Plaintiff’s claim he was held in jail past his sentence expiration date survives summary judgment as a Fourth Amendment claim. Barrese v. Las Vegas Metro. Police Dep’t, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 143360 (D. Nev. Aug. 10, 2020).
The trial court erred in granting a motion to suppress defendant’s probation search. State v. Ellis, 2020 Ind. App. LEXIS 339 (Aug. 10, 2020).*
“All told, neither the Supreme Court nor our court has issued a decision concluding that a government actor responded unreasonably to a known risk of harm when the actor took actions similar to the actions that Jarnagin took here. Under the Supreme Court’s precedent, therefore, Beck cannot overcome Jarnagin’s qualified-immunity defense. See Wesby, 138 S. Ct. at 591.” Beck v. Hamblen County, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 25224 (6th Cir. Aug. 10, 2020).*
Plaintiffs were alleged peaceful protesters in Oakland claiming excessive force was used against them: “chemical agents, less lethal projectiles such as rubber bullets and flashbang grenades.” They provided video evidence. They stated enough of a claim at this point to stay in court. Anti Police-Terror Project v. City of Oakland, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 143045 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 10, 2020):
Posted inExcessive force|Comments Off on N.D.Cal.: “chemical agents, less lethal projectiles such as rubber bullets and flashbang grenades” against peaceful protesters states enough to stay in court
A Park Ranger in Acadia National Park in Maine followed Maine law to get a blood sample without a search warrant. There were no exigent circumstances, and the blood sample is suppressed. United States v. Manubolu, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142710 (D. Me. Aug. 10, 2020).*
“Howell has not established that he was prejudiced by counsel’s failure to bring the suppression claim. Howell’s sole argument for why this search should have been deemed unconstitutional is that it was ‘an impossibility given the circumstances’ that the police could have seen the firearm ‘“under the seat” of the vehicle’ and hence no probable cause existed. … Howell provides no factual support for his conclusion that it was impossible for the officer to see the gun, nor does he raise any theories suggesting why probable cause for a search could not have existed otherwise. Such a conclusory statement or blanket assertion does not establish any grounds on which counsel could have filed a meritorious motion to suppress, and Howell accordingly has not demonstrated that he was prejudiced by counsel’s failure to file such a motion.” In addition, this claim appears to be a barred successor petition. United States v. Howell, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142777 (N.D. Ohio Aug. 10, 2020).*
Defendant’s stop was justified by a traffic offense, despite claims it might have been racially motivated. People v. Price, 2020 NY Slip Op 04430, 2020 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 4532 (3d Dept. Aug. 6, 2020). See the concurring opinion:
Defendant’s appellate argument the CI’s information wasn’t probable cause is rejected. “[T]he extensive police corroboration detailed in the affidavit strongly supports the issuing judge’s probable cause determination. … [¶] Next, on the second and third factors, Bonz had firsthand knowledge of Orr’s drug dealing, and he shared that knowledge in detail with police.” There was also good faith. United States v. Orr, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 25215 (7th Cir. Aug. 10, 2020).*
There was probable cause for tracking and search warrants of defendant’s property. “In this case, the officers acted in objectively reasonable reliance on a warrant issued by a detached and neutral magistrate and therefore, even if the affidavits were found to lack probable cause, (which they do not) the evidence would not be suppressed.” United States v. Nova, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142151 (D. Mass. Aug. 7, 2020).*
Illegal entry is a crime, but not mere presence, and that was well established since 2012. Defendant’s arrest of plaintiff in a courtroom as a witness on suspicion of being here illegally at the request of a JP was unreasonable. Hernandez v. Skinner, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 25183 (9th Cir. Aug. 10, 2020).* Summary by the court:
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Defendant and companion observed buying drugs from someone on the street in a car and getting back to their car was reasonable suspicion. “There was ‘more’ here [than in Ybarra], however, for the officer had been told that two men were buying drugs, and he saw Tucker’s companion reach inside White’s vehicle, in which the officer had seen marijuana. The totality of the circumstances thus justified the stop, and the knowledge that White’s associates were often armed augmented the reasonable suspicion that supported the pat-down search.” United States v. Tucker, 19-2694 (8th Cir. Aug. 10, 2020).*
Plaintiff can file a § 1983 case alleging a Fourth Amendment violation but it has to be stayed pending a state criminal case to see if the Heck bar applies. Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 393-94 (2007). If it does, then it would be dismissed. Andre D. v. Faylor, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 141960 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 7, 2020).*
Defendant’s detention was reasonable, and, during the stop, three large bags of marijuana were seen on the floor of the car. Possession of under an ounce is legal, but this was more than an ounce, so continuing the detention for that was reasonable. People v. Tacardon, 2020 Cal. App. LEXIS 736 (3d Dist. July 22, 2020, published Aug. 7, 2020).
