Failure to preserve a recording of issuance of a search warrant as required by New York law is not a Fourth Amendment issue. United States v. Bailey, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 212869 (W.D.N.Y. Nov. 3, 2021).
“Recognizing that this case is pending in the Eleventh Circuit rather than the Ninth, Grimes concedes that binding precedent permits CBP officers like the ones in this case to conduct a search of a traveler’s electronic devices without reasonable suspicion when a person is entering the United States, and Grimes acknowledges that his motion will be denied.” United States v. Grimes, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 212230 (N.D.Ga. Sept. 28, 2021).
In extraditions, “The standard of proof to find evidence ‘sufficient to sustain the charge’ pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3184 is equivalent to the domestic requirement of probable cause.” In re Extradition of Villegas, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 212646 (W.D.Tex. Oct. 29, 2021).
Defendant’s creative argument that he was a “protector” of the home although he wasn’t the owner or occupant and was only an occasional guest is rejected for the day in question. “Royal argues that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy because a ‘spectrum of possessory interests’ exists under Third Circuit jurisprudence.” But not enough. United States v. Royal, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 212861 (M.D.Pa. Nov. 3, 2021)*:
A volunteer fireman diving into defendant’s car to keep him from driving away was a search and seizure. And, the community caretaking function did not apply. “Here, Wahl lacked any specific and articulable facts that Fairrow would be dangerous to himself or others, so his decision to jump headfirst into Fairrow’s car was not reasonable. Simply put, the record does not substantiate Wahl’s concerns that Fairrow was not safe to drive and would hit first responders on the scene if he attempted to drive from the scene. [DN 19 at 41:7-11 (‘I jumped through the window to stop the car from … possibly hitting one of [the first responders], because at that time I still did not really know the state of [Fairrow’s] condition. I didn’t know if he was going to be safe to drive or not.’)].” United States v. Fairrow, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 212484 (W.D.Ky. Nov. 2, 2021).
“Our review of all three Hight factors reveals that the State satisfied its burden of establishing that the circumstances of the defendant’s consent to the blood test purged the taint of his unlawful arrest. Cf. Szczerbiak, 148 N.H. at 357 (concluding that the State purged the taint of the unlawful detention where only one factor — the lack of ‘flagrancy’ on the part of the officers — weighed in favor of concluding the consent purged the taint of the unlawful detention). Accordingly, it was not error for the court to admit the results of his blood test.” State v. Hilliard, 2021 N.H. LEXIS 164 (Oct. 29, 2021).*
The state failed in its burden of proof that defendant was lawfully stopped and then detained as a possible suspect in a crime even though he was a probationer. His clothing didn’t match. It was prolonged way past its justification. Gayton v. State, 2021 Ga. App. LEXIS 550 (Nov. 3, 2021).
The stop of the car defendant was in was with probable cause and it was searched under the automobile exception. He neither owned the car nor was driving it, so he had no standing. “Alternatively, the search of the Silver Civic was legal because Abreu consented to it.” United States v. Fontanez, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 212432 (D.N.J. Nov. 3, 2021).*
The affidavit for the warrant showed probable cause on the totality. Moreover, the good faith exception applies. Finally, defendant doesn’t get a Franks hearing. United States v. Hargis, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 212222 (E.D.Ky. Oct. 15, 2021).*
LATimes: L.A. sheriff’s deputies use minor stops to search bicyclists, with Latinos hit hardest by Alene Tchekmedyian, Ben Poston and Julia Barajas (“The Times’ analysis of more than 44,000 bike stops logged by the Sheriff’s Department since 2017 found that 7 of every 10 stops involve Latino cyclists, and bike riders in poorer communities with large nonwhite populations are stopped and searched far more often than those in more affluent, whiter parts of the county.” “These stops were made for searches.” –Ojmarrh Mitchell, criminology professor at Arizona State University)
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Issues: (1) Whether a cause of action exists under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics for First Amendment retaliation claims; and (2) whether a cause of action exists under Bivens for claims against federal officers engaged in immigration-related functions for allegedly violating a plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment rights.
