Post details: Corroboration of statements against penal interest saved warrant where no showing of basis of knowledge

04/30/08

Permalink 05:45:19 am, by fourth, 571 words, 221 views   English (US)
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Corroboration of statements against penal interest saved warrant where no showing of basis of knowledge

Affidavit for search warrant did not show the informant's basis of knowledge, but the affidavit related statements against penal interest and the officer corroborated significant details. Thus, the officer showed probable cause. United States v. Evans, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 34285 (D. Vt. April 23, 2008).*

Outstanding traffic warrant justified limited entry and protective sweep when the person wanted answered the door. When defendant answered the door, he was inside, and the kitchen was right next to him, so the officers could conduct a protective sweep of the kitchen and plain view supported seizure of drugs on the kitchen counter. United States v. Williams, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 34278 (W.D. La. February 5, 2008)*:

In this case, the officers knew of an outstanding traffic warrant for the defendant. The defendant does not challenge the existence or validity of the warrant. In addition, the officers had several reasons to believe the defendant was home. First, they had identified the pickup truck parked outside as one the defendant drove. Second, when the officers knocked on the front door, Williams opened the door. Baugh immediately recognized Williams, having previously viewed a photograph of him. Since the officers had an arrest warrant and reason to believe that Williams was home, they had the authority to enter into the home to arrest him.

. . .

Each of these cases -- Charles, Thomas, and Mayo -- supports the holding that the kitchen in this case constituted an immediately adjoining space under Buie. In this case, the defendant was arrested in the doorway of his house, with the majority of his body inside the house. The kitchen immediately adjoins the area just inside the front door. Furthermore, a wall that extends five feet from the front of the house toward the back made it impossible for the officers to see a portion of the kitchen. In the portion of the kitchen not visible, there was adequate space from which another individual could launch an attack. By taking just a few steps, Baugh or Kent could see around the corner and ensure their safety. This distance is comparable to that covered by the officers in Charles and Mayo, and significantly less than that covered by the officer in Thomas. As a result, the officers could look into the kitchen for other persons, even if they did not have probable cause or reasonable suspicion.

Two hour delay for processing at the Laredo border crossing was not unreasonable. Defendant's story was that he was in Mexico for two weeks visiting with a child, and the Customs officers thought the car seemed unusually clean for a two week trip with a child. The car was subjected to a mobile x-ray inspection, and then directed to the side for a further more intense search that produced drugs hidden in the dash. United States v. Cervantez-Valerio, 275 Fed. Appx. 417 (5th Cir. 2008) (unpublished)*:

Cervantez' contention that the search of his vehicle became unreasonable merely because the Officers searched unsuccessfully for contraband for roughly two hours fails. As Flores-Montano makes clear, the Fourth Amendment does not shield individuals from "inconvenience or delay at the international border". Id. at 155. n.3 ("We think it clear that delays of one to two hours at international borders are to be expected.").

. . .

Cervantez also maintains the Government impermissibly used a probe to determine there was cocaine behind his dashboard, claiming the Officers had no reasonable suspicion to believe they would uncover contraband. This claim, however, is similarly disposed of by Flores-Montano.

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"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)

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Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948)

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