WaPo: What life is like after police ransack your house and take ‘every belonging’ — then the charges are dropped By Christopher Ingraham:
A self-described Michigan “soccer mom” who had “every belonging” taken from her family in a 2014 drug raid has been cleared of all criminal charges, 19 months after heavily armed drug task force members ransacked her home and her business. But in many ways, her ordeal is only beginning.
Officers had an arrest warrant for defendant and knocked at her apartment door saying only “Sheriff’s Office.” A falsetto voice said “Ashley’s not here.” Officers responded “How do you know we’re looking for Ashley?” They were let in, and they looked for her. This was a lawful entry and supported plain view. State v. Zerucha, 2016-Ohio-1300, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS 1197 (11th Dist. March 28, 2016).
2255 petitioner’s Fourth Amendment claims were already litigated or he had a full opportunity to under Stone v. Powell. Rochelle v. United States, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39878 (M.D.N.C. March 28, 2016).*
Plaintiff was cited for allegedly briefly honking his car horn in support of Occupy protestors in San Diego. “The undisputed facts show that Plaintiff appeared in traffic court to contest the citation, showed the traffic commissioner the video of the incident, and the traffic commissioner found Plaintiff guilty of the violation. The citation in the record of this case remains valid.” Therefore, Heck v. Humphrey bars this part of the case. Kenney v. City of San Diego & Federal & Private Contractor Intelligence Community and Security Police-State Industrial Complex Conspirators, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41642 (S.D.Cal. March 29, 2016).*
The search of defendant’s backpack was supported by two rationales: Lack of a reasonable expectation of privacy and automobile exception. As to the former, “Even if Rivera did have a reasonable expectation of privacy, the district court found that Rivera abandoned the backpack by dropping it back into the car and physically distancing himself from it while giving a false name.” United States v. Rivera, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 5675 (11th Cir. March 28, 2016).* [Hard to see how the false name adds to abandonment.]
Defendant raised 250 IAC claims, and two involved search issues. Before the trial, the district court ruled that some evidence was suppressed but it could come in if the defense opened the door to it. Defense counsel strategically avoided those things. It was not IAC to fail to raise lack of probable cause. Even so, defendant doesn’t show that there was a reasonable probability of a different outcome. Guess v. United States, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39889 (E.D.Va. March 25, 2016).*
Defendant was indicted for ATM skimming and other identity theft offenses. The FBI started the investigation and contacted Bulgarian police about phone numbers from there. Bulgarian police tied the numbers to defendant, and they procured wiretaps at U.S. request and cooperated under their MLAT treaty with the U.S. This was still a foreign search. While assistance was requested, the U.S. wasn’t participating. “The caselaw makes clear that the express terms of a law enforcement agreement between the United States and a foreign government do not establish the parameters of a U.S. court’s Fourth Amendment analysis. The defendant’s argument concentrates on the types of cooperation the MLAT Agreement provides for rather than what actually occurred in the case at bar.” United States v. Evtimov, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40006 (N.D.Ill. March 28, 2016).
Reasonable suspicion for a probation search came from a “trusted” person call that defendant was making money but had no job and he was a past meth dealer. That was enough. Then defendant consented, too. United States v. Danner, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40163 (N.D.Ga. Feb. 23, 2016), adopted 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39955 (N.D.Ga. March 28, 2016).
Extending the stop was based on reasonable suspicion under Rodriguez. “Finally, [Off.] Hill possessed a reasonable suspicion sufficient to ask the questions about drug activity based on the combination of (1) the Collazos’ conflicting answers concerning their travel destination, (2) the jar of what appeared to be urine that he observed in the passenger compartment, and (3) Cinthia’s erratic behavior.” “Moreover, although nervousness alone is insufficient for probable cause, see Lyons, 687 F.3d at 770, Cinthia’s nervousness along with her erratic movements and deceptive behavior could reasonably lead an officer to conclude that she was under the influence of a stimulant ….” United States v. Collazo, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 5757 (6th Cir. March 8, 2016).
