Business Insider: Two Supreme Court Cases About Dogs May Profoundly Impact Americans' Privacy by Michael Kelley:

On Oct. 31, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear two cases from Florida about drug-sniffing dogs that will either affirm or weaken the constitutional privacy rights of Americans.

Rulings favorable to the government would allow law enforcement to conduct warrantless searches and surveillance on an even more routine basis.

NYTimes.com: First Plaintiffs Testify in Federal Challenge to Police Stop-and-Frisk Policy by Joseph Goldstein:

Charles E. Bradley stood outside his fiancée’s fifth-floor apartment at about 5 p.m., the agreed-upon time, and began drumming on the door, he testified Tuesday, re-creating the sound in Federal District Court in Manhattan, his knuckles rat-a-tatting on the witness stand. She did not respond, he said, and so after waiting a moment — she is deaf in one ear — he left.

Mr. Bradley, who is in his early 50s, said he reached the sidewalk on that May evening last year and looked up toward his fiancée’s window. “We were expecting to get together,” he said. “Where is she?”

It was then that a police van pulled up, he said, and within moments an officer was questioning Mr. Bradley and searching his pockets.

The Columbia Science and Technology Law Review: The Fourth Amendment in the Digital Age by Min Choi:

In the old days – and even now, as Occupy Wall Street exemplifies – people took to the streets to protest. But as technology evolved, new forms of demonstrations appeared. One such form is hacking to pursue political ends – hack-activism, or hactivism. A famous example of a hactivist group is Anonymous, whose attacks on government and major corporation websites to protest online surveillance and censorship were widely publicized.

Officers had reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop and continuing it based on wiretap information well before the stop. His consent thereafter was voluntary. United States v. Elkins, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148668 (E.D. Mo. September 25, 2012).*

Defendant’s Franks challenge fails–there were two officers involved in the affidavit, and, as a whole, it doesn’t show material falsity by an officer. Inconsistencies alone don’t show reckless or intentional falsity. United States v. Lopez, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148042 (E.D. Ky. September 13, 2012).*

On defendant’s 2255, he failed to show he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched to have standing to challenge the search. So, his lawyer was not ineffective for not pursuing it. Beatty v. United States, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 147967 (D. Mass. October 15, 2012).

Officers did a knock-and-talk at defendant’s girlfriend’s house where defendant was spending the night. The trial court erred in holding the defendant lacked standing as an overnight guest, and the case is remanded for reconsideration of the motion to suppress. State v. Winston, 2012 Ohio 4743, 2012 Ohio App. LEXIS 4156 (2d Dist. October 12, 2012).*

The state planted a GPS device pre-Jones, and the defendant moved to suppress. The state failed to properly raise a Davis good faith exception argument and forfeited it. State v. Henry, 2012 Ohio 4748, 2012 Ohio App. LEXIS 4161 (2d Dist. October 12, 2012).*

Defendant’s continued detention became unreasonable, and his consent was tainted. State v. Rogers, 2012 Ohio 4753, 2012 Ohio App. LEXIS 4163 (2d Dist. October 12, 2012).*

Defendant was in a car with another that was stopped by the police, and the driver gave consent to search. The driver’s consent did not apply to separate luggage in the car that belonged to the passenger, and the officer told defendant that the driver consented so he was searching. The passenger’s silence is not consent. United States v. Blas, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 147486 (M.D. La. October 11, 2012).

Because of the complete lack of factual allegations from the defendant supporting the motion to suppress, the motion is denied. The government’s response shows justification, and defendant raised no question for a hearing. United States v. Carter, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 147010 (W.D. N.Y. September 11, 2012).*

No standing in installation of GPS in a car in which defendant was only a passenger. United States v. Merritte, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 147962 (D. Nev. October 15, 2012).*

Disagreeing with the majority of cases and following the minority view, the Davis good faith exception is not applied to pre-Jones GPS use. United States v. Robinson, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 147793 (E.D. Mo. October 15, 2012):

But I do not read Davis that broadly, and do not agree that the Davis good faith exception applies here. I recognize that the majority in Davis spent much time discussing the rationale underlying the exclusionary rule and the need to balance the societal cost of its application. The majority noted that the deterrence benefits of exclusion "'var[y] with the culpability of the law enforcement conduct' at issue." Davis, 131 S.Ct. at 2427 (quoting Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 143, 129 S. Ct. 695, 172 L. Ed. 2d 496 (2009)). Thus, "when the police act with an objectively reasonable good-faith belief that their conduct is lawful ... the deterrence rationale loses much of its force and exclusion cannot pay its way." Id. at 2427-28 (internal citations and quotations omitted).

I do not believe, however, that in Davis the Supreme Court announced a good faith exception that invites courts to engage in a free-ranging balancing test in the absence of controlling Supreme Court or Circuit authority. Rather, I agree with the Ortiz group of cases, that the holding in Davis extends only to "binding" precedent. The language of Davis is narrow, and quite specific. In discussing whether the police were culpable, the majority in Davis noted "the officers' conduct was in strict compliance with then-binding Circuit law." Davis, at 2428-29. The opinion repeatedly references "binding" authority, see, e.g., id., at 2428, 2429, 2431, 2434; the majority did not reference "generally accepted authority." Indeed, the majority specifically noted that the situation might be different with "defendants in jurisdictions in which the question remains open." Id. at 2432; see also id. at 2436 (Sotomayor, J., concurring). The majority also limited its holding to cases where "binding appellate precedent specifically authorizes a particular police practice." Id. at 2429.

This narrow extension of the exception is consistent with the Davis majority's discussion of the Leon good faith exception. The Court traced the case law progression from good faith reliance on a defective warrant issued by a magistrate judge, to good faith reliance on subsequently invalidated statutes, good faith reliance on erroneous information in a database maintained by judicial employees, and good faith reliance on an isolated record in a police database. Id. at 2427-28. The Court recognized that in those instances, application of the exclusionary rule would make little sense and would have no real deterrent value. In those situations the errant conduct was that of the judge, the legislature, the court staff, or those charged with maintaining a database, not of the officers who reasonably relied on that information in effecting a search, and the exclusionary rule was not intended to deter the actions of the former group. The Court reasoned that application of the exclusionary rule to the facts in Davis would be like "penaliz[ing] the officer for the [appellate judges'] error." Id. at 2429 (internal citations omitted).

Defendant has no right to be arrested only at the earliest possible time. Officers can watch and let the situation develop to see what else happens. United States v. Davis, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 145849 (D. Neb. September 21, 2012)*:

Law enforcement officers had informant information indicating the defendant was engaged in illegal drug activity during the summer and fall of 2011, and they had probable cause to arrest the defendant when they smelled marijuana and saw drug paraphernalia within his apartment in October of 2011. But the law does not require officers to initiate an arrest when they first have a basis to do so. They may choose to monitor a situation and further investigate, particularly when, based on their education and experience, they believe the magnitude of defendant's criminal activity exceeds their current basis for arrest.

Defendant calls the affidavit for search warrant bare bones, but the argument picks out pieces and doesn’t consider the affidavit as a whole which does, in fact, show probable cause. United States v. Gumula, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 146967 (W.D. N.C. June 29, 2012), R&R adopted 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 143697 (W.D. N.C. October 3, 2012).*