An officer outside his territorial jurisdiction making an arrest does not implicate the Fourth Amendment. Virginia v. Moore. “As previously stated, Appellant does not challenge that Morgan had probable cause to stop him, or that the search of his vehicle was defective. The record demonstrates the traffic stop and search comported with the tenets of the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in denying Appellant’s motion to suppress.” Thompson v. State, 2025 OK CR 4, 2025 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 4 (Feb. 13, 2025).
“Unfortunately for Mr. Tarr, his aversions regarding an ‘illegal search’ in his case fail to meet this standard for ‘clear error.’ First, the Government correctly points out that Mr. Tarr provides only the most skeletal of allegations regarding the basis of the alleged illegality. He does not state at which search, the first or the second, the police purportedly failed to show him a warrant, does not claim relevant material (or any material at all) was seized from the shed during the allegedly illegal search, and does not aver the shed was outside either warrant’s scope. He also failed to provide any legal authority in support of his proposition that, in Maine, state police officers must exhibit a search warrant prior to undertaking the authorized search.” [And that wouldn’t matter under Moore anyway.] United States v. Tarr, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26832 (D. Me. Feb. 14, 2025).*
The government says it doesn’t intend to use challenged evidence, so the motion to suppress is moot. If the government changes its mind, defendant can reassert it. United States v. Combs, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25641 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 12, 2025).*
Defendants pled in state court, and those cases became part of a larger RICO case in federal court. Their guilty pleas were waivers in state court but did not have preclusive effect on raising a Fourth Amendment claim in the RICO case. United States v. Williams, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25915 (E.D. La. Feb. 13, 2025).*
There’s no specific amount of time to elapse for a stop to be unreasonable under Rodriguez. All things considered, this was reasonable for six minutes. Other cases in this circuit have upheld them at 14 minutes. United States v. Devalois, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3556 (7th Cir. Feb. 14, 2025):
The fact the officer can’t tell the difference between hemp and marijuana doesn’t mean there wasn’t probable cause by plain smell. The stop was justified by the community caretaking function because he was asleep at an intersection. State v. Jones, 2025 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 86 (Feb. 14, 2025).
The search warrant for this property was based on information that was believed to be true, but turned out not to be, as in plaintiff was out of the place four days before the search. Qualified immunity not even discussed. “Accepting as true Thomas, Sr.’s, meager factual allegations, he fails to state a claim for false arrest, false imprisonment, or malicious prosecution. Because the Court already permitted Thomas, Sr., an opportunity to amend his false arrest and false imprisonment claims, and he neglects to cure their deficiencies, the false arrest and false imprisonment claims are dismissed with prejudice.” Thomas v. Hyler, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26710 (M.D. Fla. Feb. 13, 2025).*
“In the circumstances presented, Defendants’ conduct—briefly pointing guns at Houck while he was arrested pursuant to a federal warrant—was objectively reasonable and so did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Because Houck’s Section 1983 claim is thus implausible, I will dismiss it.” In addition, qualified immunity applies. Houck v. United States, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26742 (E.D. Pa. Feb. 14, 2025).*
“As to the pole cameras, we hold that their use did not violate Williamson’s Fourth Amendment rights. The pole cameras surveilled areas exposed to the public, and the fact that they recorded non-stop is of little relevance—the Constitution does not forbid the government from using technology to conduct lawful investigations more efficiently.” United States v. Gregory, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3431 (11th Cir. Feb. 13, 2025).* (This issue was overruled without even citing a case.)
“Here, in considering Canales’s motion to suppress, the trial court only addressed the consent Canales gave at the time he was read the implied consent notice. The trial court does not mention, address, or analyze the circumstances surrounding Canales’s blood draw and whether he gave actual consent to the blood draw after suffering the panic attack and receiving medical care. Accordingly, we remand this case for the trial court to address whether Canales gave actual consent to the procuring and testing of his blood, which requires a determination of the voluntariness of the consent under the totality of the circumstances including the circumstances surrounding Canales’s blood draw.” Canales v. State, 2025 Ga. App. LEXIS 55 (Feb. 14, 2025).*
Petitioner’s name was in the search warrant but the property searched wasn’t his and he never stayed there, so he lacked standing. Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not challenging the search. Carpenter v. State, 2025 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 90 (Feb. 14, 2025).*
This cell phone search warrant was not particular and without probable cause as to “app data,” but it was as to text messages. “If this unlawful provision was the only provision of the warrant that authorized a search for Facebook Messenger messages, we would agree with Macasaet’s argument. But the search for these messages was also authorized by the provision of the warrants that allowed police to search for ‘text messages.’ Macasaet’s argument that his Facebook Messenger messages should have been suppressed is based in part on his view that the challenged messages were not ‘text messages.’ But in this case, the superior court found that the affidavit established probable cause to search applications containing text messages and that, because Facebook has messaging capabilities, the probable cause extended to such messages.” Defense counsel conceded during the suppression hearing that the warrant’s provisions were severable, and part might be suppressible and some not. MacAsaet v. State, 2025 Alas. App. LEXIS 13 (Feb. 14, 2025). (In addition, the court finds a Miranda violation too, but it’s harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.)
