Just because defendant’s girlfriend rented a motel room and he was with her doesn’t make the motel parking lot their curtilage. “[N]ot even a hotel’s owner, to say nothing of its transitory guests, has a reasonable expectation of privacy in its open parking lot.” The officer approached a car with what he at first thought was a passed out driver and then smelled burning marijuana. United States v. Jasper, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 66381 (S.D. Ga. Mar. 2, 2020), adopted, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64778 (S.D. Ga. Apr. 11, 2020).
The exigency inherent in the automobile exception continues after the defendant’s arrest. State v. Domenig, 2020 Iowa App. LEXIS 399 (Apr. 15, 2020).
Defendant’s swerving that the officer claimed was the reason for the stop was caused by the quickly approaching police car, and that precludes finding reasonable suspicion for the stop. State v. Wadden, 2020 Iowa App. LEXIS 407 (Apr. 15, 2020).
Posted inAutomobile exception, Curtilage|Comments Off on S.D.Ga.: Renting a motel room doesn’t make their parking lot your curtilage
Both the Fourth Amendment and Ohio law permitted law enforcement to seek private assistance in executing a search warrant, here of a computer, and the search was conducted by the company that owned the computer. United States v. Powell, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 79455 (N.D. Ohio May 6, 2020).
Defendant’s Franks challenge fails because the challenged paragraph in the affidavit, even if removed from consideration, still leaves probable cause. Defendant doesn’t even address the good faith exception which the court finds applies. United States v. Lewis, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 79813 (E.D. Mo. Apr. 15, 2020).*
Defendant’s wife sought return of cars seized producing the titles. Because the government has initiated forfeiture of the vehicles, she can pursue her remedy there. United States v. Rivera-Banchs, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 79548 (W.D. N.Y. May 6, 2020).
State law provided for a warrantless procedure to obtain medical records for OVI cases. The court finds it violates the Fourth Amendment, but it refuses to apply the exclusionary rule because the officer reasonably relied on state law to access the evidence, citing Davis and Krull. State v. Eads, 2020-Ohio-2805, 2020 Ohio App. LEXIS 1781 (1st Dist. May 6, 2020):
Defendant’s innocent explanations for what pole camera videos showed that were not in the affidavit for search warrant do not amount to a Franks challenge. There still was probable cause. United States v. Joye, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 66463 (E.D. Mich. Apr. 15, 2020).
A 911 caller reported that a short black male in particular dress pointed a gun at him. Defendant’s stop based on that was with reasonable suspicion where defendant was slow to comply with the officer’s directions. State v. Berrian, 2020-Ohio-1515, 2020 Ohio App. LEXIS 1472 (10th Dist. Apr. 16, 2020).
Defendant was taken in for questioning in handcuffs but not formally arrested then. This was not an arrest triggering the speedy trial clock. State v. Cheeks, 2020 Fla. App. LEXIS 5137 (Fla. 4th DCA Apr. 15, 2020).
Defendant was prosecuted in state court for a drug related murder, and the state court suppressed the search of his house finding lack of nexus. State v. Miller, 2016 S.C. Unpub. LEXIS 28 (Mar. 30, 2016). Defendant was then prosecuted federally, and the state court’s failure to apply the good faith exception to the warrant (while suggesting it might apply) did not give preclusive effect to the state court finding. Instead, the district court went to the good faith exception. In addition, there was no plain error in the district court’s finding the officers’ entry onto the property was impliedly licensed. United States v. Miller, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 1193 (4th Cir. Apr. 15, 2020):
Posted inCurtilage, Good faith exception, Nexus|Comments Off on CA4: State court suppressed SW for lack of nexus, and then feds indicted; GFE applies to the state warrant
The validity of the search warrant for defendant’s car was irrelevant where the automobile exception applied. Therefore, defendant’s Franks challenge is moot despite the fact there were material misrepresentations in the affidavit because the officers were trying to keep a wiretap under wraps. United States v. Wimbush, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65913 (D. N.J. Apr. 15, 2020):
Posted inAutomobile exception, Franks doctrine|Comments Off on D.N.J.: There were material misrepresentations in the affidavit for a vehicle SW, but they are mooted by the automobile exception
Consent was not voluntary where the officer told defendant that DCYF might take her kids. Had police sought a search warrant, there was no nexus. “The Court finds that law enforcement could not have shown a sufficient nexus between Almonte’s alleged drug transaction and his residence that would have enabled them to meet the probable cause standard for a search warrant. Therefore, the evidence recovered from Almonte’s residence is suppressed.” United States v. Almonte, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 66293 (D. R.I. Apr. 15, 2020).
Defendant’s wife had actual authority to consent to seizure of his clothes from the floor of the house after he admitted to her that he was having an affair and apparently killed his girlfriend. His wife called the police. As to his socks with blood spots seized from the hospital, the state fails to support this seizure under plain view under Jacobson. As to the latter, however, harmless error applies because the victim’s blood was found on the sweatshirt, too. State v. Abbott, 2020 Wisc. App. LEXIS 156 (Apr. 16, 2020).
