Probable cause was shown for phone records for both the number sought and any number the provider knew that the owner had changed to, even without identifying it. And, good faith applied: “Therefore, even if the continuity provision within the warrant—or the warrant as a whole—should not have been issued, officers did not act unreasonably by reviewing the location data provided by T-Mobile.” United States v. Hartfield, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 256906 (W.D. Wash. Dec. 10, 2025).
Franks “‘requires more than allegations, and a defendant satisfies this standard only by making an offer of proof, through affidavits, or other similarly reliable evidence.’ United States v. Berry, No. 24-cr-134 (PJS/TNL), 2024 WL 4895382, at 7 (citing Franks, 438 U.S. at 171) (D. Minn. Oct. 17, 2024), R&R adopted, No. 24-cr-0134 (PJS/TNL), 2024 WL 4894789 (D. Minn. Nov. 26, 2024). Thus, Franks hearings are granted by courts in only ‘very limited circumstances.’ United States v. Ozar, 50 F.3d 1440, 1445 (8th Cir. 1995).” And this offer of proof fails. United States v. Rodriguez, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 256331 (D. Minn. Dec. 11, 2025).*
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During a traffic stop, an object hanging inside the passenger door concerned the officer. The passenger claimed the door wouldn’t open from inside, so it was reasonable for the officer to open the door when ordering the passenger out. Penney v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 9449 (Tex. App. – Tyler Dec. 10, 2025).
The consenter knew she had a right to insist on a search warrant because she even mentioned it when asked about consent. She later consented. United States v. Hawthorne, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 256470 (E.D. Wis. Dec. 11, 2025).
Defendant gets return of his iPhone after post-conviction time has run, but it’s returned to factory settings because there was potential CSAM on it. United States v. Kindley, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 256353 (E.D. Cal. Dec. 8, 2025). (full disclosure, the blogger here represented him in the cited Arkansas case).
Even if the officer putting defendant’s cell phone in airplane mode to protect the contents was a search, it was reasonable. Also, it yielded no evidence to suppress. United States v. Schroeder, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 256464 (E.D. Wis. Dec. 11, 2025):
A claim of unauthorized practice of medicine authorized a warrant for six years worth of medical files. The good faith exception also applies. United States v. Luzod, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 256878 (M.D. Fla. Oct. 30, 2025). As to a Franks issue, further explanation of witnesses’ alleged bias wasn’t enough:
Defendant was frequenting a well-known drug house. He went in for less than two minutes and came out. The stop was with reasonable suspicion. The patdown revealed a wad of cash by plain feel. United States v. Thomas, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 32413 (3d Cir. Dec. 11, 2025) (Emil Bove’s first opinion?).
Defendant’s stop is found to lack reasonable suspicion. The court recounts everything and concludes the officer was making assumptions and just wasn’t believable on the critical factual issues. United States v. Flores-Mendivil, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 254339 (D. Ariz. Dec. 9, 2025).*
There was no Fourth Amendment violation, let alone an egregious one, to suppress an immigration search. Duran-Serrano v. Bondi, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 32378 (9th Cir. Dec. 9, 2025).*
Posted inCell phones, Computer and cloud searches|Comments Off on Reason: CBP Agents Held This U.S. Citizen for Hours Until He Agreed To Let Them Search His Electronic Devices
Law.com: Courts seek route in GPS cases (“Two influential courts are set to decide for the first time whether law enforcement authorities who attach a global positioning system (GPS) device to a suspect’s car without a warrant violate constitutional protections against an ‘unreasonable search and seizure.’ In one case, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is accepting briefs on whether a warrantless installation of a GPS device constitutes an unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment.”)
