The Economist: Welcome to the Drone Age
Miniature, pilotless aircraft are on the verge of becoming commonplace
Some analysts think the number of drones made and sold around the world this year will exceed 1m. In their view, what is now happening to drones is similar to what happened to personal computers in the 1980s, when Apple launched the Macintosh and IBM the PS/2, and such machines went from being hobbyists’ toys to business essentials.
Plaintiff had his probation revoked and reversed it on appeal. The appellate court’s order, although not addressing his specific issue, was still a termination in his favor for the Heck bar in a § 1983 case for wrongful prosecution. “This appeal raises a discrete issue involving claims for damages for unlawful incarceration brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. We must decide whether an order from the Superior Court of Pennsylvania vacating a sentence imposed by a court of common pleas constitutes a favorable termination of the proceedings against a plaintiff within the meaning of Heck v. Humphrey — notwithstanding the fact that the order failed expressly to address the inmate’s specific legal challenges to the sentence. For the reasons that follow, we hold that such an order constitutes a favorable termination of the proceedings against the plaintiff and that any § 1983 claims stemming from the invalidated sentence are not barred by Heck. Accordingly, we will affirm in part and reverse in part the District Court’s order dismissing Appellant’s claims.” Bronowicz v. Allegheny County, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 16769 (3d Cir. September 22, 2015).
Gunshots inside a house, screaming, and blood outside was exigent circumstances. [Yet it was argued it wasn’t. Hey, sometimes we have to.] United States v. Vanhorn, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 127261 (E.D.Tex. September 21, 2015).
A doctor was denied qualified immunity for seizing a child from a family without exigent circumstances. Taking the inferences from the discovery and resolving doubts for the plaintiff, they have enough to get the case to the jury, and the rights were clearly established. Jones v. County of L.A., 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 16725 (9th Cir. September 21, 2015) (2-1).*
The officers lied to an apartment manager that they looked through an apartment window and saw that it was abandoned. In fact, they couldn’t see that through the window. The landlord took them for protection to the apartment to get in. Inside, there was the stench of rotten food, the electricity was off, there were no clothes or other personal possessions. The Georgia Court of Appeals found the apartment abandoned. Considering the “double deference” of 2254 review, reasonable jurists could not disagree with that conclusion, although slightly suggesting that if they were the first court to review the search on appeal they’d have pause with that decision. Pineda v. Warden, Calhoun State Prison, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 16730 (11th Cir. September 21, 2015).
AOL Autoblog (from NWI Times): Dash cam shows cops pulling gun on couple and pregnant woman in labor during traffic stop by Sarah Reese. This was three years ago, and the video was just released.
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After the state lost a motion to suppress and an interlocutory appeal, it admittedly manipulated a recharging to get a second suppression hearing. The first was law of the case. “The doctrine of law of the case prevents a party from serially litigating an issue already presented and decided on appeal in the same proceeding. The doctrine promotes judicial efficiency while allowing litigants a full and fair opportunity to present their arguments on a point—the first bite of the proverbial apple. We apply law of the case to affirm the Clay County District Court’s ruling suppressing evidence the State intended to use to prosecute Defendant Dominic Parry for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia. The State lost an earlier motion to suppress in the district court, and another panel of this court affirmed that ruling on the State’s interlocutory appeal. In response, the State manipulated the prosecution of Parry, as it forthrightly admits, by dismissing and refiling the charges to take what we find to be an impermissible second bite at the apple to again argue the constitutionality of the search.” State v. Parry, 2015 Kan. App. LEXIS 62 (September 18, 2015).
The Nation: Think Police Can’t Use Illegally Obtained Evidence Against You? Think Again. by Paul Butler:
Hudson v. Michigan is one in a series of cases in which the Roberts Court has blessed police officers with extraordinary power. This power authorizes cops to engage in the kind of violent and undemocratic policing that make places like Ferguson and Baltimore look less like American cities and more like the outposts of some totalitarian regime.
CSMonitor: Does the spread of body cameras signal a rapid erosion of privacy? by Lucy Schouten:
Ubiquitous surveillance has long been the stuff of speculative and dystopian fiction, but as use of body cameras by police rises, so do questions about privacy.