Posted inConsent|Comments Off on D.R.I.: Threat that def could lose kids to state if she didn’t consent made it involuntary
Although the widespread use by Massachusetts police departments of automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) could implicate constitutional protections against unreasonable searches, the positioning of four cameras in fixed positions on the ends of the two bridges leading to Cape Cod did not provide a mosaic of location information that was sufficiently detailed to invade a reasonable expectation of privacy. Therefore, the limited use of such ALPRs did not constitute a search within the meaning of art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights or the Fourth Amendment. Commonwealth v. McCarthy, 484 Mass. 493 (Apr. 16, 2020) (summary by the court).
Plaintiff’s failure to respond to defendant’s 1983 Fourth Amendment summary judgment motion led to it being granted, and the failure to respond was a default. Stouffer v. City of Reading, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 12059 (3d Cir. Apr. 16, 2020).
Posted inSurveillance technology|Comments Off on MA: Fixed license plate readers on bridge to Cape Cod did not provide “a mosaic of location information” sufficiently detailed to violate REP
The fact defendant’s vehicle came back as “no record” from the Texas law enforcement databases was reason for a stop as unlicensed. After the valid stop, defendant consented. Villarreal v. State, 2020 Tex. App. LEXIS 3180 (Tex. App. – Houston (14th Dist.) Apr. 16, 2020) (2-1).
Defendant was entitled to a warning under state law that she could remove personal property from a vehicle prior to inventory, and she didn’t get that warning. Suppression was required. State v. Schmidt, 303 Ore. App. 500 (Apr. 15, 2020).
Defendant was driving a car that the owner was a passenger in. Defendant had standing to object to the search of the car as well as his backpack in the back. The detention of the vehicle waiting for a drug dog was unreasonable. State v. Flood, 2020 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 254 (Apr. 16, 2020).
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a package shipped to and then received by another. Moreover, there was probable cause for a search of the car the package was in and the package, too. United States v. Moore, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 12372 (6th Cir. Apr. 16, 2020).
Police received information defendant was dealing drugs from a motel room. They sent a drug dog to inquire, and the dog alerted at the room door. Absent proof from the defendant that the motel room was his home, the dog sniff outside the door in a common area was reasonable. People v. Lindsey, 2020 IL 124289, 2020 Ill. LEXIS 387 (Apr. 16, 2020) (4-2).
The search of defendant’s cell phone for evidence supporting the state’s claim defendant shot her victim was particular as to the dates of false claims the victim raped her. In addition, it was harmless error if error at all. Rickman v. State, 2020 Ga. LEXIS 279 (Apr. 20, 2020).*
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not objecting to a DNA sample where defendant claimed it exceeded his consent. The post-conviction court found that it didn’t. Moreover, discovery was inevitable because another DNA sample was validly taken two years later as to another victim which would have led to the same result. Chapman v. State, 2020 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 265 (Apr. 17, 2020).
“Undeterred by the AEDPA’s restriction on identical attacks against the same judgment, Petitioner now frames his argument in terms of a Brady violation, rather than a Fourth Amendment violation. However, the ‘exculpatory evidence’ allegedly withheld by prosecutors are judicial opinions, the knowledge of which would have, according to Petitioner’s frivolous argument, led a court to conclude that the seizure violated the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, Petitioner’s theory of entitlement to relief is identical — and identically meritless — to that from his prior petitions.” Hatten v. United States, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68144 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 16, 2020).*
Posted inDNA, Inevitable discovery, Issue preclusion|Comments Off on TN: DNA sample was subject to inevitable discovery where def was subjected to another one for a homicide two years later
“Generally, the fact that a defendant wishes to seek a Franks hearing ‘does not entitle him or her to additional discovery before the Franks hearing.’” The government stated it has provided discovery required by Rule 16. Defendant’s request for further discovery to attempt to prove a Franks violation, a suppression motion not yet filed, is speculative. The government is ordered to comply with Brady and Giglio including information shared with state officials investigating a homicide. United States v. Pickens, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 67884 (D. Minn. Apr. 16, 2020).
It is well established that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in use at trial of a jail phone call, so defense counsel couldn’t be ineffective for not raising it. Keller v. State, 2020 Ga. LEXIS 289 (Apr. 20, 2020).
Defendant was stopped because the Utah Criminal Justice Information System querying the Insure-Rite database showed he had no car insurance. Once stopped, he admitted he didn’t have a DL either. Then, outstanding warrants were found. Defendant’s claim the Insure-Rite database is unreliable because it is updated only twice a month is unavailing. This was still reasonable suspicion. W. Valley City v. Temblador-Topete, 2020 UT App 64, 2020 Utah App. LEXIS 62 (Apr. 16, 2020).
