The emergency aid exception justified entry into defendant’s house where the officer reasonably feared the owner or occupant of the house was in some sort of danger based upon the front door being wide open in the middle of winter, there were no cars in the driveway, a young dog inside the home was acting really skittish, and there was a large amount of dog feces on the floor. Inside he found a marijuana grow in plain view. State v. Hawkins, 2017-Ohio-715, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 708 (7th Dist. Feb. 27, 2017).
Defendant was a passenger in a stopped rental car, and it was apparent to the officer that the two in the car were lying about what was up and where they were going. By the time the drug dog arrived, the officer completed the initial checks, and the officer didn’t do anything really to extend the stop unreasonably. United States v. Angulo, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25098 (D.N.J. Feb. 22, 2017).*
Posted inEmergency / exigency|Comments Off on OH7: House door wide open, no cars in driveway, skittish dog and a lot of dog feces justified entry on exigency
Being passed out at the wheel is reasonable suspicion of drunk driving. Still, the officer had the authority to order defendant out of the car and the gun would have been seen inevitably anyway. United States v. Dickson, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 3558 (7th Cir. Feb. 27, 2017).*
Crossing the centerline of a two lane highway is an offense that justifies a stop. Pridemore v. State, 2017 Ind. App. LEXIS 84 (Feb. 24, 2017).*
Posted inReasonable suspicion|Comments Off on CA7: Being passed out at the wheel is RS of drunk driving
Ohio statute states that a methamphetamine lab is per se an exigency, and the officer’s seizure without a search warrant to get a search warrant was reasonable. State v. Umstead, 2017-Ohio-698, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 691 (5th Dist. Feb. 24, 2017).
Defendant’s stop was proper based on window tint and then there was the faint smell of marijuana which then gave probable cause for a search of the car. State v. Davenport, 2017-Ohio-688, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 706 (2d Dist. Feb. 24, 2017).*
The passenger’s movements in lifting his butt up in the seat was enough to order him out of the car. He was acting like he was hiding something. He was handcuffed and drugs fell out of his pantleg. State v. Orosz, 2017-Ohio-707, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 700 (11th Dist. Feb. 27, 2017).*
Posted inSurveillance technology|Comments Off on EFF: An Illinois Court Just Didn’t Get It: We Are Entitled to Expect Privacy In Our Smart Meter Data, Which Reveals What’s Going On Inside Our Homes
Anyone using the advanced technology of an aerial drone to undertake the age-old crime of voyeurism could be charged with a new offense under a measure approved by the Indiana Senate.
In my state, at least, the crime of video voyeurim would already cover this. In a way, though, it’s more insidious because then somebody on the 10th floor of an apartment building could be a victim. How do you catch the offender? What if the drone is unregistered, assuming it is captured.
Posted inDrones|Comments Off on AP: Peeping Drones Crime Bill Clears Indiana Senate
Defendant was beat up in a bar fight. He bled all over his shirt and his jaw was swollen. He rejected efforts for medical help, but the officer’s stop of him was reasonable under the community caretaking function. That community caretaking function search [somehow reasonably] included removing contraband from him. State v. Crayton, 2017-Ohio-705, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 694 (11th Dist. Feb. 27, 2017). [I still can’t justify this one under any reasonable reading of the law. Protect you from yourself?]
Defendant was a passenger in a stopped rental car, and it was apparent to the officer that the two in the car were lying about what was up and where they were going. By the time the drug dog arrived, the officer completed the initial checks, and the officer didn’t do anything really to extend the stop unreasonably. United States v. Angulo, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25098 (D.N.J. Feb. 22, 2017).*
The child victim’s claim that defendant used his cell phone to take pictures of the two of them having sex logically supported a search warrant for defendant’s computers in his house because of the ease with which images can be moved between them for storage. State v. Waters, 2017-Ohio-650, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 648 (8th Dist. Feb. 23, 2017).
Crossing the centerline of a two lane highway is an offense that justifies a stop. Pridemore v. State, 2017 Ind. App. LEXIS 84 (Feb. 24, 2017).*
Defendant was stopped by Cleveland State University officers for a traffic offense, and there was a strong smell of marijuana coming from the car. That gave probable cause to search generally for the source of the marijuana, but the court finds that envelopes could not be searched for that raw marijuana because they couldn’t hold what the probable cause indicated. State v. Vega, 2017-Ohio-651, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 649 (8th Dist. Feb. 23, 2017) (2-1): Continue reading →
Posted inScope of search|Comments Off on OH8: Smell of raw MJ from car didn’t support search of envelopes in car
President Donald Trump signed off on press secretary Sean Spicer’s decision to check aides’ cell phones to make certain they weren’t communicating with reporters by text message or through encrypted apps, multiple sources confirmed to CNN on Monday.
Posted inCell phones|Comments Off on CNN: Sources: Trump signed off on checking White House staffers’ phones
The showdown over access to data recorded by the Amazon ‘smart’ device is pushing the limits of traditional First Amendment and Fourth Amendment principles.
Posted inSurveillance technology|Comments Off on Law.com/The Recorder: Fighting Echo Warrant, Amazon Has Scant Law to Draw On
Defendant’s speeding stop was valid, but the detention was unnecessarily long and without reasonable suspicion. The dog alert came too late after consent refused. The travel plans were not implausible at all in context and did not support reasonable suspicion. United States v. Lopez, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 3475 (10th Cir. Feb. 27, 2017): Continue reading →
Posted inReasonable suspicion|Comments Off on CA10 doesn’t defer to police: Travel plans were not implausible in context and did not support reasonable suspicion
Even if the trial court were to credit the defendant’s version that his sudden lane change was to dodge a puddle or a dog, the officer didn’t see a puddle or dog, just the lane change and that made the stop at least based on a reasonable mistake. Commonwealth of the N. Mariana Islands v. Arurang, 2017 MP 1, 2017 N. Mar. I. LEXIS 1 (Feb. 23, 2017): Continue reading →
Posted inReasonableness|Comments Off on N.M.I.: Can you overcome officer’s credibility questions by calling it a “reasonable mistake of fact”?
The affiant officers stated conclusions about the chemistry of some of the drugs in the 24 search warrants issued in this case. The law doesn’t require they be chemistry majors, experts, or Walter White to state those conclusions when the question is probable cause. “Contrary to defendant Wolfe’s argument, neither the Fourth Amendment nor the courts require that an affiant marshal trial-worthy proof or have the expertise of a high-level scientist for a judge to issue a search warrant in a drug investigation. Such qualifications are irrelevant.” United States v. Wolfe, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 184485 (E.D. Mo. Dec. 14, 2016): Continue reading →
Posted inProbable cause|Comments Off on E.D.Mo.: Affiant officers in drug cases don’t have to be chemistry experts to state conclusions about drugs
The collective knowledge doctrine does not require that the officer requesting a stop actually tell the other officers the reason why. United States v. Rubio-Sepulveda, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23866 (D. Colo. Feb. 21, 2017): Continue reading →
Posted inCollective knowledge|Comments Off on D.Colo.: Collective knowledge doctrine does not require that the officer requesting a stop actually tell the other officers the reason why
"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.
