Department of Family Services did a "welfare check" of defendant's home that did not involve a search. While talking to her kids, however, the kids all mentioned that defendant was doing meth with their stepfather and others, providing detailed information going back five years. This was probable cause for a search warrant, even in light of Wyoming's standard of informant hearsay being greater than that of the Fourth Amendment. [The affidavit provided incredible detail.] Crackenberger v. State, 2006 WY 162, 2006 Wyo. LEXIS 178 (December 28, 2006):
[*P13] Under the "totality of the circumstances" approach, we find this information, when combined with the high degree of reliability of the informants and the experience and knowledge of the affiant, sufficient to establish probable cause that methamphetamine and methamphetamine paraphernalia would be found in the appellant's home. The appellant's arguments that the informants have no specialized knowledge of methamphetamine and that there are other explanations for the appellant's change in behavior are also not well received. While the informants may not have specialized knowledge of controlled substances and drug-related behavior, the affiant in the instant case did have such knowledge and properly applied it to the first-hand observations from the informants. The affiant's knowledge and training, combined with the informants' first-hand knowledge, was sufficient to provide the judicial officer with a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause existed in the instant case to search the appellant's home.
Heck bars a civil action against a Sheriff's deputy alleging that the charges pending against the plaintiff are unfounded. McCuin v. Maricopa County, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 93826 (D. Ariz. December 27, 2006).*
A traffic stop occurred in a high crime area of Boston known for shootings. Furtive movements of the defendant where he would not keep his hands in sight made the officer "skittish" and justified getting the defendant out for a patdown. As the defendant got out of the car, the butt of a gun was visible from under his seat. The seizure was lawful. United States v. McConnico, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 93749 (D. Mass. December 21, 2006).*
Giving the complaint its broadest possible reading, even though plaintiff did not cite § 1983 until his response to the motion for judgment on the pleadings, the complaint fairly alleges a Fourth Amendment violation, so judgment on the pleadings is denied. Varela v. San Francisco City & County, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 93668 (N.D. Cal. December 14, 2006).*
In a habeas case alleging ineffective assistance of counsel for not challenging a blood draw of the defendant in state court that apparently led to his conviction, the habeas court set a hearing on the merits of the claim. [Apparently the court is seeking to resolve the prejudice prong of Strickland before determining whether it is necessary to decide a failure of performance.] Emerson v. Yates, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 93713 (E.D. Cal. December 14, 2006).*
Citizen informant witnessed theft of her mail and tailed the defendant's car calling the police. That was justification for a stop. Kupper v. Commonwealth, 2006 Ky. App. LEXIS 388 (December 22, 2006).* (This was a simple issue, and the court seemed to spend a lot of time addressing it, likely explaining away the authorities cited by the defendant.)
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Section 1983 Blog
"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).
"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
"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]
“You know, most men would get discouraged by
now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
—Pepé LePew
"There is never enough time, unless you are serving it."
—Malcolm Forbes
"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)