Plaintiff’s complaint about an arrest without probable cause was really just picking around the edges, and it did not undermine that there was, in fact, probable cause for the arrest. “We can assume arguendo—although not decide—that the additional omissions and errors raised in the response to the motion to dismiss should have been considered by the district court. We hold that the affidavit—when the omissions are added and when the mistakes are corrected—still establishes arguable probable cause. All of the mistakes and omissions identified by Kemp—both those alleged in the complaint and those belatedly asserted in Kemp’s response to Pogorzelski’s motion to dismiss—do not undermine the more powerful evidence identified by Pogorzelski that implicated Kemp. We find very persuasive the evidence of the timing of Kemp and the victim’s interactions and Kemp’s negative response upon learning that the victim was a transgender woman. Kemp was the last known person to be with the victim and he was upset to learn that she was transgender.” Kemp v. Pogorzelski, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3411 (11th Cir. Feb. 13, 2025).*
“But clearing the low bar of reasonable suspicion requires little more. Police need not ‘carry around and use burdensome equipment to measure light transmittance.” United States v. Wallace, 213 F.3d 1216, 1220 (9th Cir. 2000) (quoting People v. Niebauer, 263 Cal. Rptr. 287, 295 (Ct. App. 1989)). The record must simply demonstrate a particularized and objective basis for believing that the degree of window tinting violates the law.” United States v. Salas, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26515 (S.D. Cal. Feb. 13, 2025).*
The fact the officer allegedly falsified the affidavit for search warrant doesn’t impose liability on the city because plaintiff doesn’t show there’s a pattern or practice of the city. Austin v. Mosley, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3286 (6th Cir. Feb. 10, 2025).*
Officers came to take possession of a vehicle on a writ, and they didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment doing so. Also, plaintiff voluntarily gave it up. Cranfill v. SC Home Builders Self Insurers Fund, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25614 (D.S.C. Jan. 24, 2025),* adopted, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23373 (D.S.C. Feb. 10, 2025).*
Posted in§ 1983 / Bivens, Consent, Reasonable suspicion|Comments Off on S.D.Cal.: Officer doesn’t need a window tint meter in hand to justify a stop for overtinted windows
The Second Circuit upheld the search in this case and threw in an alternative ground, the good faith exception. On habeas, that did not violate the “party presentation” rule where the parties decide the issues to litigate, not the court. United States v. Elder, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26410 (W.D.N.Y. Feb. 13, 2025):
Posted inStandards of review, Uncategorized|Comments Off on W.D.N.Y.: CA2’s deciding search issue in direct appeal with GFE, too, did not violate “party presentation” rule
Plaintiff was arrested for a double murder on probable cause. The officers continued investigating [as they should] and exculpated him, and he was released after 65 days in jail with charges dropped. He sued the officers for the arrest, but they had probable cause at the time, also considering the “practicalities of the moment.” They also get qualified immunity. Jackson v. Carin, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3410 (4th Cir. Feb. 13, 2025):
In 1977, 48 years ago, SCOTUS held in Pennsylvania v. Mimms that officers could order a motorist out of the car during a traffic stop, and that’s not unreasonable today. [We’re still seeing challenges to that for extending a stop unreasonably under Rodriguez, and none of them succeed on that ground alone, obviously, because delay than that is required. I’ve been ignoring them, but for this one.] United States v. Risper, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26004 (W.D. Mich. Feb. 13, 2025).*
The motion to suppress here challenged the government’s photographing notes on a cell phone during a search. The government says it won’t be using that at trial, so the motion is moot. United States v. Combs, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25641 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 12, 2025).*
Petitioner had his full and fair opportunity to litigate his Fourth Amendment claim and lost on the merits. It’s barred on habeas by Stone. Root v. Howard, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3128 (6th Cir. Feb. 10, 2025).*
Officers shooting a barking dog during a DV entry was covered by qualified immunity. Owen v. Prator, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24901 (W.D. La. Feb. 11, 2025).*
The R&R recommended suppression of the geofence warrant. It is adopted. The warrant caused a wholesale search and was based on what appears to be a slipshod effort. Even the good faith exception didn’t apply. United States v. Fuentes, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25900 (E.D. Okla. Feb. 13, 2025), adopting 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 239693 (E.D. Okla. Sep. 3, 2024). From the R&R:
No trespassing sign at plaintiff’s driveway didn’t make the animal control officer’s entry onto the driveway a Fourth Amendment violation. Also, “[t]he argument that a land patent exempts Shaw’s property from the law is frivolous.” Shaw v. Hall, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3417 (7th Cir. Feb. 13, 2025):
“Examining the totality of the circumstances, the evidence shows that the officers reasonably believed that Guerrero-Nuñez lived in Apartment 204 and would be present when they entered the apartment. As such, their entry into the apartment did not violate Guerrero-Nuñez’s Fourth Amendment rights.” It was also by consent. United States v. Nuñez, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25003 (D.N.H. Feb. 12, 2025). As to standing, the affidavit showed it:
“Any inconsistent testimony Fisher gave as to the dog’s ‘alerts’ and ‘indications’ arose out of a confusion of vocabulary rather than lack of credibility, as made evident by the district court’s request that Fisher clarify and not conflate the terms. We have taken care to distinguish inconsistencies evincing a lack of credibility from those demonstrating ‘confusion, mistake, or faulty memory.’ … The district court drew this distinction and found Fisher credible by pointing to his experience, candor, and expertise. It did not clearly err in doing so.” United States v. Dunnigan, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3228 (2d Cir. Feb. 12, 2025).*
Defendant was pro se at trial, and he claims it was ill-advised of him to put the search warrant into evidence because it revealed other things he didn’t want into evidence. Thomas v. State, 2025 Alas. App. LEXIS 11 (Feb. 12, 2025).*
The stop was based on the LPN not matching the vehicle with a “stolen hit.” Plain view through the window and furtive movements gave reasonable suspicion to detain longer. State v. Wallace, 2025 La. App. LEXIS 208 (La. App. 5 Cir Feb. 11, 2025).*
It was litigation strategy to not file a motion to suppress and cut defendant’s losses. No ineffective assistance of counsel. United States v. Davis, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24036 (D. Alaska Jan. 8, 2025).*
The cell phone warrant was sufficiently particular and based on probable cause. The geolocation claim is waived for not having been raised below. Civil v. State, 2025 Ga. App. LEXIS 50 (Feb. 12, 2025).*
“Having found that a custom or policy has been alleged, the question is whether Lusk has sufficiently alleged unlawful search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. The Court finds that he has. Although at times inartfully pled, Lusk appears to assert that the City engaged in an unlawful search of his property, including of the Pickup that his brother lawfully purchased at a City auction, which then gave way to an unlawful seizure that resulted in him spending forty hours in jail for being in possession of a vehicle that lawfully belonged to him, before being arrested again later for the same alleged crime. Moreover, Lusk alleges that, although the charges were eventually dropped against him after he provided documentation that the Pickup was lawfully his, Defendants have refused to return the Pickup to him. Viewing the allegations in a light most favorable to Lusk, he has sufficiently alleged claims for unlawful search and seizure. The City’s Motion to Dismiss the Fourth Amendment claim is therefore DENIED.” Lusk v. City of Memphis, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24493 (W.D. Tenn. Feb. 11, 2025).*
Posted inIneffective assistance, Seizure, Waiver|Comments Off on D.Alaska: It was litigation strategy to not file a motion to suppress and cut def’s losses
The officer’s use of a flashlight to facilitate a plan view at night was reasonable. State v. Starr, 337 Or. App. 682 (Feb. 12, 2025).*
There was probable cause to believe blood on the cell phone was defendant’s justifying the warrant. State v. Carrasco, 337 Or. App. 792 (Feb. 12, 2025).*
Defendant’s Franks motion about cell phone searches is mooted by different information about where they were actually found before the search. United States v. Casher, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23924 (M.D. Pa. Feb. 11, 2025).*
The affidavit for warrant for child pornography shows a fair probability it would be found. Defendant’s objections to parts of the showing don’t undermine that. United States v. Cragg, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24758 (E.D. Cal. Feb. 10, 2025).*
The officer’s subjective belief the drug dog alerted can be sufficient for probable cause. Here, it’s based on the officer’s training and experience. State v. Morgan, 2025 Ida. App. LEXIS 6 (Feb. 12, 2025):
F.S.’s expectation of privacy is diminished as a convicted felon and registered sex offender, and the GPS monitoring’s intrusion on her privacy is slight. The state has a legitimate interest in protecting children and other potential victims from sex crimes. GPS monitoring furthers this interest by deterring sex offender recidivism. She provided no particularized evidence of her individual circumstances suggesting she poses a low risk of reoffending or that the monitoring is unreasonable as applied to her. F.S. v. Mo. Dep’t of Corr., 2025 Mo. LEXIS 23 (Feb. 11, 2025).
