Officers saw an Instagram video at 5 am, posted about two hours earlier, of suspects holding high capacity rifles and handguns. They recognized the apartment building, and they had remote access to the apartment complex’s videos provided by the landlord to help abate violence there. They drove to the scene and found vehicles and persons in the video, and that was justification for a frisk. United States v. McCullers, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47258 (E.D.Va. Mar. 16, 2022).*
Defendant’s stop for going 2 over the speed limit and having a heavily cracked windshield was reasonable. “Even if some of Trooper Harman’s questions had impermissibly extended the scope of the traffic stop, that would not automatically entitle Defendant to suppression as a remedy.” “The Government demonstrates—and Defendant does not contest—that Defendant’s consent was voluntary.” United States v. Martinez, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47083 (N.D.Ga. Feb. 23, 2022).*
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Defendant’s neighbor recorded the SWAT team arrival and participating in the execution of the search warrant from outside the house. Defendant’s offer of the video at trial was rejected. “Permitting the jury to see that the police who were executing the search warrant were heavily armed would likely have confused the jury concerning the actual issues in the case and would have created a trial within a trial, leading to undue delay.” [F.R.E. 403] There was cross-examination about some of it. United States v. Washington, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 6961 (9th Cir. Mar. 17, 2022) (as an outsider, why would the defense imply that the police considered him that dangerous? Just saying.)
Defendant’s car was stopped for driving with the passenger door open. A frisk occurred, and plain feel supported the seizure. State v. Kent, 2022-Ohio-834, 2022 Ohio App. LEXIS 746 (8th Dist. Mar. 17, 2022).*
2255 petitioner’s claim that defense counsel was deficient for not having pursued a lack of probable cause is denied because there was probable cause. United States v. Garcia, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46247 (E.D.Mich. Mar. 15, 2022).*
A civil investigative subpoena to Facebook for information about posters of Covid misinformation was not unreasonable. n.3: “Meta suggests that the Fourth Amendment requires the District to obtain a search warrant to get this information. … One sufficient response is that the Fourth Amendment protects only privacy interests that society accepts as objectively reasonable, see United States v. Kyle, 2022 D.C. App. LEXIS 58, at *3-4 (D.C. Feb. 10, 2022), and Facebook users do not have an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in information that they include in public posts about COVID-19 vaccines and their identities.” District of Columbia v. Meta Platforms, Inc., 2022 D.C. Super. LEXIS 2 (Mar. 9, 2022).
Child pornography traced to an IP address is probable cause for computers there. People v. Socciarelli, 2022 NY Slip Op 01630, 2022 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 1647 (4th Dept. Mar. 11, 2022).*
After a search warrant for records, the plaintiff sued for return of property and lost. Then it filed this action for a declaratory judgment that what it was doing wasn’t illegal. That’s essentially seeking a declaratory judgment barring prosecution. Denied. Hawk Innovative Tech, LLC v. United States, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46224 (N.D.Ga. Jan. 25, 2022).*
There was probable cause shown for the search warrant for defendant’s GPS monitoring device and his house for evidence of murder. State v. Gallion, 2022-NCCOA-164, 2022 N.C. App. LEXIS 178 (Mar. 15, 2022).
2254 petitioner’s sole ground for relief is a Fourth Amendment claim that’s Stone barred. Botch v. AG of Ariz., 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45831 (D.Ariz. Mar. 15, 2022).*
Defendant’s Franks claim that the officer misrepresented the facts of whether the battery on a GPS tracker died was not material to the outcome. United States v. Gomes, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46052 (W.D.Pa. Mar. 15, 2022).*
Defendant’s alleged suicide note created exigency for warrantless entry. “Prior to Remillard’s trial, several Ohio courts had held that exigent circumstances permit a police officer’s warrantless entry into a home to conduct a wellness check on a suicidal individual if the risk of harm is imminent or immediate. … Moreover, the United States Supreme Court had previously stated that ‘the Fourth Amendment does not bar police officers from making warrantless entries and searches when they reasonably believe that a person within is in need of immediate aid.’ Mincey v. Arizona, …” Remillard v. Forshey, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 6885 (6th Cir. Mar. 16, 2022).
