Sail Magazine: Coast Guard Boardings and Your Fourth Amendment Rights, Part 1 by Clark Beek:

Sorry, but when it comes to Coast Guard boardings, you don’t have any rights.

I’m surprised how many boaters don’t know this. The US Coast Guard can board your boat any time they want, and look anywhere they want, without probable cause or a warrant. They can do this on the open sea, or while you’re asleep aboard in your marina at midnight. They can look through your bedsheets, in your lockers, in your bilges, in your jewelry box, or in your pockets. They can do it carrying just their sidearms, or they can do it carrying assault rifles. They can be polite about it or they can be rude, but mostly they’re polite.

If you’re an avid boater you can expect to be boarded every year or two.

I explain this to my guests aboard Condesa, some of whom are lawyers, and I’m met with disbelief: “But that’s a blatant violation of your constitutional rights! They need probable cause, or a warrant from a judge!”

“Not on a boat, my friend, not on a boat.”

Reasonable mistake of law in Ohio not a reason to suppress. State v. Reedy, 2012 Ohio 4899, 2012 Ohio App. LEXIS 4290 (5th Dist. October 17, 2012):

[*P15] In the instant case, the facts are not in dispute. Instead, appellant challenges the trial court's application of the legal standard to those facts. Appellant argues the issue before us is whether appellant's failure to signal upon turning left from a private parking lot is a violation of the law. We find, though, that answering this question is not central to the analysis. Instead, the issue we must resolve is whether a police officer may stop an individual when the officer reasonably but mistakenly believes the conduct is a violation of the law; the answer to this question is "yes." State v. Garnett, 10th Dist. No. 09AP-1149, 2010 Ohio 5865, ¶ 13, appeal not allowed, 128 Ohio St. 3d 1447, 2011 Ohio 1618, 944 N.E.2d 696, reconsideration denied, 128 Ohio St. 3d 1504, 2011 Ohio 2420, 947 N.E.2d 685, citing State v. Gunzenhauser, 5th Dist. No. 09-CA-21, 2010 Ohio 761, ¶ 16.

Note: But not many other jurisdictions. This is a conflict between states and circuits.

Citizens’ complaints of animal cruelty supported the search warrant for defendant’s property where growing marijuana was found. Also, defendant showed one officer around by consent. Minor inaccuracies in the affidavit for the warrant were not enough to satisfy Franks. Even so, without it there was still probable cause. United States v. Chilinski, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 152415 (D. Mont. October 23, 2012).*

Defendant’s stop was justified because his license plate was attached upside down. State law required the license plate be “clearly legible,” and it was for the officer to call it in. Nevertheless, that qualifies. United States v. Dealba, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 152708 (D. Nev. September 14, 2012), adopted 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 152707 (D. Nev. October 24, 2012).*

The state trooper’s search warrant application saying that they had found marijuana grows based on smell 108 times when it was really 128 didn’t matter to the finding of probable cause. McGowen v. State, 2012 Alas. App. LEXIS 160 (October 24, 2012).*

Defendant’s suppression hearing testimony that he did not consent to his search and that he refused to consent barred his argument that his consent was involuntary. Elliott v. Commonwealth, 2012 Va. App. LEXIS 335 (October 23, 2012)*:

In essence, Elliott asks us to hold the trial court erred (as a matter of law) by not finding (as a matter of fact) that he involuntarily consented to the search, even though he swore under oath that he voluntarily refused to consent to the search. In other words — lest we appear to be splitting hairs — for Elliott to prevail on appeal he must first prove that he perjured himself in the trial court. Such a self-defeating argument ordinarily brings appellate review to a standstill. A criminal defendant, no less than any other litigant, "is bound by [his] testimony on appeal." Waters v. Commonwealth, 39 Va. App. 72, 79, 569 S.E.2d 763, 766 (2002) (citing Delawder v. Commonwealth, 214 Va. 55, 57, 196 S.E.2d 913, 915 (1973)). We need not rest our holding solely on this ground, however, because the other circumstances of this case confirm the trial court's finding that Elliott was not coerced into consenting to the search.

Note: Unacceptable. The trial court held that he consented. Therefore, the defendant should have the complete right to argue that the trial court was wrong in finding consent, at least as an alternative argument, no matter that the defendant testified to. How does the defendant attack the findings then if his testimony is just rejected? Apparently this court is staffed with former lawyers who never tried a case.

Volokh: Thirty-Six Circuit Splits in Fourth Amendment Law by Orin Kerr:

That’s according to Wayne Logan’s new article, Constitutional Cacophony: Federal Circuit Splits and the Fourth Amendment, and I know of several more just off the top of my head. Wayne argues in his article that circuit splits are harmful because the law needs to be uniform. He therefore proposes ways that the Supreme Court can be forced to hear more cases where a split exists. In particular, Wayne joins the group of scholars that have argued in favor of appellate court certification of cases to the Supreme Court.

ACLU: Next Monday at the Supreme Court: Trying to Stop the NSA’s Unconstitutional Overreach by Josh Bell:

The next time you send an email or make a phone call to a friend outside the country, consider this: the National Security Agency could be making a copy of your communication and storing it. What about the Fourth Amendment? According to the government, not only is this practice constitutional, but ordinary federal courts should not even be allowed to rule on it.

On October 29th, the ACLU will be at the Supreme Court to argue this very issue in our lawsuit challenging the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program, which Congress authorized in the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. This unprecedented law allows the NSA to engage in dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international emails and phone calls.