apr. 28, 2022).*
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a vehicle he rode to where the car was parked. He neither owned nor operated it, he was a mere passenger and not there when it was searched. United States v. Bass, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 76337 (D.Mass. Apr. 27, 2022).*
“Make no mistake, though: proving entitlement to a Franks hearing is no easy task. A defendant must show both that the affiant included a false statement made intentionally, knowingly, or with reckless disregard for the truth and that, without the false statement, the remnants of the affidavit could not support probable cause. … The district court committed no error in ruling that Tate did not carry that heavy burden.” Omissions rarely make a Franks violation. United States v. Tate, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 11440 (6th Cir. Apr. 26, 2022).*
Defendant’s doing a hand-to-hand transaction from a car in front of a stash house was still reasonable suspicion when the officers caught up with him on I-85 after a license plate reader found the car after they lost sight of it. United States v. Clark, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 76875 (N.D.Ga. Mar. 1, 2022).
A general motion to suppress is denied. Defendant “contests the lawfulness of the stop, the manner in which police effected it, and the scope of the protective sweep. The record does not support his challenge to any aspect of the encounter, nor does it warrant an evidentiary hearing.” United States v. Pina, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 76334 (D.Mass. Apr. 27, 2022).*
Defendant showed no standing in a cell phone police searched. United States v. Barros, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 76336 (D.Mass. Apr. 27, 2022).*
Broken window in an apartment justified warrantless entry to check for burglary suspects or victims. United States v. Johnson, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 76880 (M.D.Pa. Apr. 27, 2022).*
“Set against the obvious reality that a well-documented full and proper inventory was carried out here, I do not find the mere fact that after spotting the gun at the outset, Officer Duran exclaimed, ‘that was easy,’ and ‘Now it’s all better,’ demonstrates that the ‘primary purpose’ of the search was not to do an inventory, as defendant suggests. The Court of Appeals has acknowledged that the ‘fact that the officers knew that contraband might be recovered does not invalidate the entire search.’ … In any event, the footage of the officers’ reaction to the discovery of the gun is consistent with an unanticipated discovery, since they immediately — to this Court’s ear quite spontaneously — express surprise that there is a second gun, in the car. Duran’s exclamations are readily understood as relief or even glee at having accidentally redeemed himself after allowing an armed individual to get away from him earlier that night. There is no Fourth Amendment principle that forbids a police officer from being pleased at having found an illegal weapon, and I credit Officer Duran’s testimony to that effect, which I find to have been consistent and candid.” People v. Hill, 2022 NY Slip Op 30968(U), 2022 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 1544 (Kings Co. Mar. 4, 2022).*
Defense counsel’s failure to pursue a motion to suppress on particularity in addition to probable cause, the only ground raised, was not ineffectiveness because it would not have been granted. Monica v. Myers, 319 Ore. App. 376, 2022 Ore. App. LEXIS 702 (Apr. 27, 2922).*
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“While Vasquez was indeed acting strangely, for the stop to be valid, his conduct must be indicative of criminal behavior. The Court here simply cannot bridge the connection between the conduct here that is suspicious or odd in the lay sense to conduct that is suspicious such that it indicates particular criminal behavior. A burglar or thief would not walk down the street in a strange and noticeable costume nor draw attention to himself by doing lunges down the main sidewalk.” United States v. Vasquez, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75774 (D.Mont. Apr. 26, 2022).
Defendant’s guilty plea waived his search claim. Bevalaque v. State, 2022 Miss. App. LEXIS 126 (Apr. 26, 2022).*
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not filing a motion to suppress that would fail where the challenged part went to drug quantity. Galvan v. United States, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75500 (N.D.Tex. Mar. 31, 2022),* adopted, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75436 (N.D.Tex. Apr. 26, 2022).*
Defense counsel had a valid strategic reason to not pursue a motion to suppress, particularly where it likely would fail, because the plea offer would be off the table. Coonradt v. State, 2022 Iowa App. LEXIS 360 (Apr. 27, 2022).
Defendant totaled his car in an accident. The black box evidence was sought by warrant, but the court holds that defendant effectively abandoned the car to the wrecking yard. Vitela v. State, 2022 Tex. App. LEXIS 2759 (Tex. App. – San Antonio Apr. 27, 2022). [One has to exert control over the wreck? More simply, the insurance company will pay off the car and assume ownership to sell it for scrap. Then it is the owner. At the minimum, the insurance policy would say that the insurer would take possession and ownership. What if there’s no insurance and the defendant still owns it? That’s not abandonment. He sure couldn’t keep it on his driveway at home.]
Dog sniff at an apartment door from a common hallway was not on the curtilage. United States v. Peck, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75951 (D.Neb. Apr. 26, 2022).
Defendant didn’t abandon a car he left in the gated front yard of where he lived after fleeing from the police and then the car. United States v. Johnson, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 76105 (D.Utah Apr. 26, 2022).