Defendant moves to dismiss because the execution of the search warrant does not show facts to connect him to the drugs or firearm. Rule 12(b)(3) motions are reserved for questions of law. This raises questions of fact, and that’s what the trial is for. United States v. Coats, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 67530 (N.D. Ind. Apr. 15, 2020).
The use of fake subpoenas to coerce witnesses to appear at the DA’s office to provide information under threat of arrest was not entitled to absolute immunity. Singleton v. Cannizzaro, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 12784 (5th Cir. Apr. 21, 2020).
On de novo review of reasonable suspicion, the court finds defendant was stopped by being blocked in by a police car parked three feet away with takedown lights on. They are designed to obscure vision and disorient the motorist looking at the police car. The officers were responding to nearby shots fired they heard, and defendant’s vehicle was the first one they saw. Still, presence in a high crime area alone is not reasonable suspicion (Wardlow), and there was nothing connecting defendant’s vehicle to the shots. The motion to suppress should have been granted. “True, the district court found that the officers saw Delaney before they saw anyone else. But absent findings substantiating the officers’ estimation of where the shots came from, that fact does little to change the reasonable suspicion calculus because the corresponding inference—that Delaney might be the source of those shots—no longer follows.” United States v. Delaney, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 12317 (D.C. Cir. Apr. 17, 2020).
Posted inReasonable suspicion, Stop and frisk|Comments Off on D.C.Cir.: Police stopping nearest vehicle after hearing shots fired lacked RS
Officers had a search warrant for vehicles on a particular piece of property. Defendant contended his vehicle wasn’t on the property. Even if the officer was wrong, was his belief unreasonable? “The Brinegar Court explained the requirement of reasonableness in a way that is particularly apt here: ‘Because many situations which confront officers in the course of executing their duties are more or less ambiguous, room must be allowed for some mistakes on their part. But the mistakes must be those of reasonable [persons], acting on facts leading sensibly to their conclusions of probability.’ … This is because ‘sufficient probability, not certainty, is the touchstone of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment.’ … The record here adequately demonstrates the objective reasonableness of Massey’s interpretation of the scope of the warrant. … We, therefore, find no Fourth Amendment violation resulting from the search of Lamb’s vehicle.” Taking a cell phone from defendant’s pocket to seize it under the warrant for property at that address was unreasonable. Lamb v. State, 2020 Tex. App. LEXIS 3225 (Tex. App. – Texarkana Apr. 17, 2020).
Posted inScope of search, Warrant execution|Comments Off on TX6: Even if def’s vehicle was over the property line and not on the property subject to SW, was the officer’s mistake reasonable?
Defendant was stopped in a shopping center parking lot for suspicion of shoplifting a sweatshirt. He consented to a frisk of his person and car, and nothing was found. Another officer arrived, and he was de facto arrested. A search of a McDonald’s sack in the car can’t be justified as a search incident. State v. Ledbetter, 2020 Mo. App. LEXIS 580 (May 5, 2020).
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy against a prison cell search, but the Eighth Amendment provides protection against harassing searches. Here, the justification for plaintiff’s cell searches was his efforts at self-mutilation, and that was justification enough. Coit v. Garman, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 14277 (3d Cir. May 5, 2020).
A 2019 DEA administrative subpoena for a cell phone’s subscriber information was reasonable and not a violation of Carpenter. CSLI information was obtained by a state search warrant, and it was reasonable. United States v. Armstrong, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68476 D. N.D. Apr. 20, 2020).
Posted inSurveillance technology|Comments Off on EFF: Courts Issue Rulings in Two Cases Challenging Law Enforcement Searches of License Plate Databases
“The fact that Detective Nance searched portions of the vehicle more than once did not violate the Fourth Amendment.” Mendoza v. United States, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68469 (E.D. Tex. Apr. 20, 2020).
The exclusionary rule does not apply in Merit Systems Protection Board proceedings. Here, there wasn’t even a reasonable expectation of privacy to invoke. Martin v. Dep’t of Homeland Security, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 12619 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 20, 2020).
Posted inExclusionary rule, Search|Comments Off on E.D.Tex.: Searching a car more than once isn’t a 4A violation
A folded piece of paper couldn’t be searched in a stop and frisk and plain feel because the contents weren’t felt. State v. McClure, 2020-Ohio-1574, 2020 Ohio App. LEXIS 1524 (4th Dist. Apr. 16, 2020).
“The search warrant was sufficiently specific because it described the [home security] DVR with enough particularity to allow police to reasonably identify it and search the relevant parts of the video: the inside and the outside of the house at the time of the shooting. … The warrant was not overly broad.” United States v. Holstick, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 12473 (11th Cir. Apr. 20, 2020).
In California, the smell of marijuana alone coming from a car no longer provides probable cause for search of the car. United States v. Martinez, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 12536 (9th Cir. Apr. 20, 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.
