The affidavit for warrant isn’t perfect but it’s good enough for the issuing magistrate to draw inferences. “Again, the affidavit could have been improved with explicit explanations of the ‘how’ and ‘why.’ But I do not fault an experienced judge for making the inferences necessary to find probable cause for this warrant.” The question is not actual probable cause; it’s whether there is a substantial basis to believe there is probable cause, and this satisfies that. United States v. Goodman, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4104 (N.D. Iowa Jan. 9, 2026).*
Defendant’s general allegations his warrantless arrest lacked probable cause was enough to deny a hearing. People v. Escobar, 2025 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 10237 (N.Y. Co. Dec. 19, 2025).*
Probable cause was shown for the warrant to draw defendant’s blood. State v. Chandler, 2026 Del. Super. LEXIS 13 (Jan. 9, 2026).*
The facts on the use of allegedly excessive force are in dispute, so there is no appellate jurisdiction of the qualified immunity question. Griffith v. Kattoula, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 663 (6th Cir. Jan. 7, 2026).*
The fact “the judge who presided over trial had signed a pen register or ‘track and trace’ warrant before [defendant’s] arrest” didn’t require recusal. The state court had already held issuing a search warrant didn’t require recusal either. Fayton v. State, 2026 Del. LEXIS 9 (Jan. 9, 2026).
There was reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop as a trespasser on hotel property. United States v. Harris, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 566 (4th Cir. Jan. 9, 2026).*
The fact two juvenile sex trafficking victims had different recollections of things doesn’t show a Franks violation. Also, “The mere fact that one of the victims had juvenile offenses would not have undercut the weight of probable cause from evidence like the Facebook messages, the prostitution ad, the online pictures of the victims, and the victims’ personal testimony. In short, the warrants’ ‘issuance did not hinge on [the] detail’ of these missing juvenile offenses.” Defendant also doesn’t show that the affiant even knew about them. United States v. Richards, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 583 (6th Cir. Jan. 9, 2026).*
A dozen officers purposely delayed the traffic stop for a dog sniff. “The Government has failed to show that police conducted this stop in a reasonably diligent manner. To the contrary, Officer Brennan’s decision to delegate all four warnings to a single officer—especially one who was unfamiliar with the process of writing D.C. tickets—was slow, inefficient, and not the least intrusive means of completing the stop reasonably available under the circumstances. At least a dozen officers were present. Officer Callahan testified that Officer Brennan would have been more efficient at writing D.C. tickets given his D.C. experience. … Yet the Government has offered no explanation for why it was reasonably diligent for a single inexperienced officer to handle all four warnings when a dozen officers were present.” United States v. Blackson, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3457 (D.D.C. Jan. 8, 2026).
The dog sniff here was completed before the traffic tickets were done, so no Rodriguez violation. United States v. Corker, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 444 (11th Cir. Jan. 8, 2026).*
“Nor has Perdomo adequately alleged that the Officers conducted a false arrest or unreasonable seizure. The Fourth Amendment permits arrests supported by probable cause.” Perdomo v. City of League City, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 364 (5th Cir. Jan. 7, 2026).*
A dog sniff at defendant’s apartment door seams was unreasonable, despite it being in a common area of a gated apartment building [where the general public wasn’t allowed, but management let the police in]. State v. West, 2026 Ga. App. LEXIS 11 (Jan. 9, 2026). [Not much analysis here. The strongest argument is that the police had to be let in. Other tenants would be around, but not the public.]
The motion to suppress wasn’t timely and should be denied for that reason alone. On the merits anyway, it is denied because defendant’s gun was visible from outside the car, and the police could seize it under the community caretaking function. United States v. Bradley, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2741 (S.D. Ill. Jan. 7, 2026).*
“The body camera videos do not ‘blatantly contradict’ the district court’s findings that officers continued to use force after McCoy was subdued.” They get qualified immunity. Bruner v. Cassidy, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 413 (10th Cir. Jan. 8, 2026).*
In digital information searches, overseizure to start is permitted to facilitate the process, but the review of all that information has to be limited, and here it was. United States v. Flores, 802 F.3d 1028, 1044 (9th Cir. 2015). United States v. Evanovich, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3637 (E.D. Cal. Jan. 7, 2026):
Posted inDigital Searches, E-mail, Overseizure|Comments Off on E.D.Cal.: Email seizure can be overbroad, but actual search has to be reasonably narrowed
How one defendant made a Franks challenge to get a hearing out of late disclosed information. United States v. Gonzalez, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3229 (D. Mass. Jan. 8, 2026)*:
Being inside the garage of this house in violation of an order of protection means no standing. Hernandez v. Chandler, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3096 (D. Ariz. Jan. 7, 2026).
