NPR: Police Facial Recognition Databases Log About Half Of Americans:
A new report from Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology says all it takes is a driver’s license to be included in the searchable databases. Rachel Martin talks to co-author Alvaro Bedoya.
NYTimes: Sunday Magazine: Feature: Should We See Everything a Cop Sees? by Mackenzie Funk:
Body cameras have been promoted as a solution to police misconduct. But the strange two-year saga of Seattle shows just how complicated total transparency can be.
The state showed exigency for a warrantless blood draw. Defendant was in a crash, and the trooper (the only one in the county) arrived an hour after the wreck, and defendant was already at the hospital. After investigating the scene, the trooper went to the hospital. But then it was over two hours since the accident, and time was then off the essence. Cosino v. State, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 11431 (Tex. App. – Waco Oct. 19, 2016).
Officers did not violate the Fourth Amendment by defendant’s wife showing them files she’d opened on the family computer. Based on that view, they got a search warrant. Degeorgis v. State, 2016 Ga. App. LEXIS 571 (Oct. 20, 2016).*
Defendant was a suspect in identity theft and failure to register as a sex offender. The search warrant affidavit supported those offenses, but it also included child pornography yet no facts supporting a search for child pornography. Once in the house, officers plugged in a thumb drive with the program OS Triage to search for child pornography, and they went about the remainder of the search. After an hour they came back to the computer and an image of child pornography was on the screen with a red border. They shut down the computer to take it and get a warrant for child pornography. The discovery of the child pornography is suppressed because nothing in the affidavit supported searching for it. United States v. Dallman, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 144487 (W.D.Mo. Oct. 12, 2016), adopted, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 144488 (W.D. Mo. Oct. 19, 2016):
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Defense counsel was not ineffective for not challenging the entry into defendant’s hotel room to arrest him because it would have failed on the merits. Officers had an NCIC report of a warrant on defendant and they knew he was at a hotel. An NCIC report had already been held sufficient proof of existence of an arrest warrant. They went to the room and attempted to use a ruse to get him to open the door. When that failed, they knocked and said they were the police. He opened the door and he was clearly the man wanted: 6’5″ and with a visible tattoo with “Vic.” United States v. Snard, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 145132 (E.D.Pa. Sept. 29, 2016).*
Defendant’s stop was with reasonable suspicion for speeding and loud music, so summary judgment was proper. Tapley v. Chambers, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 18813 (7th Cir. Oct. 19, 2016).*
Defendant’s coming out of a drug house was reasonable suspicion for a stop and frisk where it was known that drugs and guns had been seized there just a few months before. United States v. Williams, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 144231 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 18, 2016).
“The Court finds that all this activity was permitted as a welfare check. Deputy Brinson had arrived knowing only that there had been a man screaming and making death threats. This reasonably perceived emergency justified both Deputy Brinson’s questions to Defendant concerning other persons at the scene and her warrantless entrance into the residence to confirm the roommate’s safety, even assuming Defendant had not validly consented to the entry.” United States v. Guillen, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 144145 (D.Nev. Oct. 17, 2016).*
WaPo: Volokh Conspiracy: The Fifth Amendment and Touch ID by Orin Kerr:
My recent post on the legality of warrants that permit phone unlocking prompted some reader comments on how the Fifth Amendment might apply to using fingerprint readers such as Apple’s Touch ID. I think this is a hard issue, so it might be worth explaining my thinking in detail. Here are my current thoughts, with the caveat that my views aren’t completely settled and I may revisit them in the future.