In Illinois, the burden is always on the defendant to show a Fourth Amendment violation, but the burden on application of the exclusionary rule is on the state. Here, the question is inventory and inevitable discovery. The inventory policy was not proved. Remanded to resolve inevitable discovery. People v. Williams, 2022 IL App (1st) 190496, 2022 Ill. App. LEXIS 197 (Apr. 26, 2022).*
“At the time they entered Laurent’s locked room, the officers knew that only minutes before a shot had been fired from the locked room into the neighboring room. The district court did not err, much less clearly err, in finding that exigency justified the officers’ entry into the room and cursory investigation of the areas of the room that were out of view, where an injured person or a person representing a threat of harm could be.” That supported a plain view. United States v. Laurent, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 11211 (2d Cir. Apr. 26, 2022).*
Defendant consented to providing his phone passcode after refusing five times. Still, it was found consensual on the totality. “Key to our analysis here is the military judge’s factual findings that the investigator used a professional tone at all times and did not engage in threats, abuse, or coercion. Although the five refusals are a factor we have considered, we conclude that under the ‘totality of the circumstances’ there is not a basis for us to conclude that Appellant’s entry of his passcode was involuntary. Indeed, looking at the facts and the law as a whole, we conclude that the military judge did not abuse his discretion in denying Appellant’s motion to suppress.” United States v. Nelson, 2022 CAAF LEXIS 302 (C.A.A.F. Apr. 25, 2022).*
Bloomberg: Facebook Data Release to Cops Evades Fourth Amendment Limits Deep Dive by Jake Holland (“A Ninth Circuit ruling that allows tech companies to turn over an individual’s online account data to law enforcement for preservation without violating the Fourth Amendment raises questions about privacy and constitutional protections for such information.”)
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Pressing the key fob found inside during a search to locate the car outside was reasonable under the automobile exception. United States v. Fortson, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 11176 (11th Cir. Apr. 25, 2022).
“Defendant’s constitutional rights were not violated by the detention. The two-hour and forty-eight-minute detention while waiting for the warrant was reasonable and supported by probable cause. As discussed above, officers entered the apartment because they believed there could be additional overdose victims. The officers also believed contraband was in the apartment based on what Mr. and Ms. Tripp told officers. This belief was confirmed during the lawful sweep of the apartment when officers observed drugs in plain view, thus giving them probable cause to believe the apartment contained evidence of a crime. Officers also believed that evidence could be destroyed if the five occupants of the apartment were not restrained.” The apartment wasn’t searched until the warrant arrived. United States v. Polite, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75245 (D.Neb. Mar. 14, 2022).*
Bloomberg Law: Justices Reject Case Over Real-Time Phone Location Tracking (“The U.S. Supreme Court declined to weigh whether the Fourth Amendment’s privacy protections are implicated when law enforcement uses cell carrier signals to reveal a person’s whereabouts in real time.”)
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10A Center: Is Qualified Immunity “Necessary?” by Mike Maharrey (“Qualified immunity is a legal defense that allows government officials to escape civil lawsuits when they are accused of violating constitutional rights. Opponents say it lets bad government actors escape accountability. But supporters of the defense say it’s necessary to protect government employees from frivolous lawsuits.”)
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The exclusionary rule does not apply in child dependency litigation. In re Christopher L., 2022 Cal. LEXIS 2313 (Apr. 25, 2022) (recognizing rule).
“Hecke is correct that Detective Compton did not provide details of BSC’s criminal history or a description of the new charges he faced in the affidavit. Hecke contends that had the magistrate known this information, it could have affected the magistrate’s assessment of BSC’s credibility and, in turn, the probable cause determination. Yet the mere fact that the affidavit omitted information about the informant’s criminal background or a motive to provide information against the defendant will not destroy the probable cause determination where the rest of the affidavit establishes reliability.” Not a Franks violation. United States v. Hecke, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74641 (N.D.Ind. Apr. 25, 2022).*
Information from a CI was the reasonable suspicion for extending this traffic stop. United States v. Burnette, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74810 (W.D.N.C. Mar. 25, 2022).*
SWAT team entry with long guns aimed was temporary and not custody when defendant talked. United States v. Clark, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74815 (W.D.N.Y. Apr. 25, 2022).*
Merely passing money to a man in car who counted it is not reasonable suspicion. People v. Soulliere, 2022 Mich. LEXIS 798 (Apr. 22, 2022).
Defendant was stopped for an alleged unsafe lane change and expired Pennsylvania tags. There was a factual basis for the former as shown by the dashcam video, and other appellate courts in the state have upheld stops on similar facts. At the time of the stop, an executive order in Ohio extended car tag renewals because of Covid. The officer had no reason to know whether Pennsylvania did, but it was expired on its face. State v. Triplett, 2022-Ohio-1371, 2022 Ohio App. LEXIS 1259 (5th Dist. Apr. 22, 2022).*
A rifle in the back seat seen in plain view in an unattended vehicle was a potential danger to the public, so officers could retrieve it for public safety reasons. United States v. Shine, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74447 (W.D.N.C. Apr. 25, 2022). [Classic community caretaking search]
"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.