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Cybersecurity Law Report: Gen AI Chats Becoming Evidence: Law Enforcement Warrants and Subpoenas (“Users should exercise caution before prompting ChatGPT or Claude. As three 2025 cases demonstrate, generative AI (Gen AI) chats are being used as evidence in criminal prosecutions, with warrants and complaints citing ChatGPT conversations in actions involving child exploitation, arson and vandalism. Most requests that AI providers have received for users’ prompts and AI-generated chats have come from federal officials, observed Richard Salgado, a Stanford University law professor and consultant who oversaw Google’s response to national security and law enforcement demands for 13 years. The Stored Communications Act (SCA) authorizes law enforcement to force companies to disclose information identifying their users by issuing subpoenas unilaterally, but most demands for private user content so far have been issued through search warrants with a judge’s signature. ‘It seems like the prosecutors are giving this type of data the respect given to email and other nonpublic content,’ Salgado told the Cybersecurity Law Report.”).
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Illinois law holds that a car cannot be searched for violation of the windshield obstruction statute. Defendant’s car ultimately was, and the court finds that the search comported with the Fourth Amendment and state law didn’t grant greater rights here. United States v. Douglas, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 255997 (S.D. Ill. Dec. 10, 2025).
(from 7/23/25) In a convoluted case, a liquor enforcement inspection warrant was executed during a business rush, allegedly in retaliation for asking for a warrant. Also, it appears the scope of the warrant exceeds the agency’s authority over liquor control. This part of the motion to dismiss is denied pending discovery which can help clear things up. Generis Ent., LLC v. Donley, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138226 (E.D. Mich. July 8, 2025),* reconsideration denied 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 254695 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 9, 2025).*
There was no reasonable suspicion to continue the stop. Defendant’s pulling over before the blue lights came on isn’t of much value here. Neither is nervousness or past drug charges. United States v. Catron, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 254647 (E.D. Okla. Nov. 13, 2025).*
Pretrial detention is governed by the Fourth Amendment, post-trial by the Fourteenth Amendment. Hawkes v. Alconcel, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 254426 (D. Haw. Dec. 9, 2025).*
While statute requires a written motion to suppress, the state can agree to it being oral, which happened here. Defendant loses on the merits, however, for exigent circumstances. State v. Yates, 2025 Mo. App. LEXIS 839 (Dec. 9, 2025).
The wellness check of defendant sitting apparently passed out with the engine running not knowing where she was or was going was reasonable. Commonwealth v. Lewis, 2025 Mass. App. LEXIS 123 (Dec. 10, 2025).*
Defendant was lawfully stopped for traffic infractions, and the gun was seen in plain view when she was looking for her papers in the glove compartment. People v. Bishop, 2025 Mich. App. LEXIS 9861 (Dec. 9, 2025).*
Defendant officer was entitled to qualified immunity for firing his gun into the decedent’s truck when he legitimately feared it would hit him escaping. Settle v. Collier, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 32156 (11th Cir. Dec. 9, 2025).*
While the search warrant affidavit was not sworn to before the correct official as required by statute, the good faith exception is enough to sustain this search. There was probable cause, and it was particular. All constitutional requirements were met. State v. Rios, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 9404 (Tex. App. – Amarillo Dec. 9, 2025) (substituted opinion on rehearing):
The premises was subject to defendant’s search waiver on file. At court she disputed the state proved it was her place, but, at the time of the search, she and a friend said that it was her place. Inside, her pictures were found in a bedroom. The officer testified her car was always parked outside it at night. This was contested as a failure of proof, and no search claim was raised which was found to be waived by no motion to suppress. Hawkins v. State, 2025 Ark. App. 603 (Dec. 10, 2025).*
Defendant’s overlong detention claim isn’t a due process claim–it’s a Fourth Amendment claim. Perez v. Carrera, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 252915 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 8, 2025).*
When police searched defendant’s cell phone, his call history with the other murder suspect had been deleted, but the phone did reveal the internet search history inquiring into news stories about the killing. Saunders v. State, 2025 Ga. LEXIS 260 (Dec. 9, 2025).*
Accidental viewing of prisoners in showers by guards of opposite sex isn’t a Fourth Amendment violation. Cates v. Ky. State Penitentiary, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 252767 (W.D. Ky. Dec. 8, 2025).*
Plaintiff has a 1/6 pardon. She sued over things the government did to obtain her conviction. She fails to state a claim under the FTCA for alleged disclosure of private information during the trial. “Although the FTCA waives the United States’ immunity for certain tort claims demanding money damages, it exempts from that waiver ‘[a]ny claim arising out of assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, libel, slander, misrepresentation, deceit, or interference with contract rights.’ 28 U.S.C. § 2680(h).” Price v. United States, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 253100 (D.D.C. Dec. 8, 2025).
