Plaintiff’s parole search waiver for his house includes his curtilage. Kennedy v. White Cty., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180862 (E.D. Ark. Sep. 16, 2025).
Admission of a photograph of defendant’s house taken from off the property did not violate the curtilage. As to his Franks challenge: “‘Mere imprecision does not, by itself, show falsity.’ Moody, 931 F.3d at 372. An inaccuracy that is ‘innocent or even negligent’ will not meet the high standard required to warrant a hearing. Id. at 371. Defendant has at best shown ambiguous or imprecise language and fails to show an intentional falsity.” United States v. Newbold, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 182008 (M.D.N.C. Sep. 17, 2025).*
West Virginia continues to adhere to the rule that objective intentions matter for a stop, not subjective ones. State v. Roberts, 2025 W. Va. LEXIS 335 (Sep. 16, 2025).*
Plaintiff stated a claim for excessive force for police officers injuring him during a pipeline protest where he had to be cut out of his sleeping dragon device. He was only committing a non-violent misdemeanor when he was injured. Locke v. County of Hubbard, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 23990 (8th Cir. Sep. 17, 2025).
The state succeeded in admitting as 404(b) evidence the controlled buy that led to the search warrant to “tell[ ] the story of these crimes.” It was presented on appeal as plain error, but it was held not to be error at all. [It didn’t help that appellant was a sovereign citizen who got himself excluded from the courtroom.] State v. Thompson, 2025-Ohio-4359 (1st Dist. Sep. 17, 2025). This appears common in Ohio:
The warrant for “all data” on defendant’s cell phone violated the Fourth Amendment’s particularity requirement, even though it was limited to two weeks before the murder. Yet, the state’s case was so strong, the cell phone data was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Correa, 2025 Conn. LEXIS 185 (Sep. 16, 2025).
In a state where growing marijuana can be legal, an illegal grow warrant was invalid for not excluding all the ways legal marijuana and hemp could be grown. State v. Chixu Huang, 2025 Wash. App. LEXIS 1821 (Sep. 16, 2025) (unpublished).*
Warrants are for places, not necessarily people, and the nexus requirement is to the place. “Mr. Rebollar-Gonzalez’s attempts to dissociate himself from criminal activity is unavailing, and therefore his own actions contribute to a finding that probable cause existed to search the Old Hudson Road apartment. Even if the search warrant application needed to show probable cause to suspect that Mr. Rebollar himself had committed a crime, it does so. …” United States v. Gonzalez, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180867 (D. Minn. Sep. 16, 2025).*
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Having voluntarily given up her cell phone passcode, she can’t suppress its contents. United States v. Curry, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 23865 (3d Cir. Sep. 16, 2025).
Past detention for alleged unlawful reasons doesn’t give Art. III standing for possible future detention. City of El Cenizo v. Texas, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 181699 (W.D. Tex. Sep. 15, 2025).*
Cross-motions for seized money in a fraud scheme. The victim gets it. In re Search Warrant No. 2482SW00010 Dated Mar. 22, 2024, 2025 Mass. Super. LEXIS 398 (Norfolk Sep. 8, 2025).*
A jailer watching alleged excessive force by a guard does not get qualified immunity for failing to intervene. Nute v. White, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 23955 (11th Cir. Sep. 16, 2025).*
The fact defendant was asked four times for consent doesn’t make it coercive. Arnold v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 7228 (Tex. App. – Ft. Worth Sep. 11, 2025).
Velez finally contends that no reasonable officer could have concluded that Velez was resisting arrest or detention because he was not given an opportunity to submit before force was used on him. But the cases Velez cites for this proposition analyzed this factor in the context of Fourth Amendment excessive-force claims. … We therefore address this argument in our excessive-force analysis. Nor do we see how this argument would alter our thinking here, where the video evidence clearly depicts Velez first verbally refusing to get out and then physically resisting the officers’ attempts to achieve compliance. We thus affirm the district court’s conclusion that, as a matter of law, the officers had probable cause to arrest Velez, and that Velez’s wrongful-arrest and false-imprisonment claims fail as a result. Velez v. Eutzy, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 23885 (1st Cir. Sep. 16, 2025).*
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective in litigating the search claim below. It was substantially dealt with on the direct appeal where a DVR device that probably recorded a drug transaction was a “drug record.” State v. Groce, 2025 Ohio App. LEXIS 3158 (10th Dist. Sep. 16, 2025);* State v. Walker, 2025 Ohio App. LEXIS 3157 (10th Dist. Sep. 16, 2025).*
The computer search here wasn’t authorized by the probable cause showing, and it wasn’t harmless error. Probable cause for one device doesn’t permit search of all. State v. Schult, 343 Or. App. 376 (Sep. 10, 2025).
