Arapahoe County prosecutors have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a decision by a state judge and the Colorado Supreme Court, which found that because the officer did not try to obtain a warrant before she ordered a blood draw on Schaufele, the results may not be presented as evidence. Thirteen other states filed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to pick up the case. If the high court takes up the case, their decision will have national implications. Continue reading →
Drones – usually the camera-equipped, multiple rotor variety – have also been spotted peeping into the windows of high-rise condos, interfering with medevac helicopters and buzzing fans attending football games. Perhaps the most alarming incident came last month when several mysterious drones flew over French nuclear facilities, raising fears of possible terrorist plots and explosive payloads.
Posted inDrones|Comments Off on NY Times: News Analysis: Things to Consider Before Buying That Drone
Because defendant’s apartment was only one of two on the floor, and he kept plants outside the door, the court finds a curtilage in his apartment such that a dog sniff at the door invaded the curtilage. This situation is distinguished from an outside sidewalk. State v. Rendon, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 12936 (Tex. App.– Corpus Christi – Edinburg December 4, 2014): Continue reading →
Posted inCurtilage, Dog sniff|Comments Off on TX13 finds an “apartment curtilage” in dog sniff at door of inside apartment
The search of defendant’s car couldn’t be justified as a search incident or an inventory, and the testimony is woefully inadequate to support either. Essentially, the officer testified, and acted at the scene like, he could search the car with impunity. Suppression is the appropriate remedy because “His motivation to search the car was to get a look inside to see what Edwards possessed. Hindsight shows that his instincts were good and I have no doubt that he thought he was operating within the bounds of the Fourth Amendment, but that does not make this an acceptable search.” United States v. Edwards, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 189132 (W.D. Wis. September 10, 2013): Continue reading →
Posted inInventory, Search incident|Comments Off on W.D.Wis.: Search of def’s car essentially was based on curiosity; no warrant exception applies; suppressed
“Reason to believe” the defendant is home for execution of an arrest warrant under Payton v. New York is less than probable cause. Fialdini v. Cote, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 22938 (4th Cir. December 5, 2014): Continue reading →
Posted inArrest or entry on arrest|Comments Off on CA4: “Reason to believe” the defendant is home for execution of an arrest warrant under Payton is less than PC
A “gun-like bulge” in clothing, high crime area, and turning away from the officer as he went by was reasonable suspicion defendant was armed. Commonwealth v. Carter, 2014 PA Super 265, 2014 Pa. Super. LEXIS 4539 (December 2, 2014).*
The district court credited both the defendant and the officer about whether defendant was wearing a seatbelt, and that was then at least an objective mistake of fact for the officer, so the stop was reasonable. The officer’s activating the key fob as a search wasn’t raised below, so, absent some controlling precedent, it can’t be clear error. United States v. Williams, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 22648 (D.C. Cir. December 2, 2014).*
The court finds the officers credible that defendant consented to a search of his car. United States v. Allen, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166990 (W.D. N.Y. August 15, 2014).*
Posted inConsent, Reasonable suspicion|Comments Off on PA: “Gun-like bulge,” high crime area, and turning away from the officer was RS
A passenger who walks away from a car when stopped has abandoned the car. He also has no reasonable expectation of privacy in stolen property he left in the trunk. In a suppression motion and hearing, any argument not raised in the district court is waived on appeal. United States v. Burnett, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 22662 (3d Cir. December 2, 2014).
There was a clear indication that defendant was driving under the influence, and his trip to the hospital for his injuries was going to be 60 miles. That justified taking blood without a warrant. State v. Mattix, 2014-Ohio-5319, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS 5144 (3d Dist. December 1, 2014).*
The finding of consent for a search of defendant’s boat was not clearly erroneous, considering the extensive findings from the trial court. State v. Collin, 2014 Conn. App. LEXIS 506 (December 9, 2014).*
Speaking of Mayberry, see this MRAP from the Bryant, Arkansas Police Dept.’s Facebook page in the same color, posted October 27th (via Arkansas Times today):
Uncanny. Creepy, actually. Especially if you’ve been in a few of their cases and read their case files.
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on Mayberry Sheriff’s Dept. by Bruce Plante
Michael Brown’s family, on the night of the Ferguson grand jury decision, called for all police in the United States to wear body cameras.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, in announcing that some of New York’s police officers would begin wearing them, said “body cameras are one of the ways to create a real sense of transparency and accountability.”
And on Monday, President Obama said he would request $75 million in federal funds to distribute 50,000 body cameras to police departments nationwide, saying they would improve police relations with the public.
But even as departments have started adopting the technology, questions remain about how much it can actually prevent violent encounters with citizens or clarify the boundaries of appropriate police response.
