{"id":6749,"date":"2012-03-29T08:55:43","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T00:15:12","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-28T19:19:55","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=6749","title":{"rendered":"CA4: Dist Ct erred and imposed too high a standard for probable cause"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Maryland state troopers had probable cause to search defendant\u2019s car, so the district court erred in concluding that the officers exceeded the scope of consent and applied the wrong standard of what is probable cause. <a href=\"http:\/\/pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov\/opinion.pdf\/114193.P.pdf\">United States v. Ortiz<\/a>, 669 F.3d 439 (4th Cir. 2012):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This ruling erroneously elevated the probable cause standard to one more demanding than a preponderance. Probable cause requires an officer to have a &#8220;reasonable ground for belief of guilt&#8221;\u2014&#8221;more than bare suspicion.&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar_case?case=14598960307565581868&amp;q=brinegar&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=2,14\">Brinegar<\/a>, 338 U.S. at 175 (emphasis added). A &#8220;reasonable ground&#8221; for belief is less demanding than a standard requiring a preponderance of the evidence for the belief. See <a href=\"http:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar_case?case=12877848434623819956&amp;q=place&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=1002\">Gates<\/a>, 462 U.S. at 235; <a href=\"http:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar_case?case=7583625156957523212&amp;q=372+F.3d+653&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=2,14\">Humphries<\/a>, 372 F.3d at 660 (&#8220;[T]he probable-cause standard does not require that the officer&#8217;s belief be more likely true than false&#8221;). Thus, when the district court concluded that a search of the vehicle would &#8220;more likely than not&#8221; have uncovered contraband, it reached a conclusion that satisfied the probable-cause standard and authorized the Maryland State Police to search Ortiz&#8217;s vehicle.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>b2evALnk.b2WPAutP <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=6749\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}