Handcuffing defendant here before the search of his car constituted an arrest. His car, however, was reasonably searched under his parole search condition. Finally, recording him in the patrol car did not violate the Fourth Amendment nor the federal wiretap law. United States v. Simon, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46670 (N.D.Cal. Mar. 16, 2022).*
The trial court erred in finding defendant was not seized. Remanded. State v. Mullinax, 2022-NCCOA-165, 2022 N.C. App. LEXIS 170 (Mar. 15, 2022).*
Defendant succeeded in showing that the R&R did not support the conclusion that the search warrant was issued with probable cause. It was clearly deficient, but the good faith exception still saves the warrant. “Despite failing to provide facts in the affidavit to have supported a finding of probable cause, Detective Gatson did provide ‘some modicum of evidence, however slight’ that evidence of criminal activity was present on Mr. Lewis’s electronic devices. … Accordingly, his affidavit cannot be deemed ‘bare bones’ as to preclude an application of good faith.” United States v. Lewis, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46546 (E.D.Ky. Mar. 16, 2022).
The affidavit showed probable cause on the whole. Defendant’s claim of inconsistencies within it are not enough to overcome it. United States v. Duncan, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46514 (E.D.Ky. Mar. 16, 2022).*
The confidential informant here was adequately corroborated to show probable cause. People v Forbes, 2022 NY Slip Op 01805, 2022 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 1720 (2d Dept. Mar. 16, 2022).*
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The state obtained phone records by search warrant which defendant claimed was without probable cause. The federal government also got a search warrant for the same records from the state, and it showed probable cause. That was via independent source. But, the records were not protected by the Fourth Amendment, and then it wasn’t used in the prosecution, so it’s moot. United States v. Aloba, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 6751 (9th Cir. Mar. 16, 2022).
The search warrant for defendant’s email account in this fraud case was with probable cause. There was no showing of a material misrepresentation in the delayed notice application under § 2705(b). United States v. Kornaker, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46093 (W.D.N.Y. Mar. 15, 2022).*
Defendant’s search suppression argument focused on a Miranda kind of issue, not probable cause which was unmentioned, so probable cause was waived for appeal. State v. Gales, 2022-Ohio-776, 2022 Ohio App. LEXIS 697 (9th Dist. Mar. 16, 2022).*
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The Michigan Supreme Court has apparently granted review in the March 2021 drone pictures decision in Long Lake Twp. v. Maxon, 2021 Mich. App. LEXIS 1819 (Mar. 18, 2021) posted here. Long Lake Twp. v. Maxon, 2022 Mich. LEXIS 503 (Mar. 16, 2022).
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It was reasonable for the issuing magistrate to conclude by inference that multiple locations were subject to search under one common affidavit. United States v. Stimpson, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45374 (E.D.Pa. Mar. 15, 2022).
A business’s employee was a whistleblower who went to the IRS with records. The search warrant for records of the business was properly issued. Further corroboration of the whistleblower was not required. United States v. Lucidonio, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45373 (E.D.Pa. Mar. 15, 2022).*
Not timely signaling before a turn was justification for a stop. United States v. Stork, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45780 (N.D.Ind. Feb. 9, 2022).*
A DNA sample can be sought by court order before a criminal case is filed. People v. Forte, 2022 NY Slip Op 22066, 2022 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 873 (Oneida Co. Mar. 9, 2022).
The scope and manner of the stop did not violate defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights because he provided no authority for the proposition that the legality of an officer’s questioning differs whether it was done while the traffic offender was outside the patrol car or in it, and this court could find none. He was free to respond to the questions, or not, and he makes no argument that he felt coerced into answering the questions. United States v. Ambriz-Villa, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 6495 (7th Cir. Mar. 14, 2022). (So a qualified immunity analysis applies to Fourth Amendment claims in criminal cases?)
Defendant’s guilty plea waived his search claim. People v. Correra-Robles, 2022 NY Slip Op 01742, 2022 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 1579 (1st Dept. Mar. 15, 2022).*
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Massachusetts rejects Fourth Amendment “standing” in favor of a reasonable expectation of privacy under the state constitution. Defendant here may have a reasonable expectation of privacy even though something was actually in the possession of his codefendant. Commonwealth v. DeJesus, 2022 Mass. LEXIS 98 (Mar. 15, 2022):
While the pretrial inmate handbook didn’t say that outgoing mail was subject to inspection, the Supreme Court held in Stroud in 1919 that such searches were reasonable. And this one was too. United States v. Polanco, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44310 (D.Mass. Mar. 14, 2022).