Defendant’s traffic stop was based on the fact his older vehicle had just been registered and he was driving between Houston and San Antonio. The officer found a 14 year old drug arrest. It should have been apparent that defendant was merely a person of limited means driving an older car and not a drug mule. There was no reasonable suspicion for making or continuing the stop. The record is inadequate on the question of consent. Reversed. United States v. Madrigal, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 16755 (5th Cir. September 18, 2015).
“Defendant argues that his presence in an area of expected criminal activity, standing alone, is not enough to support a reasonable, particularized suspicion that criminal activity was afoot. His argument is unpersuasive because, even absent the address of the apartment complex, there were other factors to give the Officers reasonable suspicion — Defendant matched Ms. Chaney’s description of the armed intruder, he was standing next to a vehicle that matched the color description, and he was the only person in the parking lot.” United States v. Johnson, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125037 (M.D.Fla. September 16, 2015).*
Police had probable cause to arrest defendant for sex offenses with children, and the PC included the fact that his smartphone contained images of the crimes. When he was arrested, there was exigency for seizing his cell phone pending a search warrant. Hanifan v. State, 2015 Fla. App. LEXIS 13915 (Fla. 2d DCA September 18, 2015).
There was [obviously] probable cause to stop and arrest defendant for robbery. “Here, Det. Clapp and Det. McDonald had probable cause to stop Moore’s vehicle and arrest Moore on April 10, 2014, based on the information provided to them by Sgt. Gray and their team leader. The officers had been provided a physical description of Moore, the color, make, and model of the vehicle he drove, and a picture of Moore. In addition, and more importantly, they were informed that the victim in the Family Dollar Store robbery had positively identified Moore as the person who robbed her at gunpoint on March 30, 2014, and left in a gold or tan SUV.” United States v. Moore, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124519 (W.D.Tenn. August 5, 2015),* adopted 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 123464 (W.D. Tenn. Sept. 16, 2015).*
The court can take judicial notice of the reliability of GPS for probable cause. Here the question was probable cause for the arrest of a bank robbery suspect based on GPS tracking of the bait money. United States v. Mitchell, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124426 (E.D.Wis. June 25, 2015), adopted 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124434 (E.D. Wis. September 17, 2015):
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The Hill: TSA sued over full-body X-ray scanners by Keith Laing:
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is being sued over the controversial full-body X-ray scanners it uses at airport security checkpoints across the country.
The lawsuit, from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), argues that the TSA did not follow federal procedure for rulemaking when it decided to deploy the X-ray machines, which are known as Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) devices.
Atlantic (via NextGov): All the Ways the Government Can Use Your Phone to Watch You by Robinson Meyer:
Last week, the state of cellphone tracking became slightly more confusing. The U.S. Department of Justice announced that, except in emergency situations, federal agents would now seek warrants before using “Stingrays.” Stingrays are devices that mimic cellphone towers and can pinpoint a phone’s physical location or record which number they’re calling.
For people who follow the issue closely, like the ACLU, the news was welcome if limited. But for many, it made the situation around cellphone surveillance even trickier than it was before. …
It is reasonable during a traffic stop to order all the passengers out of a car and ask for their IDs and this is not a seizure beyond the initial traffic stop itself. Reasonable suspicion developed after that for a patdown. Cropper v. State, 2015 Del. LEXIS 455 (September 16, 2015).
Exigency justified the warrantless blood test of defendant because it was Thanksgiving weekend, and the police department was really shorthanded. State v. Morales, 2015 ND 230, 2015 N.D. LEXIS 248 (September 17, 2015).
It was reasonable to stop defendant for carrying an unboxed flat screen TV down a residential street at 9 am because that was unusual behavior. Once stopped, defendant became confrontational, and that justified a patdown that revealed a burglar tool that could be used as a weapon. United States v. Matchett, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 16713 (11th Cir. September 21, 2015).*
Defendant turned left without a signal, and the state statute required that it have a potential “affect” on traffic. Because the police car was the only other car around, and Heien was decided after the traffic stop, the court can’t say that the trial court erred in finding the stop unreasonable under the statute. Defendant, however, was also charged with obstructive behavior during the stop, and the court will not extend the Fourth Amendment to protect that. “We likewise decline to extend the right to resist to an illegal traffic stop. Compared to an arrest, a routine traffic stop is a short-lived encounter with law enforcement that entails far less of an intrusion on a driver’s personal liberty. Additionally, the typical motorist simply is not equipped to make a determination of whether there is a legal basis for a traffic stop. Whether the officer did, in hindsight, have probable cause to make the traffic stop should be resolved in a courtroom, not in the streets. To permit otherwise would effectively encourage drivers to engage in potentially explosive self-help methods. This, in turn, would increase the risk of escalating what should be a relatively benign interaction between law enforcement and a driver into a potentially dangerous or violent interaction.” State v. Nelson, 2015 OK CR 10, 2015 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 10 (September 19, 2015).