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on NY Times: Body Cameras Worn by Police Officers Are No ‘Safeguard of Truth,’ Experts
Police officers in New Orleans started wearing cameras this spring. Independent police monitor Susan Hutson tells NPR’s Scott Simon how the NOPD’s camera implementation is going.
ERIC GARNER was not the first American to be choked by the police, and he will not be the last, thanks to legal rules that prevent victims of police violence from asking federal courts to help stop deadly practices.
Posted inExcessive force|Comments Off on NYTimes: Op-Ed Contributors: Eric Garner and the Legal Rules That Enable Police Violence
In the 1996 case of Whren v. United States, the Court considered essentially the following question: If the police pull you over because you are black, but could have pulled you over for breaking the law (in that case, turning right without signaling and driving off at an ‘unreasonable’ speed), do you have the right to complain under the Fourth Amendment, and suppress evidence found after the stop? The Court said no. If there was a viable reason for the police action, it simply did not matter that there was also a bad reason. That’s true even if you could definitively prove that the stop wouldn’t have happened but for the racial prejudice of the officers.
Posted inReasonable suspicion|Comments Off on SCOTUSblog: Cases and controversies: Racial disparities in law enforcement practices
A search warrant was issued for dumpsters on a “large commercial property” for evidence of asbestos dumping in violation of EPA law. Accepting that there might be a “business curtilage,” the court finds this search warrant didn’t violate any reasonable expectation of privacy because of the location of the dumpster and all the people, including tenants, coming and going through the area that was ungated. The search warrant also wasn’t stale, nor was Franks violated. United States v. Chopra, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166991 (W.D. N.Y. July 10, 2014): Continue reading →
Here, the approval of the search warrant was mere ratification of the conclusion of the officer, so there was no probable cause and no good faith exception. United States v. Rutherford, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166917 (S.D. N.Y. December 2, 2014): Continue reading →
The drug war is a “miserable” failure and the federal government needs to take the lead on reforming marijuana policy, Houston Police Chief Charles McLelland said Friday in a radio interview. Continue reading →
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on HuffPo: Houston Police Chief Calls Drug War A ‘Miserable’ Failure, Says Feds Need To Lead Reform
Warrantless search of a sex offense probationer’s cell phone by state PO on reasonable suspicion he was arranging a liaison with a 15 year old was reasonable under Riley and Knights read together. United States v. Dahl, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 167206 (E.D. Pa. December 3, 2014): Continue reading →
Posted inCell phones, Probation / Parole search|Comments Off on M.D.Pa.: Warrantless PO’s search of cell phone with reasonable suspicion was reasonable
Defendant was a suspected heroin dealer taking his family on runs to Boston to get the heroin. When defendant left, they went to his house and did a trash pull and got his wife’s cell phone number from a bill in the trash. The got a warrant to ping her cell phone. Defendant didn’t have standing to contest pinging her cell phone. Even if he did, Ohio already holds that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy from pinging on public roads. State v. Campbell, 2014-Ohio-5315, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS 5141 (12th Dist. December 1, 2014): Continue reading →
Posted inCell phones, GPS / Tracking Data, Standing|Comments Off on OH12: Def had no standing to contest pinging wife’s cell phone even though police were looking for him
Under Florida law, DNA is taken from certain types of offenders at the time of booking. The statute is constitutional under Maryland v. King. However, the taking of defendant’s booking DNA for “identification” (King) to link him to a gun found in the car during an otherwise valid stop was unreasonable. United States v. Davis, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 167334 (M.D. Fla. October 24, 2014), adopted 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 167335 (M.D. Fla. December 3, 2014): Continue reading →
Posted inDNA, Exclusionary rule, Reasonableness|Comments Off on M.D.Fla.: Use of booking DNA statute to obtain DNA to link defendant to crime was unreasonable
Product of an arrest on a recently recalled warrant suppressed under the state constitution. The police had plenty of time to check the status of the warrant during the hours of surveillance looking for defendant and waiting for him to show up. They also violated their department’s own policy on checking the validity of warrants before attempting to execute them. Commonwealth v. Maingrette, 86 Mass. App. Ct. 691, 20 N.E.3d 626 (2014): Continue reading →
McNeely requires a warrant for DWI BAC blood draws. State v. Halseth, 2014 Ida. LEXIS 313 (December 2, 2014).
The EEOC sent emails about age discrimination to hundreds of plaintiff’s employees. The company sued the EEOC claiming, inter alia, a Fourth and Fifth Amendment violation in sending emails. The court finds no standing. Case New Holland, Inc. v. EEOC, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166439 (D.D.C. October 17, 2014).*
The stop here was justified by a stop sign violation and license plate not visible. United States v. Aleman, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166745 (D. Kan. September 8, 2014).*
"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.