Defendant’s CSLI argument was valid but Carpenter had not been decided when the trial court ruled. [Carpenter was nearly four years ago.] Reversed on the CSLI issue. [So how long did this case take to get to decision on appeal?] People v. Ozkaynak, 2022 NY Slip Op 01700, 2022 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 1512 (4th Dept. Mar. 11, 2022).*
Plaintiff’s excessive force in handcuffing claim fails because he can’t cite a case that shows the law was clearly established at the time. Templeton v. Jarmillo, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 6488 (5th Cir. Mar. 11, 2022).*
“The Court notes that there is a dearth of caselaw on the issue of whether Xylazine qualifies as ‘drug paraphernalia.’ Regardless, as the weight of the evidence supports that Xylazine is frequently used as a diluent or cutting agent, the Court finds it falls within the definition of ‘drug paraphernalia’ pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 863(d). Additionally, Defendant has not offered an explanation as to why Defendant ordered the Xylazine, and Defendant has not argued that Defendant sought to possess Xylazine for a legal use. Thus, the officers had sufficient probable cause to stop and detain Defendant.” United States v. McAliley, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44258 (E.D.Pa. Mar. 14, 2022).
Six to nine month old information wasn’t stale for a child pornography warrant. Albrecht v. State, 2022 Ind. App. LEXIS 69 (Mar. 14, 2022).*
Overtinted windows justifies a traffic stop, and, here, the dashcam video supports that. United States v. Augustus, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44266 (E.D.Pa. Mar. 14, 2022).*
Defendant’s bank records were subject to the third-party doctrine which was not changed by Carpenter. United States v. Hall, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 6425 (3d Cir. Mar. 14, 2022):
Defendant’s incapacity does not nullify his implied consent to a BAC blood draw by statute. People v. Joseph, 2022 VI SUPER 12, 2022 V.I. LEXIS 16 (Jan. 27, 2022) (10 months from suppression hearing to order).
A nonprosecution agreement does not create a Heck bar. Mitchell v. Kirchmeier, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 6398 (8th Cir. Mar. 14, 2022).*
There was probable cause on the totality of the affidavit, despite some alleged minor errors that undermine nothing. “Many of these facts, viewed in isolation, reasonably could be viewed as innocent, non-criminal association with others who were committing crimes. Viewed in totality through the lens of common sense, however, the affidavit with the alleged falsehoods removed still supports probable cause. District of Columbia v. Westby … (emphasizing the totality of the circumstances and noting that ‘probable cause does not require officers to rule out a suspect’s innocent explanation for suspicious facts’). The district court properly found the officers entitled to qualified immunity as to Allen’s Fourth Amendment claim.” Allen v. Monico, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 6402 (8th Cir. Mar. 14, 2022).*
NJLJ: Commentary: Driving While Black Is Not a Reasonable Suspicion (“State v. Nyema reminds us that there are issues with criminal identifications, stops and detentions resulting in criminal prosecutions that are bound up with race.”)
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Search warrant applications are reviewed on the “four corners” of the affidavit. “New evidence” isn’t considered. United States v. Shade, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43451 (6th Cir. Mar. 9, 2022).
There was reasonable suspicion for the officer to expand the stop to a field sobriety test. State v. Clinger, 2022-Ohio-723, 2022 Ohio App. LEXIS 645 (6th Dist. Mar. 11, 2022).*
Plaintiff’s false arrest claims were time barred when they were filed. Heck does not apply and does not extend the time for his claim. Bonelli v. Grand Canyon Univ., 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 6346 (9th Cir. Mar. 11, 2022).*
Stone bars Fourth Amendment claims in 2255 proceedings. United States v. Shade, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43451 (S.D.Ohio Mar. 11, 2022).*
Multiple parking tickets in NYC in one day is not an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Nor an excessive fine under the Eighth; nor a due process violation under the Fourteenth. Torres v. City of New York, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43530 (SD.N.Y. Mar. 11, 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.