No case says that a BOLO alone is probable cause, and the collective knowledge must still be considered. In this case, the collective knowledge did not provide probable cause. While the officer had the subjective intent to arrest defendant, that’s not relevant, and the question is whether there was reasonable suspicion for the initial stop (Henley, 469 U.S. at 234). Because the BOLO involved a crime of violence, it was reasonable to handcuff defendant for officer safety during the stop when he admitted to having a gun in the car to await backup for a search for the gun. United States v. Hogan, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124244 (M.D.Ala. May 15, 2015), adopted 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 122390 (M.D. Ala. September 15, 2015).
The affidavit for the state search warrant for defendant’s cell phone for evidence relating to a homicide showed probable cause. In any event, the good faith exception would apply. United States v. Cruz, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124208 (M.D.Pa. September 17, 2015).*
A teacher and school officials coercively obtained plaintiff’s social media password because of alleged threatening messages. As First and Fourth Amendment rights, this right was not firmly established at the time, and defendants thus had no firm notice that their conduct violated the constitution. Jackson v. Ladner, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 16584 (5th Cir. September 15, 2015).
Defendant previously sought to pursue a post-conviction Fourth Amendment claim that his consent was involuntary and was denied. Then he sought to do it a different way by a successive petition and that was also denied. United States v. Dellere, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 16602 (5th Cir. September 15, 2015).*
WaPo: Obama faces growing momentum to support widespread encryption by Ellen Nakashima and Andrea Peterson:
White House officials have backed away from seeking a legislative fix to deal with the rise of encryption on communication devices, and they are even weighing whether to publicly reject a law requiring firms to be able to unlock their customers’ smartphones and apps under court order.
For the past year, law enforcement and the intelligence community have warned that an inability to obtain decrypted data is putting public safety and national security at risk, arguing it will allow criminals and terrorists to communicate securely. They have appealed to tech companies to voluntarily come up with solutions for their own products, and they don’t want to rule out legislation entirely.
Gov’t Technology: Is Your Phone’s GPS Protected by the Fourth Amendment? by the Free Press, Kinston, N.C.
In North Carolina, the answer is no.
The trial court erred in not suppressing the defendant’s search. The officer’s testimony that he smelled marijuana coming from the vehicle when he began talking to defendant was not credible. Also, the officer still sought consent to search the vehicle,* his testimony at two suppression hearings was inconsistent and another officer said he did not smell marijuana and his dog did not alert. Testimony that two drug dogs simultaneously misbehaved was suspect, and expert testimony that a videotape of the stop had been manipulated tainted all the police testimony. People v. Litwin, 2015 IL App (3d) 140429, 2015 Ill. App. LEXIS 707 (September 17, 2015).
* That alone should not mean that much because many officers seek consent even when they have probable cause, particularly of houses.
Under Illinois law, refusal of consent to a parole search is a violation of parole conditions in itself. That did not make the consent invalid. The court was entitled to believe he consented knowing that he had 800 g of cocaine in his car. People v. Collins, 2015 IL App (1st) 131145, 2015 Ill. App. LEXIS 702 (September 16, 2015).
Defendant was leaning back and hunched to the right of the driver’s seat of a parked car in a high crime area, and the officer reasonably believed there may be a motor vehicle theft in progress. That was sufficient to order defendant to show his hands and exit the car. United States v. Bridges, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 16587 (6th Cir. September 14, 2015).*
Defendant doesn’t show that the motion to suppress would have been granted, so defense counsel could not be ineffective. Officers responded to a report of man pointing a gun from a white Volvo, and they found the car. The windows were heavily tinted and they told the driver to show his hands. He moved his hands to his lap and they drew down on him. They approached with flashlights and saw the gun protruding from under the driver’s seat. The stop and search was valid. State v. Thomas, 2015 Del. Super. LEXIS 487 (September 8, 2015).*