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a contraband cell phone in prison notwithstanding state law that allows some via the MDOC. United States v. Pouncy, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 253350 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 8, 2025).*
Defendant was stopped at 4 am after pulling behind a medical building, a place known for car break-ins, when he was coming back to the street. The search of his car after that was unreasonable and unjustified. It turns out, however, he was on federal supervised release for access device fraud and he had credit cards of others on him. By the time of issuance of a warrant, he’d failed to report the contact and was in violation of release conditions, and that broke the causal chain to the illegal stop. United States v. Nassar, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 253232 (E.D. Cal. Dec. 8, 2025).*
An attorney whose computer was seized and copied gets a TRO against further searches on a prima facie showing of its warrantless search. Richman v. United States, Civil Misc. Action No. 25-0170 (CKK) (D.D.C. Dec. 6, 2025):
The Posse Comitatus Act has nothing to do with a vehicle accident with the Arkansas National Guard returning to Arkansas after helping with cleanup after Hurricane Ida. Bowman v. Williams, 2025 La. App. LEXIS 2333 (La App. 2 Cir. Dec. 3, 2025).*
“On our de novo review of the totality of the circumstances known by the sergeant and the other officers cooperating in the drug investigation, we agree with the district court that reasonable suspicion existed that illegal drugs were in the truck. For starters, the sergeant received a report that a red truck had been idling in a suburban driveway from about 1:15 a.m. to 1:45 a.m. while people went back and forth between the truck and the house. Both the timing in the wee hours of the morning and the unusual nature of people repeatedly going back and forth between the house and the truck for thirty minutes lends support to a reasonable suspicion that the occupants of the red truck were involved in some sort of drug-dealing activity.” And add to that, they knew there was an opioid OD at that address a few months before. State v. Poage, 2025 Iowa App. LEXIS 1012 (Dec. 3, 2025).*
A § 1983 claim against a court for violating the Fourth Amendment by ordering a psychological exam was defeated by immunity. Kowalski v. Kelley, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 31329 (10th Cir. Dec. 3, 2025).*
Neither reasonable suspicion or probable cause is required for a border search of electronic equipment. Here, it was at Newark airport. United States v. Bill, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 234680 (E.D. Mo. Dec. 2, 2025).
Defendant who had 19 prior exposures to the criminal justice system consented. United States v. Woods, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 234673 (E.D. Mo. Dec. 2, 2025).
A student disciplinary proceeding was not a Fourth Amendment seizure. Mozdziak v. Romeo, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 250851 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 4, 2025).*
Petitioner had his opportunity to litigate his Fourth Amendment claim in state court and lost, and that’s binding on habeas. Morrill v. Dixon, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 234710 (N.D. Fla. Oct. 30, 2025).*
Defendant wasn’t seized because he fled. Even if the officer was reasonably mistaken, there was probable cause. United States v. Allen, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 250882 (S.D. Ga. Nov. 3, 2025)*:
Reason: DHS Continues Airport Cash Seizures, a Year After the Justice Department Ended Them Due to Constitutional Concerns by C.J. Ciaramella (“A year after the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) stopped seizing suspected drug money from airline passengers because of significant constitutional concerns, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is quietly keeping the practice alive. The Dallas Morning News reported Monday that task forces of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and local police officers have been flagging suspicious passengers at two Dallas-area airports and using drug-sniffing dogs to get probable cause to search their luggage. ‘Such searches have been conducted throughout the year at DFW Airport and Love Field, according to federal court records,’ the newspaper reported. ‘And just like with the DEA tactic, agents often seize money from suspects without charging them with a crime, court records show.'”)
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"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.