Collective knowledge here was not reasonable suspicion. Defendant’s vehicle was reportedly involved in a shooting and stopped based on a radio report from Boston PD to another department. Defendant, however, had left the scene of the shooting ten minutes before it happened, and there was no underlying factual basis for the stop. The department that stopped him had a good faith basis, but it was based on nothing. Therefore, the stop has to be suppressed. Commonwealth v. Keene, 2016 Mass. App. LEXIS 36 (March 28, 2016):
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U.S.News & World Report: Merrick Garland’s Trunk-Search Ruling Gives Some Defense Advocates Chills
Scholars say, however, the decision is within the judicial mainstream.
[The headline alone is enough to make me not even want to read it because the writer is merely seeking attention to justify having written something, not informing. Sort of like Trump.]
USA Today: 1,000 locked devices in limbo after FBI quits iPhone case by Kevin Johnson and Elizabeth Weise:
The government’s surprise decision to withdraw its case against Apple over the San Bernardino killer’s iPhone adds uncertainty to criminal cases where state and local authorities have been confronted with more than 1,000 locked smartphones and other devices, blocking access to potential evidence, according to a survey of more than a dozen jurisdictions.
The government’s email account search warrant request is overbroad as to what is being seized. The court analogizes Riley and notes that email accounts can provide a detailed picture of a person’s life the same as a cell phone search. “Needless to say, a person’s email account may reveal their ‘privacies of life.’” This opinion is valuable and scholarly. In re Premises Known As: Three Hotmail Email Accounts: [Redacted]@hotmail.com, [Redacted]@hotmail.com, [Redacted]@hotmail.com Belonging to & Seized from [Redacted], 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40545 (D.Kan. March 28, 2016) (footnote numbers retained; footnotes omitted):
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Lesser intrusive measures to impoundment were available and rejected by the police, and that made the inventory unreasonable. Defendant offered to have somebody come and immediately get the car, and he should have been able to. Commonwealth v. Oliveira, 2016 Mass. LEXIS 188 (March 28, 2016):
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WaPo: FBI has accessed San Bernardino shooter’s phone without Apple’s help by Matt Zapotosky:
The Justice Department is abandoning its bid to force Apple to help it unlock the iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist attack because investigators have found a way in without the tech giant’s assistance, prosecutors wrote in a court filing Monday.
In a three-sentence filing, prosecutors wrote that they had “now successfully accessed the data” stored on Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone and that they consequently no longer needed Apple’s court-ordered help getting in. …
Probable cause is not required to justify a traffic stop; reasonable suspicion is enough. State v. Taylor, 2016-Ohio-1231, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS 1124 (4th Dist. March 11, 2016).
Defendant was taken to the police station, so he was arrested without probable cause. His search incident that produced a firearm was thus unreasonable, and the search is suppressed. People v. Phipps, 2016 V.I. LEXIS 26 (March 22, 2016).
Defendant consented under the implied consent law and then expressly. Mannix v. State, 2016 Ind. App. LEXIS 83 (March 23, 2016).*
Orin Kerr, An Economic Understanding of Search and Seizure Law, 164 U.Penn. L.Rev. 591 (2016). Abstract:
This Article uses economic concepts to understand search and seizure law, the law governing government investigations that is most often associated with the Fourth Amendment. It explains search and seizure law as a way to increase the efficiency of law enforcement by accounting for external costs of investigations. The police often discount negative externalities caused by their work. Search and seizure law responds by prohibiting investigative steps when external costs are excessive and not likely to be justified by corresponding public benefits. The result channels government resources into welfare-enhancing investigative paths instead of welfare-reducing steps that would occur absent legal regulation. This perspective on search and seizure law is descriptively helpful, it provides a useful analytical language to describe the role of different Fourth Amendment doctrines, and it facilitates fresh normative insights about recurring debates in Fourth Amendment law.