Defendant’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim fails for his inability to show that the motion to suppress, if filed, would have been granted for lack of probable cause. Defense counsel relied on lack of standing as a guess, but there was probable cause even if he had standing [which he likely had]. Young v. State, 2020 Ga. LEXIS 539 (Aug. 10, 2020).*
Posted inIneffective assistance, Probable cause|Comments Off on Cal.3: Plain view of possession of more than a recreational amount of drugs was PC
Two search warrants on consecutive days produced drug counts against defendant. They are part of the same investigation, so they are joined for trial. United States v. Martin, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 141845 (D. Minn. July 6, 2020).
Ineffective assistance of counsel claims shouldn’t be brought as a part of a direct appeal because of a lack of a full record. United States v. Meadows, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 25008 (6th Cir. Aug. 7, 2020).*
A forthwith subpoena duces tecum to gather medical records in a doctor’s office by the Texas Medical Board with the DEA in tow appears to state a Fourth Amendment claim here for the subpoena being used for criminal investigative purposes, and plaintiff is permitted to attempt to amend his complaint to add that claim on remand. [The court notes the same investigator was involved in another overseizure of medical records they reviewed.] Morgan v. Chapman, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 25000 (5th Cir. Aug. 7, 2020):
Defendant’s driveway was not enough curtilage to make it unreasonable for the police to come on the driveway and look at his car. It wasn’t covered, and there was a road and open field right next to it. United States v. Hall, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 141598 (E.D. N.C. Aug. 6, 2020):
There was an inventory policy, but the police were unfamiliar with it and didn’t follow it. “[T]he Court finds that the inventory search of Defendant’s vehicle by the Andrews Police Department was not conducted pursuant to any specific criteria, much less a standardized criteria. Accordingly, the Court grants Defendant’s Motion as to the first traffic stop, and the Crown Royal bag and its contents are excluded.” United States v. Seward, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 141622 (D. S.C. Aug. 7, 2020).
Defendant’s detention was admittedly reasonable, and his furtive movement caused the officer to ask whether he was armed, and defendant said he was. United States v. Weatherspoon, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 24991 (4th Cir. Aug. 7, 2020).*
Posted inInventory, Stop and frisk|Comments Off on D.S.C.: Officers weren’t familiar with inventory policy and didn’t follow it; suppressed
Officers extending a safety check once the person was found to be fine just to see if there were warrants on the person went beyond the basis for the detention and was unreasonable. When the suspected emergency was resolved, the person should have been released. State case law has said since at least 1990 that running warrants on a detainee requires a reason other than just curiosity. Thus, attenuation under Strieff doesn’t favor the state. State v. Ellis, 2020 Kan. LEXIS 80 (Aug. 7, 2020), prior appeal State v. Ellis, 57 Kan. App. 2d 477, 453 P.3d 882 (2019):
Posted inAttenuation|Comments Off on KS: Inquiry to resolve an alleged emergency was reasonable, but extending detention to check warrants was unreasonable even under Strieff
Plaintiff stated a claim that overcame qualified immunity that she was handcuffed too tight causing injury. Ouza v. City of Dearborn Heights, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 24679 (6th Cir. Aug. 5, 2020).*
2255 petitioner’s Fourth Amendment claim is barred by Stone because he had an full and fair opportunity to litigate it in the district court, and did. Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for conceding his lack of standing because there wasn’t any. Jimenez v. United States, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 24741 (6th Cir. Aug. 5, 2020).*
The officer’s omission of the CI’s criminal charges from the affidavit for the search warrant was reckless at worst, but the totality of the affidavit showed the CI’s potential motives for providing information. Moreover, there was probable cause even without the CI. Irvine v. State, 2020 Alas. App. LEXIS 59 (Aug. 5, 2020).*
There was probable cause for defendant’s stop when the police blocked them in and defendant ran from the car, avoiding seizure. United States v. Suggs, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 24676 (6th Cir. July 20, 2020).*
The FBI’s affidavit for this search warrant showed probable cause because the CIs were independently corroborated. United States v. Alqahtani, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 140326 (D. N.M. Aug. 5, 2020).*
The affidavit for search warrant for this DTO showed probable cause for the search of defendants’ property and showed nexus. United States v. Rodriguez-Preciado, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 140337 (E.D. Va. Aug. 5, 2020).*
If the officer didn’t have reasonable suspicion defendant was a probation violator, he had something really close to it. Also, nothing about the officer’s investigation was flagrant or in bad faith. United States v. Galliher, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 140901 (D. Mont. Aug. 6, 2020)*:
Posted inGood faith exception, Probation / Parole search|Comments Off on D.Mont.: Officer had something at least close to RS to investigate def as a probation violator and there was no bad faith or flagrantly unreasonable action
The district court did not err in finding defendant’s driveway of a duplex was not curtilage under the Dunn factors in light of Collins. United States v. Stephen, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 24803 (11th Cir. Aug. 6, 2020):
Plaintiff was taken down because he didn’t properly respond to commands, and he suffered facial injuries. He was, however, so intoxicated and couldn’t remember what happened. He was also Tased. It was all reasonable based on what the officer was confronted with at the time, so he gets qualified immunity. Kohorst v. Smith, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 24784 (8th Cir. Aug. 6, 2020)*:
"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.