A laptop computer left in the former marital home for a decade is abandoned property. United States v. Hartley, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 212137 (E.D.Mich. Nov. 3, 2021).
Petitioner seeks to bring five claims in a successor habeas petition, and one involved his search claim. It doesn’t involve a change in law or newly discovered evidence. Denied [aside from the Stone bar]. In re Morgan, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 32728 (11th Cir. Nov. 2, 2021).*
There was reasonable suspicion for search of defendant’s electronic devices at the border. Customs already knew that he’d been engaged in international firearms production and trafficking. United States v. Roggio, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 211985 (M.D.Pa. Nov. 3, 2021).*
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With a Franks claim based on omissions, the court can consider the omissions and, if probable cause remains, the motion to suppress is denied. United States v. Leonard, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 32740 (1st Cir. Nov. 3, 2021).
“Here, viewing the facts in their totality, the Court finds it reasonable that Trooper Tilford suspected illegal activity. Trooper Tilford testified that Defendant admitted that he had been speeding. … Trooper Tilford questioned Defendant, Defendant exhibited excessive nervousness, engaged in “clunky” conversation, stared at the windshield and required long pauses in his sentences. … Defendant behaved in a manner that led Trooper Tilford to believe that Defendant might flee. … Defendant made inconsistent statements regarding his travel plans, as Defendant even later admitted. … Trooper Tilford also observed gas cans in the vehicle, which drug traffickers often will utilize to avoid extra stops. … Indeed, during the hearing, Defendant testified that he actually was under the influence of cocaine at the time of the stop. … Based on Defendant’s extreme nervousness, inconsistent travel itinerary and general demeanor, Trooper Tilford suspected possible criminal activity.” United States v. Smart, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 211981 (E.D.Va. Nov. 3, 2021).*
Defendant’s in-custody call to his attorney was overheard by the recording system in the room. There was no reasonable expectation of privacy where it was made. Luthi v. Neis, 2021 Iowa App. LEXIS 930 (Nov. 3, 2021).
The trial court erred in finding plain feel inapplicable. It was obvious to the officer what it was. State v. Hunt, 2021 Iowa App. LEXIS 959 (Nov. 3, 2021).
Defendant was stopped for weaving. The officer noticed the ignition interlock had been bypassed. “The court does find by a preponderance of the evidence that there was reasonable articulable suspicion of intoxicated driving under the Fourth Amendment.” State v. Kriens, 2021 Iowa App. LEXIS 947 (Nov. 3, 2021).
Driving from Delaware to Philadelphia to get cheesesteaks while the driver professing he can’t afford a speeding ticket with a few other “dubious” comments leads to reasonable suspicion to continue the stop. The trial court erred in suppressing. Commonwealth v. Galloway, 2021 Pa. Super. LEXIS 657 (Nov. 2, 2021).*
Defendant was charged with a murder in 2012, and DNA was taken then. The murder case was tried, the jury hung, and later dismissed for speedy trial. That DNA was potentially matched in this case, and a search warrant was obtained for more for a better comparison. It was reasonable at the time, and isn’t excluded here. United States v. Green, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 211755 (W.D.N.Y. Nov. 2, 2021).