“Here, Boudreau’s Franks argument fails because even if Detective Wafstet knew and failed to disclose that Boudreau used only his cellphone to communicate with ‘Mia,’ this omission was immaterial. As we have explained, there was probable cause to believe that Boudreau possessed child pornography. If Detective Wafstet lied or omitted material facts regarding Boudreau’s method of communication with ‘Mia,’ it would have had no effect on the fair probability that Boudreau possessed child pornography.” United States v. Boudreau, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 23880 (9th Cir. Sep. 16, 2025).*
Defendant had no connection to the house that was searched, and he even lived in another state. Therefore, he has no standing. Ayala v. State, 2025 Ga. App. LEXIS 387 (Sep. 16, 2025).*
Deftechtimes: Financial spy tool yanked from ICE after agents used it to hunt immigrants by Ruta Deshpande (“Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have lost access to a major database that tracked money transfers between the U.S. and Mexico. ICE agents and other law enforcement agencies have used the Transaction Record Analysis Center, or TRAC, for years to monitor hundreds of millions of wire transfers. Western Union and government authorities created it in 2014 through an agreement. Its original purpose was to help ICE agents fight money laundering and drug trafficking.”)
Just being naked in bed in a hotel room doesn’t give standing. Defendant had to show he either was the renter or there by permission of the renter. Here, nothing was offered on standing other than being there. United States v. Collins, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 179306 (S.D. Ga. Sep. 12, 2025), adopting 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180545 (S.D. Ga. Aug. 14, 2025).
The affidavit for warrant here was not bare bones, and the good faith exception applies. United States v. Booker, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 23478 (6th Cir. Sep. 9, 2025).*
Reasonable suspicion can be by collective knowledge. State v. Paul, 2025 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 435 (Sep. 11, 2025).*
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Retrieving a bag of drugs from defendant’s underwear with probable cause was still reasonable. The court of appeals erred in reversing. Commonwealth v. Hubbard, 2025 Va. LEXIS 44 (Sep. 11, 2025) (revg Hubbard v. Commonwealth, 80 Va. App. 384, 898 S.E.2d 386 (2024) (posted here)):
The particularity requirement for a warrant doesn’t mean the specificity for proof beyond a reasonable doubt. United States v. Banks, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 177576 (D. Minn. Sep. 11, 2025):
The person with a lock on a storage unit, even though not the renter, has apparent authority to consent to its search. United States v. Gibson, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 178083 (E.D.N.C. Sep. 11, 2025).
Rule 41 doesn’t mandate a search warrant be issued only by federal magistrates. In any event, the state court judge’s warrant was relied on in good faith. United States v. Wallace, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 177650 (S.D. Ind. Sep. 11, 2025).
There was probable cause for the search of defendant’s car. He was stopped for suspicion of DUI, and he had a prior. He also talked about his drug history. In plain view was a baggie likely with drugs in it. United States v. Walker, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 177536 (N.D. Iowa Sep. 11, 2025).*
The search warrant application was emailed to the issuing magistrate, and the warrant came back in two minutes. That doesn’t show that the judge was not neutral and detached because “an experienced judge can prudently review a succinct, factually detailed application in a short time.” Clevenger v. State, 2025 Ark. 128 (Sep. 11, 2025).
United States v. Holcomb, 132 F.4th 1118 (9th Cir. Mar. 27, 2025), posted here, is withdrawn (and updated there). New opinion to follow. United States v. Holcomb, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 23560 (9th Cir. Sep. 11, 2025).*
The plain view of foil for heating meth was reasonable suspicion for extending the stop. United States v. Buckner, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 178021 (S.D. W. Va. Sep. 11, 2025).*
Defendant’s being asleep at the wheel on a road justified the stop and that led to an FST and arrest. United States v. Perez, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 177970 (D.S.D. Sep. 9, 2025).*
The fact a hotel mistakenly gave a room to an unwanted guest gave the guest no standing in the room when the hotel sought to eject him. State v. Mount, 2025 Mo. App. LEXIS 601 (Sep. 9, 2025):
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Posted inBorder search, Cell phones|Comments Off on ABAJ: As Customs searches more electronic devices, lawyers have some considerations when they cross borders
The wooded area near defendant’s property was not his curtilage. United States v. Rodrigues, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 176637 (D. Mass. Sep. 10, 2025).*
A cut and paste typo and an honest and material mistake on a connection to the premises was, to the trial court, a close question, and suppression was granted. Reversed. The mistakes could be overlooked. People v. Barnes, 2025 IL App (4th) 250014, 2025 Ill. App. LEXIS 1063 (Sep. 8, 2025).*
No good cause shown for a late filed motion to suppress. United States v. Shevchenko, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 176126 (N.D. Cal. Sep. 9, 2025).*
A Kik social media employee wasn’t acting as a government agent when it reported child pornography to NCMEC. United States v. Guard, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 23364 (2d Cir. Sep. 10, 2025).*
Plaintiff’s adult child was the sole other employee of the business, and he had apparent authority to consent to a search. For all practical purpose, he’s in charge, too. Rockwood Auto Parts, Inc. v. Monroe Cty., 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 23406 (6th Cir. Sep. 10, 2025).
When CP comes to or from an IP address, the government doesn’t need knowledge of who lives there and uses it to show probable cause. United States v. Rodrigues, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 176637 (D. Mass. Sep. 10, 2025).*
[Aside from the Stone bar,] petitioner’s claim Rule 41 was violated by the search warrant doesn’t provide grounds for 2255 relief. McGhee v. United States, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 176366 (C.D. Ill. Sep. 10, 2025).*
The trial court’s failure to consider one of defendant’s search claims gets a remand. People v. Letts, 2025 Mich. App. LEXIS 7218 (Sep. 9, 2025).*
"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.
