The officer had reasonable suspicion that the owner of the vehicle had a suspended DL, but that dissipated when he saw the driver wasn’t the same gender as the owner. But, reasonable suspicion was developing the driver was under the influence. United States v. Behrens, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 18676 (8th Cir. July 28, 2025).
Plaintiff’s false arrest claim was barred by limitations. Wynn v. City of Covington, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 18663 (6th Cir. July 25, 2025).*
Despite alleged confusion whether the warrant subject was an iPhone 11 or 13 doesn’t matter. “To finish the search analysis, the Court concludes that the warrant execution is lawful. The agents search the exact item that the warrant describes: an ‘iPhone 13 Cell Phone Assigned Call Number 505-379-9756 WITH IMEI 350183980185078.’ iPhone 13 Warrant at 1. Summarizing the Court’s complete line of reasoning, the Court concludes that the warrant execution is lawful, because the warrant itself is sufficiently particular and the Jones Aff. provides probable cause to support the warrant.” United States v. Jessen, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142697 (D.N.M. July 25, 2025).*
“The Court recognizes that Officer Nunez and a female officer expressed ambivalence as to whether N.H. could consent to a search when she was not the registered owner of the Camry.” Still, she had apparent authority to consent. United States v. Carter, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142669 (D. Conn. July 25, 2025).
Defendant’s girlfriend had apparent authority to consent to a search for a firearm that he pulled on her during an argument in the apartment they shared. United States v. Smith, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142481 (S.D.N.Y. July 25, 2025).*
Getting defendant out of the vehicle so the officer could use Google translate to talk to him didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Ceja-Torres, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 18662 (6th Cir. July 25, 2025).*
Posted inApparent authority, Reasonableness|Comments Off on D.Conn.: Despite officers’ not thinking there was apparent authority to consent, the consenter did have that authority
Posted inImmigration arrests|Comments Off on The Guardian: Immigration agents told a teenage US citizen: ‘You’ve got no rights.’ He secretly recorded his brutal arrest
When the government seizes a cell phone under a warrant and the data is encrypted and it can’t see it, it is not in “possession” for Rule 16 discovery purposes. United States v. Mejia, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142962 (S.D. Cal. July 25, 2025).
Three controlled buys from defendant’s house, the last 72 hours before the warrant, was probable cause. United States v. Kinsler, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142793 (E.D. Tenn. July 25, 2025).*
Merely having a key to another’s apartment wasn’t enough for standing. Defendant doesn’t even show that he was a guest there. United States v. Adams, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 140057 (W.D.N.Y. July 22, 2025).*
The stop was justified because of the expired inspection and overtinted windshield. Then the smell of marijuana was probable cause. United States v. Ford, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 141767 (D.V.I. July 24, 2025).*
The fact property was held after seizure under a search warrant that might be invalid isn’t enough to order equitable return of property under Rule 41(g). Bingli Lin v. United States, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142181 (E.D. Tex. June 30, 2025).
There was probable cause for the warrants here, and they will not be suppressed. Suppression isn’t a remedy for an alleged violation of the pen register statute. United States v. Brown, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 141787 (S.D. Ohio July 24, 2025).*
The officer here was on a Bronx rooftop with binoculars and saw a hand-to-hand drug transaction, and defendant got into a car. There was probable cause to search the car under the automobile exception. United States v. Rivera, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 139910 (S.D.N.Y. July 22, 2025).*
The Intercept: Border Patrol Wants Advanced AI to Spy on American Cities by Sam Biddle (“A U.S. Border Patrol ‘Industry Day’ deck also asks for drones, seismic sensors, and tech that can see through walls.”) Really. Never read Kyllo (2001)?
Posted inSurveillance technology|Comments Off on The Intercept: Border Patrol Wants Advanced AI to Spy on American Cities: Even through walls
The government waived reliance on probable cause in the district court, but its good faith exception was presented and supports the search. United States v. Scales, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 18324 (6th Cir. July 21, 2025).*
The magistrate’s R&R finding the stop lacked reasonable suspicion is sustained. The stop was for a hard-to-read temporary tag, but that’s not unlawful. The inevitable discovery rule doesn’t apply here because of the unreasonable stop. United States v. Thelen, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 139324 (N.D. Iowa July 22, 2025).*
The court granted a motion to suppress a search a year ago. As they press forward to trial, the court finds inevitable discovery makes much of the evidence otherwise admissible at trial. United States v. Fox, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 141094 (E.D.N.Y. July 23, 2025).*
“We have decided this question before: ‘whether a St. Paul police officer acted under color of state law when she allegedly lied to protect a federal witness while serving on a federal task force.’ Yassin v. Weyker, 39 F.4th 1086, 1087 (8th Cir. 2022). Our answer, once again, is she did not. See id.” Mohamud v. Weyker, No. 24-1875 (8th Cir. July 23, 2025).*
The Aurora housing inspection code is not unconstitutional on its face for attempting inspections. If they’re refused, the city has to seek other remedies, which could include inspection warrants. DPH Aurora Props., LLC v. City of Aurora, 2025 IL App (2d) 240540 (July 22, 2025).
A negligent failure to train claim under § 1983 doesn’t state a Fourth Amendment claim because intentional acts are required. Kristiansen v. United States, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 139782 (D. Or. July 22, 2025).*
Defendant had a constitutional right to refuse consent to search his cell phone, and the trial court erred by considering that as an aggravating factor in sentencing. State v. Dawes, 2025-Ohio-2576, 2025 Ohio App. LEXIS 2500 (6th Dist. July 22, 2025).