When page two of the original complaint for search warrant disappeared, the state was not required to comply with the Court Records Restoration Act to prove up the search warrant at the suppression hearing. A normally authenticated copy would do. The Act applies to lost originals in the clerk’s office, not proving a document in court. People v. Pitts, 2016 IL App (1st) 132205, 2016 Ill. App. LEXIS 170 (March 24, 2016). See Treatise § 60.14 & n.3.
A series of administrative search cases starting with Camara and See from 1967 all put defendants on notice that their actions in seizing persons in non-criminal contexts were subject to the Fourth Amendment for qualified immunity purposes. “Thus, on the facts alleged, construed in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, the Court concludes that Defendants had no justification, valid or otherwise, for seizing Plaintiffs. The lack of justification, on the facts alleged, is fatal. The obvious result of balancing Plaintiffs’ weighty interests against Defendants’ absent interests is that Defendants’ seizures of Plaintiffs were unreasonable and violated the Fourth Amendment.” J.L. v. N.M. Dep’t of Health, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 177181 (D.N.M. Sept. 29, 2015).*
Plaintiff was a sublessee of a dental office laboratory but was seen breaking in through a window by a neighbor who called 911. Police arrived and the reporter said the woman appeared drunk or on drugs. The first officer to arrive saw her through a basement window in a work shop area holding a knife. They got no response from her for many minutes and after several demands to surrender. They sent in a police dog which bit her. She was found in the ladies bathroom virtually unconscious and drunk by a female officer, and they learned she had a right to be there. Still, however, there was probable cause to believe that a burglary was going on by an armed person, and the officers are entitled to qualified immunity. There was no violation of clearly established law. James v. City of Boise, 2016 Ida. LEXIS 83 (March 23, 2016) (substituting for James v. City of Boise, 2015 Ida. LEXIS 130 (May 21, 2015)):
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A motion for return of property under Rule 41(g) is properly denied where the defendant has complete electronic versions of the records. United States v. Womack, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39097 (W.D.Mo. March 25, 2016).
Defendant was pulled over because her license plate light was out. “The deputy approached the driver, now known to be Tanya Coder, and told her there was no license plate light on the vehicle. Coder responded, ‘Oh. I have been drinking.’” She argued that the video didn’t support the cause of the stop. The court viewed the video and disagrees that it does. State v. Coder, 2016 Iowa App. LEXIS 263 (March 23, 2016).*
A Georgia state judge issued this search warrant, and it was supported by probable cause. In any event, the good faith exception saves it. Any exception to the good faith exception under Georgia law is irrelevant in a federal prosecution. United States v. Glass, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39344 (N.D. Ga. Feb. 16, 2016).
The officer saw defendant drive by him, and he knew that defendant’s DL was suspended. He followed and defendant was stopped. He didn’t use his lights, and just walked up to the car.“We conclude that the encounter between Sergeant Carver and Laflin was a noncoercive, tier-one police-citizen encounter that did not trigger the protections of the Fourth Amendment.” The court doesn’t address it, but it’s apparent that there was reasonable suspicion, too. State v. Laflin, 23 Neb. App. 839, 2016 Neb. App. LEXIS 67 (March 22, 2016).*
Defendant was suspected of shipping meth from Oahu to Kauai, Hawai’i. He flew out one morning to Honolulu and was returning that night. Officers waited in the airport for his return. They had two warrants for his arrest. When he landed, they arrested him on the warrants and conducted a search incident that revealed a USPS shipping receipt. Postal Inspectors looked at the sorting facility for the package, likely to have been on the same plane and found it. The nature of the Hawaiian Islands being what it is, Postal Inspectors only had an office in Honolulu, and the package had to be shipped there for more resources and to apply for a federal search warrant. The search incident producing the postal receipt was valid. The delay in the package delivery was reasonable under all the circumstances. United States v. Conwill, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36395 (D.Haw. March 21, 2016).