Mere evidence of forcible sodomy on a child does not ipso facto mean that there is probable cause to believe that there will be child pornography on the defendant’s computer, too. Only one circuit would make that inferential link (CA8), but not this one. Moreover, the utter lack of probable cause denies resort to the good faith exception. United States v. Church, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 144422 (E.D. Va. Oct. 17, 2016), same result on reconsideration, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8431 (E.D. Va. Jan. 20, 2017):
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A DUI roadblock set up purely in the discretion of the officer on an interstate highway off-ramp was unreasonable. Whelan v. State, 2016 Ark. 343 (Oct. 20, 2016):
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Game officers got a GPS warrant for defendant’s truck because they suspected him of hunting violations. After a couple of weeks, the truck’s movements were monitored daily. The issuance of the GPS warrant was without a finding of probable cause by the issuing judge, and the tracking had to be suppressed. GPS tracking is a “search.” The lack of probable cause is also fatal to application of the good faith exception. State v. Liebl, 2016 Minn. App. LEXIS 71 (Oct. 17, 2016).
The affidavit for the search warrant in this case failed to show any nexus with any competent evidence. This failure was fatal, despite the officer’s good faith. The state supreme court has declined to recognize the good faith exception in a failure of probable cause, and that’s what a failure of nexus is. State v. Parson, 2016 N.C. App. LEXIS 1058 (Oct. 18, 2016).
The government proved inevitable discovery applied because (1) they had already started drafting the warrant when the allegedly illegal search occurred and (2) there was overwhelming probable cause for the search. United States v. Restitullo, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 144269 (D.N.J. Oct. 18, 2016).
The officers’ approaching defendant’s car wasn’t a seizure, but he put the car in reverse and attempted to run one over, and that was reasonable suspicion. United States v. Johnson, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 143831 (M.D.Pa. Oct. 18, 2016).*
Defendant’s stop was on the collective knowledge of the first officer who indeed had probable cause and requested that they stop him, traffic offense or not. United States v. Woodson, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 143016 (W.D.Mo. Oct. 7, 2016),* adopted, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142593 (W.D. Mo. Oct. 14, 2016).*
WaPo: Volokh Conspiracy: Can warrants for digital evidence also require fingerprints to unlock phones? by Orin Kerr:
There has been a lot of press coverage recently about a search warrant obtained in Los Angeles allowing the government to force people present when the warrant is executed to press their fingers and thumbs on the fingerprint sensors of any phones or computers found there to unlock them. A lot of people have wondered: Is that legal? I don’t think there’s an easy answer to that. Here’s an overview of some of the legal issues.
First, an important caveat: It’s hard to draw conclusions about the legality of the warrant because we know so little about it. All we have is a seven-page memo in which the government makes the case for the warrant, plus word from Thomas Fox-Brewster (who broke the story) that the warrant was later executed at a residence. We haven’t seen the warrant, and we don’t know what it says. We don’t know what happened when the warrant was executed. So we don’t have much information yet.
Grits for Breakfast Blog: Pop Quiz on Fourth Amendment and the criminalization of the normal
Pop Quiz from the Texas Seventh Court of Appeals: Which of the following are NOT an indicia of drug trafficking under Texas law?
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NPR: Why What Facebook Knows About You Could Matter Offline
The investigative team at ProPublica wants you to know what Facebook knows about you. It’s more than you can imagine.
Techdirt: Granted Warrant Allowed Feds To Force Everyone At Searched Residence To Unlock Devices With Their Fingerprints by Tim Cushing:
This is the reality of what the government is seeking: law enforcement officers detaining suspects and non-suspects alike and forcing them to apply their fingers to all locked devices on the premises. If this is the new normal for warrant service, it’s time for the courts to step up and be a bit more aggressive in holding the government to particularity requirements.
Exemptions under Pennsylvania’s Right to Know Law are at least coextensive with the state’s right to privacy under the constitutional search and seizure provision. Thus, public school teachers’ home addresses should, on balance, remain private and nondisclosable. Pa. State Educ. Ass’n v. Commonwealth Dept. of Comm. & Econ. Dev., 2016 Pa. LEXIS 2337 (Oct. 18, 2016):
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NYTimes: What Would New York Police Body Cameras Record? by Joseph Goldstein:
As cities around the country outfit their officers with body cameras, officials are facing questions about what will be recorded and what will not.
BankInfoSecurity: Police Can Collect Fingerprints to Unlock Phone by Jeremy Kirk:
Search Warrant Casts Doubt on Effectiveness of Biometric Security
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