“This court has held that the exclusionary rule, which generally prohibits the use of evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, does not apply to revocation proceedings in the absence of police harassment. … Brooks fails to show that the district court clearly erred in finding there was no such harassment in this case. See id.” United States v. Brooks, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 2882 (5th Cir. Feb. 7, 2025).*
Defendant’s backpack search issue was untimely and isn’t considered on appeal. United States v. Romero, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3086 (10th Cir. Feb. 11, 2025).*
A traffic offense was used for this stop, but the officer had plenty of information that defendant was a felon in possession that he could act on to search for a gun. Turner v. State, 2025 Miss. App. LEXIS 54 (Feb. 11, 2025).*
The Stone bar applies regardless of the merits of the Fourth Amendment claim. Wood v. Warden, Noble Corr. Inst., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24460 (S.D. Ohio Feb. 11, 2025).*
Notice pleading in Fourth Amendment § 1983 claims: “Plaintiff alleges that he is currently on parole, and that two parole agents conducted a search of his residence. The only information alleged to support his position that this search was not reasonable, is that it was based on ‘second party hearsay.’ Thus, it appears that the parole agents searched Plaintiff’s home based on information supplied by another person. Plaintiff does not describe what that third person told them. Because Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment claims against the Parole Agents lack adequate detail they should be dismissed for failure to state a claim.” Engle v. Kieski, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21699 (M.D. Pa. Feb. 6, 2025).*
The ADA at defendant’s probable cause hearing didn’t have anything to do with plaintiff’s arrest. To the extent the sparse allegations in the complaint can be discerned, he’s absolutely immune for what he actually did because it was in court. Garza v. Barella, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21768 (S.D. Ga. Feb. 6, 2025).*
“Mr. Turner is correct that the use of a CRI during drug investigations is common. Moreover, the Court does not disagree that officers could have taken additional steps to yield an even higher degree of confidence that Mr. Turner was committing a crime during the controlled buys. But the law does not require that law enforcement officers employ every conceivable measure to establish probable cause: warrant applications need only establish a fair probability that the warrant will uncover evidence of a crime. … Nor does Mr. Turner cite to any authority suggesting that the common use of CRIs renders the information gained from them unreliable or unsupportive of probable cause.” United States v. Turner, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23761 (D. Minn. Feb. 10, 2025).*
This sheriff gets qualified immunity for looking at a cell phone dump for ultra vires allegedly looking for nude photos taken on the deputy’s duty time. The law was not clearly established at the time. Olson v. Cty. of Grant, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3005 (9th Cir. Feb. 10, 2025).*
Officers responded to a group at a convenience store bragging about robbing thus scaring customers, and that other factors justified a frisk of defendant when he was encountered. United States v. Underwood, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21326 (W.D. Pa. Feb. 6, 2025).*
by John Wesley Hall Criminal Defense Lawyer and Search and seizure law consultant Little Rock, Arkansas Contact: forhall @ aol.com / The Book www.johnwesleyhall.com
"If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It isn't, and they don't." —Me
"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well." –Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw), Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (1868) (erroneously attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, among others)
“I am still learning.” —Domenico Giuntalodi (but misattributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (common phrase throughout 1500's)).
"Love work; hate mastery over others; and avoid intimacy with the government."
—Shemaya, in the Thalmud
"It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers."
—Charles Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc.” 255 (1848)
"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).
"The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws,
or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence." —Mapp
v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961).
"Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment."
—Yale Kamisar, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 36 n. 151 (1987).
"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)
"You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need." —Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, Let it Bleed (album, 1969)
"In Germany, they first came for the communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for
the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came
for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration
camp]
“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!” ---Pepé Le Pew
"The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime." —Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948)