A foot in a shutting house door is an entry into the home, and qualified immunity was properly denied. Dalcour v. City of Lakewood, 492 Fed. Appx. 924 (10th Cir. 2012):

The Supreme Court has clearly established that Fourth Amendment protection starts at the physical limits of a home. See Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 741 (2002) (warning that “officials can still be on notice that their conduct violates established law even in novel factual circumstances”). The Court has “shifted the qualified immunity analysis from a scavenger hunt for prior cases with precisely the same facts toward the more relevant inquiry of whether the law put officials on fair notice that the described conduct was unconstitutional.” Gomes v. Wood, 451 F.3d 1122, 1134 (10th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “[A] general constitutional rule ... can apply with obvious clarity to the specific conduct in question, even though [such conduct] has not previously been held unlawful.” Anderson v. Blake, 469 F.3d 910, 914 (10th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). In sum, the qualified immunity analysis requires that we determine whether a reasonable officer would have known that the conduct at issue was unconstitutional.

In the present case, based on the extensive Supreme Court and Tenth Circuit precedent emphasizing the significance of any physical intrusion into a home, a reasonable officer should have known that placing a foot into the doorway amounted to an entry of the home for Fourth Amendment purposes. Because the facts presented do not establish an objectively reasonable basis for believing anyone in the home needed immediate aid or that there was any other exigent circumstance which would justify a warrantless entry, the district court erred in granting Agent Gillespie qualified immunity.

Defendant was in a Budget rental car that was days overdue, which Budget told officers. When the car rental manager showed up, once there, he validly consented to a search of the car which vitiated defendant’s lack of valid consent argument. United States v. Lumpkins, 687 F.3d 1011 (8th Cir. 2012). [Note, some cases hold that there is no REP in an overdue rental car, which isn’t right. This is a far better approach because somebody with an ownership interest who has already revoked consent to the rental can consent to the search.]

Defendant’s search issue was decided on direct appeal and can’t be relitigated in a 2255. Sims v. United States, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109478 (W.D. N.C. August 6, 2012).*

It was not a Fourth Amendment violation to threaten to release a dog into a building to make defendant come out. In any event, defendant had no standing in the place he was hiding. United States v. Pate, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109088 (D. Minn. August 3, 2012).*

“Here, Trooper Miller asked Saucedo if he had any weapons, cannabis or cocaine in his truck or trailer, and Saucedo answered ‘no.’ At that point, Saucedo volunteered that Miller could search, even before Miller requested permission. Trooper Miller specifically asked Saucedo if he could search his truck and trailer, and Saucedo answered, ‘yes.’ So Saucedo was well aware that Miller was looking for drugs.” The officer used a screwdriver to open the back of a TV and found drugs there. The search was valid. United States v. Saucedo, 688 F.3d 863 (7th Cir. 2012). [The Eighth Circuit is contra on this.]

Defendant, represented by an attorney, requested leave to file a pro se supplemental motion to suppress, which was granted, and it was 291 pages long. It only served to “muddy the water” and produce a 100 page opinion. There were multiple individual seizures and searches of luggage, a motel room, computers, and a storage unit. A delay of five days in getting a search warrant was “unfortunate” but not unreasonable considering New Years Day came in between. The case started as a fraud case with identity theft information on the computer, but child pornography was found in files with unsuspecting names, and another search warrant was sought. The searches were all reasonable. United States v. Kowalczyk, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 108879 (D. Ore. August 3, 2012).*

ACLU: Bad News On Warrantless GPS Tracking by Catherine Crump:

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a disappointing but fortunately narrow decision in a case involving warrantless tracking of a vehicle with a GPS device. The three-judge panel refused to exclude GPS tracking evidence under what’s known as the “good faith” exception, ruling that when the tracking took place, law enforcement agents reasonably relied on binding circuit court precedent in concluding that no warrant was necessary. The tracking happened before the Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Jones that GPS device tracking triggers Fourth Amendment protections.

In the case, [United States v. Pineda-Moreno, 688 F.3d 1087 (9th Cir. 2012)] law enforcement agents attached GPS tracking devices to Mr. Pineda-Moreno’s vehicle. They did not get a warrant, and the Ninth Circuit initially ruled they didn’t need one because of its view that the Fourth Amendment provides no protections against warrantless GPS tracking.

Defendant lacked standing to challenge placement of a GPS device pre-Jones on his brother’s Porsche. United States v. Coleman, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109480 (W.D. N.C. August 6, 2012).*

U.Chi.Underg.L.Rev.: A Technologically Sensitive Amendment: A Historical Analysis of the Fourth Amendment and the Development of Technology by Aglaia Ovtchinnikova:

The original Constitution, drafted in 1787, did not contain a Bill of Rights. The Fourth Amendment contains just fifty-four words, and, while on the surface they seem reasonably clear, one must note that it does not forbid all searches; nor does it forbid all searches without a warrant granted by a court. The Amendment undoubtedly forbids “unreasonable searches and seizures,” but in practical application, we rely so heavily on the facts of each case that any sense of grounding in neutrality or standard procedure is heavily shaken. With each case that is brought forth, the courts grapple with the drafters’ intention, while balancing the needs of the people in the modern era. The introduction of various technologies that the drafters could have never even imagined begs the question: what types of searches enabled by these novel devices should be permitted as constitutional, and which others should be deemed so intrusive that they violate the protections offered by the Fourth Amendment?