The visual sweep of defendant’s car was just meticulous and wasn’t unusually or unreasonably prolonged while the tickets were being written. Thus, Rodriguez wasn’t violated. United States v. Bouldin, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1916 (E.D. Va. Jan. 6, 2026).*
The search warrant covered all of defendant’s vehicles, including the one he was driving when stopped. United States v. Quintero, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 302 (9th Cir. Jan. 7, 2026).*
The search warrant for the house permitted a search of defendant’s cabin on the curtilage connected to its water and electricity. The trial court erroneously suppressed, so reversed. State v. Dole, 2026 Ga. App. LEXIS 5 (Jan. 7, 2026).*
Decedent died in a police car with an RIPP restraint bending him backwards. That’s a seizure, and the officers here do not get qualified immunity in the excessive force claim. Gonzalez v. City of Phx., 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 426 (9th Cir. Jan. 8, 2026).* From the syllabus, omitting concurrence:
The Saint Pauls NC police department set up a two-hour checkpoint to stop all cars to check for “violations of license, registration, and insurance requirements.” Defendant was stopped and asked for his DL but he didn’t have one. The smell of burnt marijuana was obvious. When it was done, he was arrested for felon in possession of a firearm. The checkpoint was held to have a proper programmatic purpose even for license checks, and it was reasonable. State v. White, 2026 N.C. App. LEXIS 17 (Jan. 7, 2026):
The search warrant for defendant’s place for evidence of a murder showed nexus and probable cause including his car (because of distance to the homicide) and laptop (communicating with the victim). It was reasonable for the magistrate to conclude that “a reddish-brown stain” in his room was blood. He argued it “‘could be attributed to a multitude of substances’ and that treating it as blood reflects ‘an obvious confirmation bias.’ We disagree. The defendant’s argument amounts to the type of ‘hypercritical analysis’ that is improper when reviewing search warrant affidavits (citation omitted). … Read as a whole and with reasonable inferences, the reddish-brown stain was not simply found in the bedroom of a random teenager, but in the bedroom of the last person to see the victim alive — someone who also (1) met with the victim outside that bedroom shortly before her abandoned car was discovered, and (2) made efforts to hide the victim’s visit. The inference that the stain was blood was both reasonable and possible. See Gentile, 437 Mass. at 577 (seizure of defendant’s clothing was supported by probable cause where, inter alia, police observed stain believed to be blood on his pants).” Commonwealth v. Fujita, 2026 Mass. LEXIS 3 (Jan. 8, 2026).
iPhone warrant wasn’t too overbroad. “The warrant at issue here did not authorize officers to engage in an exploratory rummaging; rather, they were only authorized to search for evidence related to the drug crimes set forth in the warrant and accompanying application. The warrant includes broad language but does not amount to a blank grant to search the contents of the phone for ‘all data’ contained within it as Gamon alleges.” United States v. Gamon, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2409 (M.D. Pa. Jan. 7, 2026).*
Posted inNexus, Probable cause|Comments Off on MA: Arguing a “reddish-brown substance” could be a bunch of things and not blood “amounts to the type of ‘hypercritical analysis’ that is improper when reviewing search warrant affidavits”
Many U.S. police departments, including the LAPD, discourage officers from shooting at moving vehicles due to the high risk of stray gunfire.
Recent ICE shootings in Portland and Minneapolis have reignited debate over when deadly force against motorists is justified or necessary.
Since January 2015, LAPD officers have fired their weapons at least 36 times at vehicles, killing seven motorists or passengers and wounding 12 others.
Posted inExcessive force, Qualified immunity|Comments Off on LATimes: Why LAPD and other police agencies discourage shooting at cars — and why ICE still does
Defendant was a school resource officer who wanted to search a classroom for a vape. The students were all ordered out of the class. One left her phone on record and captured the officer finding the vape and then discussing with the school official he was with about planting it in a potentially innocent person’s backpack. He got arrested for that. He claimed that the recording violated the state wiretap statute and the private search provision of Texas law. The court finds that the officer had no reasonable expectation of privacy in what he was doing. It wasn’t his room, someone else was present, and, among other things, he was performing his law enforcement function for a public purpose. The suppression order is reversed. State v. Gonzalez, 2026 Tex. App. LEXIS 129 (Tex. App. – Corpus Christi-Edinburg Jan. 8, 2026):
404 Media: Inside ICE’s Tool to Monitor Phones in Entire Neighborhoods by Joseph Cox (“A social media and phone surveillance system ICE bought access to is designed to monitor a city neighborhood or block for mobile phones, track the movements of those devices and their owners over time, and follow them from their places of work to home or other locations, according to material that describes how the system works obtained by 404 Media. Commercial location data, in this case acquired from hundreds of millions of phones via a company called Penlink, can be queried without a warrant, according to an internal ICE legal analysis shared with 404 Media. The purchase comes squarely during ICE’s mass deportation effort and continued crackdown on protected speech, alarming civil liberties experts and raising questions on what exactly ICE will use the surveillance system for.”)
Posted inCell phones|Comments Off on 404 Media: Inside ICE’s Tool to Monitor Phones in Entire Neighborhoods
Iowa declines to reject Mimms or Wilson under the state constitution on ordering occupants out of the car. State v. Willer, 2026 Iowa App. LEXIS 46 (Jan. 7, 2026):
Posted inReasonable suspicion, State constitution|Comments Off on Iowa declines to reject Mimms or Wilson under the state constitution on ordering occupants out of the car
The search warrant for a GoPro video was valid based on the time of the search shown on the video being erroneous. Practical accuracy is the touchstone, and the correct time could be reconstructed. The warrant was particular. State v. Jacobson, 2026 Ida. App. LEXIS 2 (Jan. 7, 2026).