Posted inDNA, Reasonable suspicion|Comments Off on PA: Def driving from Delaware to Philly for cheesesteaks when he was broke added to RS
“Plaintiffs forfeited their Fourth Amendment qualified immunity arguments because the opening brief makes no legal argument that qualified immunity does not apply, nor is such an argument apparent from Plaintiffs’ factual recitation.” Ramirez v. Zimmerman, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 32726 (9th Cir. Nov. 3, 2021).*
“Based on the circumstances known to the officers at the time of the arrest, we conclude that it was reasonable for the officers to infer that defendant was in possession of a car that he would have had reason to believe was stolen. At a minimum, the officers had probable cause to arrest for P[ossession of a] S[tolen] V[ehicle] and that is all they needed to make the arrest.” Defendant’s Fourth Amendment claim is waived for lack of argument. State v. McCall, 315 Or. App. 538. 2021 Ore. App. LEXIS 1548 (Nov. 3, 2021).*
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A flagrant violation of the knock-and-announce rule violates the state constitution and the result is excluded. Violating the knock-and-announce requirement makes the search warrantless. The court recognizes the Fourth Amendment rule is contra. State v. Caronna, 2021 N.J. Super. LEXIS 137 (Nov. 3, 2021):
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While looking for a missing person with connection to defendant, police went to his place to talk to him. The officer knocked on his door but got no answer. As he turned to leave, he saw a spot of blood on the porch. The curtilage was not improperly entered, and the spot was in plain view. Cox v. State, 2021 Ark. App. 426, 2021 Ark. App. LEXIS 447 (Nov. 3, 2021).
Defendant’s 2255 Fourth Amendment claim was litigated on direct appeal so no CoA will be granted. Dickens v. United States, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 32657 (6th Cir. Nov. 2, 2021).*
“Reasonable jurists would not debate the district court’s rejection of this claim because Bradford has not shown a reasonable likelihood that his motion to suppress would have been successful.” It wasn’t even his property that was searched so he has no standing. Bradford v. United States, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 32661 (6th Cir. Nov. 2, 2021).*
Posted inCurtilage, Plain view, feel, smell, Standing|Comments Off on AR: Knock on door during visit to ask about a missing person lawfully resulted in plain view of blood spot on porch
Probable cause was shown for CSLI before the state judge, but the state sought the order under the wrong statute. That doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Fregia, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 32587 (9th Cir. Nov. 2, 2021).
Defendant did not own the car on which the state placed a GPS by court order, so he didn’t have standing.State v. Lane, 2021-NCCOA-593, 2021 N.C. App. LEXIS 604 (Nov. 2, 2021).
Picking apart the affidavit, the court of appeals finds no probable cause at all for a belief that drugs would be found in defendant’s house. State v. Eddings, 2021-NCCOA-590, 2021 N.C. App. LEXIS 596 (Nov. 2, 2021).*
Defendant’s traffic stop was reasonable even if it was pretextual. United States v. Scieneaux, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 210616 (M.D.La. Nov. 1, 2021).*
The officer relied in good faith, as in Herring, upon dispatch saying that defendant had a probation search waiver on file. She argued that she had a suspended sentence and never agreed to a search waiver and the suspended sentence had expired. No search waiver was produced. Ashby v. State, 2021 Ark. App. 424, 2021 Ark. App. LEXIS 446 (Nov. 3, 2021) (the concurrence is concerned that the good faith exception is swallowing all the rules).
The exclusionary rule does not apply in supervised release revocation proceedings. United States v. Profit, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 210088 (D.Kan. Nov. 1, 2021).
The trial court and court of appeals erred in determining whether a seizure of items outside a search warrant were “relevant” or whether regular plain view applied. It’s plain view, and the case is remanded to the trial court to redetermine the facts and make conclusions of law. Inconsistent cases are overruled. George v. State, 2021 Ga. LEXIS 679 (Nov. 2, 2021):
Defendant consented to a seizure and search of his cell phone after being told of his right to refuse and to revoke consent at any time. United States v. Fairbanks, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 210371 (D.Minn. Nov. 1, 2021).
Plaintiff was held for five hours without restraints in an interrogation room. Officers obtained a search warrant for his DNA and possible GSR. When they tried to take it, plaintiff refused and he was taken down and beaten. The district court erred in finding the beating was reasonable. Rosser v. Donovan, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 32474 (3d Cir. Nov. 1, 2021).*
A Tulsa police officer had legal authority to stop a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation for an alleged violation of the traffic laws in the city. The ensuing patdown was reasonable based on various factors, including an admission defendant carried a knife. The initial stop was based in part on a shots fired call that matched defendant’s vehicle description. United States v. Sherwood, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 210246 (N.D.Okla. Nov. 1, 2021).*
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"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.
