Officers responding to a 911 hang up call could approach the front door of the house from where the call came and knock. Getting no answer, they could survey the perimeter to see what was going on. They came back to the front door and then smelled marijuana, for which they got a search warrant. United States v. Robbins, 682 F.3d 1111 (8th Cir. 2012).*

Defendant’s specific argument that his stop for driving too long in the left lane could not be the basis for his stop 20+ miles after the sign was not made below, and it did not show plain error. United States v. Castro, 480 Fed. Appx. 782 (5th Cir. 2012).*

An officer merely walking up to a stopped car is not a seizure. Here, two cars were stopped, and the officer stopped between them. He walked back to the second car to tell them they were not being stopped, and they were not seized. State v. Ray, 286 P.3d 1114 (Ida. 2012).*

Defendant and a companion were seen by police peering into a car in a purported high crime area. When they saw the officer, they walked away. That was not flight, and it did not add up to reasonable suspicion. The "high crime area" claim was discounted, too, as ambiguous on this record. United States v. Dell, 487 Fed. Appx. 440 (10th Cir. 2012) (2-1).

State probation and parole in Las Vegas has its office in a police complex, and police decided to run the license numbers of all cars in the parking garage and search those that had a probation or parole condition. Defendant’s car was searched without knowledge of his search condition, and a gun was found, and defendant was charged with FIPF. “The Government failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the search of the car, conducted after the stop, was (1) based on a reasonable, particularized and objective basis for suspecting defendant of criminal activity, (2) based on the searching officer's actual prior knowledge of defendant's status as a supervisee, (3) properly narrowed in scope to fit the purpose of the investigatory stop, (4) consensual, or (5) justified for any other reason.” United States v. Gray, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88744 (D. Nev. March 27, 2012), reconsideration denied 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88750 (D. Nev. May 23, 2012).*

Officers came to defendant’s business with a writ of execution because he was a judgment debtor. While picking up property, they saw a key marked “Sentry” and saw a small Sentry safe. They opened the safe looking for cash and found, among other things, hallucinogenic mushrooms, which got him charged. The search was for civil purposes and was governed by the administrative search law, and this search exceeded the terms of the state statute on writs of execution. That made it violate the state constitution. State v. Mast, 250 Ore. App. 605, 282 P.3d 916 (2012).

Defendant was a suspect in using a facility of interstate commerce to entice a minor to engage in illicit sexual activity, and there was probable cause to make his arrest. The search of his car producing condoms and a cell phone was justified by search incident under Gant. The car was also being towed, and it would inevitably be inventoried. United States v. Hobbs, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88925 (E.D. Mo. May 15, 2012), adopted 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88946 (E.D. Mo. June 27, 2012).*

A school teacher had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his desk at work because it was never locked, it was in a common area, and others had access. Walker v. State, 206 Md. App. 13, 47 A.3d 590 (2012):

Applying precedent [Macusi and O’Connor et al.] to the case at bar yields the conclusion that appellant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the desk. We recognize that appellant was assigned the desk and that he had used the same desk in prior school years. Yet, the desk was owned by the school system and was located in a large, open, well-traversed room. This room was referred to as the "first grade pod," connecting several classrooms, and contained desks for two other paraeducators. Because it was so centrally located, students and faculty routinely passed the desk. Small instructional groups and after-school programs also held meetings and conducted other activities in the large room, which was only secured at night when the custodians locked the doors leading to the outer hallways. Appellant could have taken steps to safeguard what he kept in the desk, but did not. The principal of appellant's school indicated that although other people at the school likely would not have reason to open the drawers of the desk, he stated that someone might look in the desk "to borrow a pencil or something like that." Furthermore, at the time of the search, the drawers read "seminars, research data," "student data," and "learning."

Regardless of who originally placed them on the drawers, the labels suggested that the drawers contained school-related materials accessible to a wide range of persons, rather than appellant's personal, private items. Cf. O'Connor, 480 U.S. at 718 (employee had a reasonable expectation of privacy in desk and file cabinet in own office not shared with anyone else in which he stored personal documents); Gillard v. Schmidt, 579 F.2d 825, 828 (1978) (guidance counselor who was responsible for maintaining confidential student records and whose desk was in an office secured by a locked door had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his desk). Appellant could have used a private locker provided to him by the school, but he did not. Appellant had the option of locking the desk, but he did not. The aforementioned facts, taken together, indicate that appellant did not have a subjective expectation of privacy, and even if he did, such an expectation was objectively unreasonable under the circumstances presented. Accordingly, we discern no error in the circuit court's denial of appellant's motion to suppress.

Maryland adopts the Sixth Circuit rule of United States v. Allen, 106 F.3d 695, 699 (6th Cir. 1997), on a motel manager terminating motel residency as also terminating a reasonable expectation in the motel room. Bordley v. State, 205 Md. App. 692, 46 A.3d 1204 (2012):

The Sixth Circuit rejected the defense contention that this warrantless entry violated the Fourth Amendment, reasoning that "a hotel guest's use of a room for illegal purposes, and beyond the pre-paid rental period vitiates the guest's reasonable expectation of privacy." Id. at 699. As long as the motel had a "valid and legitimate" reason for terminating the tenancy, "[t]he manager's consent to the officers' search of the room was all that was required to avoid constitutional infirmity." Id. (footnote omitted). Thus, "[o]nce a manager, through private action, took possession of the motel room," the defendant guest "could no longer assert a legitimate privacy interest in its contents." Id.

Although we found no Maryland precedent considering the warrantless entry of a locked-out hotel room at the request of hotel management,4 we conclude that here, as in Allen, the legality of the hotel's consent depends upon whether the hotel locked out the room for a "valid and legitimate reason." See id. In answering that question, however, we recognize that the Sleep Inn's asserted reason for locking out Room 118 was not non-payment or misconduct by the registered guest, but rather to safeguard hotel employees and guests.