2254 petitioner still had a full and fair opportunity to litigate his Fourth Amendment claim in state court. He complains that the video of the search wasn’t allowed into evidence, and that was sufficient error. He had the right to appeal that ruling in state court and did. The video is here in habeas and it doesn’t help him. Anderson v. Forshey, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1526 (S.D. Ohio Jan. 6, 2026).*
Plaintiff was already incarcerated when an arrest warrant was served on him in another case. He wasn’t seized from that warrant. Blankenbaker v. Longmire, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1556 (W.D. Va. Jan. 6, 2026).*
Defendant’s immigration arrest was unreasonable and the product is suppressed. United States v. Juarez-Lopez, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 269401 (N.D.N.Y. Dec. 18, 2025)*:
Plaintiff’s claim unauthorized officers executed the search warrant under state law isn’t a Fourth Amendment violation. Richard v. Jeffcoat, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1512 (D.S.C. Jan. 5, 2026).
Based on the search warrant, “The government may not disclose [at trial] what was being searched for other than weapons, unless Staples opens the door to such items.” United States v. Staples, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1397 (D. Nev. Jan. 5, 2026).*
Officers broke in to defendant’s apartment when no one came to the door. Inside he was briefly handcuffed then unhandcuffed. He was told he was not under arrest and didn’t have to answer any questions. He mentioned “provoking a lawyer.” But, “Defendant’s conduct on the video is compelling evidence that his subsequent waiver was knowing. During this exchange with S.A. Chacon, Defendant pauses for approximately eight seconds and only then begins to talk to the agents about Jane Doe #1 and the case against him.” United States v. McLeod, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 269315 (E.D.N.Y. Dec. 12, 2025).*
Refusal of a BAC can legitimately have civil consequences without violating the Fourth Amendment per Birchfield. Here it was a 2008 refusal that led to an interlock in 2013 that was recently violated. State v. Sparby-Duncan, 2026 Wisc. App. LEXIS 4 (Jan. 6, 2026).
Appellant claims fraud on the court in its criminal judgment against him seeking to recall the mandate. But he only alleges he seeks an ineffective assistance of counsel claim for a Fourth Amendment violation. There is no allegation of fraud. United States v. Flack, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 229 (6th Cir. Jan. 5, 2026).*
Plaintiff’s 1983 complaint for false statements in a warrant application fails F.R.C.P. 8 for failing to plead any facts at all. Carr v. Baranek, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1293 (E.D. Wis. Jan. 6, 2026).*
In this forfeiture case, this party has no standing superior to the person from whom it was taken. United States v. Yu-Chieh Huang, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1500 (E.D. Mo. Jan. 5, 2026).*
In school seizure of plaintiff’s cell phone for 30 minutes was not unreasonable and “not excessively intrusive.” McGuire v. Roseville Joint Union High Sch. Dist., 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 172 (9th Cir. Jan. 6, 2026).
“Valdivia counters that [the officer’s] inability to articulate a specific crime he suspected had been, or was about to be, committed means he lacked reasonable and articulable suspicion. … Even if Porsch was required to identify a specific crime, he did so here.” Valdivia v. Porsch, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 158 (8th Cir. Jan. 6, 2026).*
The search warrant for this video security system produced records showing that video files, likely of a shooting, had been deleted. Simandl v. Commonwealth, 2026 Va. App. LEXIS 15 (Jan. 6, 2026) (unpublished).*
A search incident to arrest isn’t valid when there’s no arrest. The law is clearly established, so no qualified immunity. Montgomery v. Cruz, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 161 (10th Cir. Jan. 6, 2026).
The defense succeeded in a Franks challenge in the trial court, and the state appealed. Reversed. At worst, the officer was merely negligent in looking up defendant’s prior convictions in a law enforcement database where defendant’s prior expunged conviction was shown. “I agree with the State that Spencer failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Deputy Ruvalcaba recklessly disregarded the truth when he identified the 2008 Missouri felony conviction and sought confirmation of the same with the county attorney without conducting any further investigation.” The officer also contacted the county attorney, but not Missouri. State v. Spencer, 2026 Neb. App. LEXIS 4 (Jan. 6, 2026) (unpublished).*
A false statement that diverted the FBI from getting a warrant in NJ for a cell phone was sufficient for venue in NYC. United States v. Whitehead, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 167 (2d Cir. Jan. 6, 2026).*
Posted inFranks doctrine, Search incident|Comments Off on CA10: A search incident to arrest isn’t valid when there’s no arrest
"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]
“Children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom.” – John le Carré, The Night Manager (1993), line by Richard Roper
"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)
The book was dedicated in the first (1982) and sixth (2025) editions to Justin William Hall (1975-2025). He was three when this project started in 1978.