Plaintiff’s claim that he was arrested without probable cause doesn’t fly here. There clearly was arguable probable cause. Urda v. Sokso, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 18107 (3d Cir. July 22, 2025).*
There was reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop when the officer approached him and he fled. United States v. Richardson, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 139158 (E.D. Va. July 21, 2025).*
Defendant doesn’t show a reason for the court to adopt a different standard for reasonable suspicion under the state constitution. There was reasonable suspicion here. Copado v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 5208 (Tex. App. – Dallas July 22, 2025).*
There was probable cause by collective knowledge for defendant’s arrest at Dulles airport where Virginia police asked Homeland Security to make the arrest. Lewis v. Commonwealth, 2025 Va. App. LEXIS 412 (July 22, 2025) (unpublished).*
Appellant’s Fourth Amendment claim was waived in a prior appeal so it can’t be raised in a second appeal under the appellate forfeiture doctrine. United States v. Storck, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 17961 (6th Cir. July 17, 2025).*
In a convoluted case, a liquor enforcement inspection warrant was executed during a business rush, allegedly in retaliation for asking for a warrant. Also, it appears the scope of the warrant exceeds the agency’s authority over liquor control. This part of the motion to dismiss is denied pending discovery which can help clear things up. Generis Ent., LLC v. Donley, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138226 (E.D. Mich. July 8, 2025).*
Assuming defendant’s Franks argument was valid, he got a hearing, a paragraph of the affidavit was deleted, and probable cause still remained. Affirmed. Del Toro v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 5255 (Tex. App. – San Antonio July 23, 2025).*
Motion for new trial based on alleged Franks violation that didn’t even say what the false statements were was properly denied. State v. Coleman, 2025-Ohio-2581 (9th Dist. July 23, 2025).*
There was probable cause for location information on defendant’s cell phones because the police had information he used them during a shooting incident where his car was also shot at. United States v. Reeves, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 17665 (8th Cir. July 17, 2025).*
The granting of the motion to suppress is reversed as not based on competent or credible evidence. The bodycam doesn’t fully support the officer’s testimony there were furtive movements before he got up to the driver’s window, but the bodycam image is partly obscured by reflected light. [Actually, the bodycam doesn’t make the officer’s testimony false.] State v. Leneo, 2025-Ohio-2582 (9th Dist. July 23, 2025).*
Failure to investigate a legally meritless search and seizure claim isn’t ineffective assistance of counsel. People v. Miller, 2025 Mich. App. LEXIS 5735 (July 18, 2025).*
Defendant kind of got a Franks hearing within a motion to suppress hearing, and there’s no substantial preliminary showing of knowing or reckless falsity. Denied. United States v. Stewart, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138688 (E.D. Mo. July 21, 2025).*
The district court erred in not considering whether defendant acquiesced in consenting to a search. The officer said he had “warrants,” but there was no clarification whether it was an arrest warrant or search warrant. Reversed. United States v. Glover, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 18091 (D.C. Cir. July 22, 2025):
“Ellis also argues that the police officers’ search of his rental car resulted from an unconstitutionally prolonged traffic stop and was unsupported by probable cause. He pressed this claim in a post-trial motion that was untimely under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(b)(3)(C) and failed to make an argument for good cause, as required by Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(c)(3). Thus, we decline to review this claim.” United States v. Ellis, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 18020 (9th Cir. July 21, 2025).*
There was reasonable suspicion to continue the stop. “The suspicion here arises from the combination of the travel plans, the story, and the time spent in Atalanta. Detective Anderson was rightfully skeptical that a father would fly to help his adult son move ‘a couple of boxes,’ stay for a few hours, and then drive back through the night. The reason Crayton gave for driving back was that his son was supposed to come back with them. To Detective Anderson, that did not adequately explain away his suspicions. It does not do so for the Court, either.” United States v. Crayton, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138102 (N.D. Ind. July 18, 2025).*
The government showed nexus in the warrant affidavit for drugs in defendant’s house. United States v. Swain, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138413 (N.D. Ohio July 21, 2025).*
Posted inNexus, Reasonable suspicion, Waiver|Comments Off on CA9: Untimely post-trial motion to suppress not even considered on appeal
Fleeing an arrest under what is now alleged to be an invalid warrant and abandoning property is still abandonment. United States v. Pool, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138465 (N.D. Ohio July 21, 2025).
There was probable cause for plaintiff’s arrest despite the fact the state dismissed the case. A Tenth Circuit case that the police should have viewed a video before the arrest is only dictum. Also, “Alberty’s brief gives no more than perfunctory treatment to a claim of unreasonable search and seizure. Issues not sufficiently argued in briefs are considered abandoned.” In re Trip, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 18009 (2d Cir. July 21, 2025).*
There was cause for defendant’s stop but it was extended without reasonable suspicion. Motion to suppress granted. People v. Mendiola, 2025 Guam Trial Order LEXIS 140 (Super. Ct. July 7, 2025).*
Probation searches are a codified exception to the warrant requirement and not in violation of the Washington constitution. State v. Smith, 2025 Wash. App. LEXIS 1418 (July 21, 2025).
Leaving defendant’s vehicle on a parking lot potentially for days was not a reasonable alternative, and the towing and inventory were within department standards. United States v. Scott, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138755 (M.D. Ala. May 30, 2025),*
“So regardless of whether Defendant Richards actually engaged in a ‘turn’ or a ‘movement,’ Officer Reetz cannot be deemed under the circumstances to have violated the Fourth Amendment by reasonably (even if erroneously) concluding that both a signal and immediate egress into the nearest lane were required under the controlling law and facts. See Heien, 574 U.S. at 60 (“The question here is whether reasonable suspicion can rest on a mistaken understanding of the scope of a legal prohibition. We hold that it can.”); see also Scott, 693 F. App’x at 837-38 (same).” United States v. Richards, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138759 (M.D. Ala. June 19, 2025).*
"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.
