The inventory papers and the body cam video show that the officer inventoried all the meaningful things in the vehicle, so it complied with policy and was reasonable. People v. Craddock, 2025 NY Slip Op 01016, 2025 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 1041 (3d Dept. Feb. 20, 2025).
Plaintiff’s arrest was unjustified and the officers don’t get qualified immunity. Little v. City of Saginaw, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 4085 (6th Cir. Feb. 19, 2025).*
The officer’s credible testimony about his visual assessment of speed was justification for the stop. United States v. Clermont, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31380 (S.D. Fla. Jan. 30, 2025),* adopted, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 29978 (S.D. Fla., Feb. 19, 2025).*
Defendant’s furtive movements supported exigency that he could attempt to erase things on his cell phone thus justifying its warrantless seizure. Igboji v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 1021 (Tex. App. – Houston (14th Dist.) Feb. 20, 2025) (unpublished), on remand from 607 S.W.3d 157 (Tex. App. – Houston (14th Dist.) 2020), rev’d 666 S.W.3d 607 (Tex. Crim. App. 2023).
Defendant’s statement he disclaimed an interest in the car he was walking away from can be used to show his standing even though the government is barred from using it at trial. United States v. Cook, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31024 (N.D. Ohio Feb. 21, 2025).*
17 law enforcement officers and support personnel showed up to execute a child pornography warrant. Defendant and his family were removed from the house and put in police cars and told they were not under arrest. Still, it was custodial when defendant was questioned in the police car he couldn’t get out of. United States v. Galasso, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31022 (N.D. Ohio Feb. 21, 2025).*
“The record here demonstrates that the district court did not plainly err by allowing the jury to draw an adverse inference of guilt from Gonzalez’s refusal to provide his DNA even though his counsel was not present. When the government requested Gonzalez’s DNA sample, it was not a critical stage in the criminal prosecution, and Gonzalez did not have a right to counsel.” United States v. Gonzalez, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3986 (11th Cir. Feb. 21, 2025).
This inventory was reasonable. The officer abruptly changed his mind about the inventory, but it was because he realized that the car couldn’t be driven away. Holifield v. State, 2025 Fla. App. LEXIS 1424 (Fla. 5th DCA Feb. 21, 2025).*
“During the [blood] draw, the defendant stated, ‘of all the times I’ve driven drunk, this is the time that I’m caught.’” State v. Martin, 2025 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 97 (Feb. 21, 2025).*
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The caller’s report to the police that defendant was handling a gun in an apartment building’s parking lot didn’t state a crime in an open carry state. The detention was without consent or reasonable suspicion. United States v. Johnson, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30949 (E.D. Okla. Feb. 21, 2025):
Officers had exigent circumstances for an entry into an Airbnb that was being used for sex trafficking a minor when the targets were constantly on the move from place to place. The FBI was on defendant’s tail with the minor, and he was moving from Airbnb to Airbnb under pseudonyms. They entered one Airbnb without a warrant when the landlord went in first, but didn’t find them. When they finally found defendant and the minor, entry without a warrant was reasonable. United States v. Black, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 4294 (8th Cir. Feb. 25, 2025):
Defendant challenges the CI’s statements as insufficient to show probable cause, but it fails. This is an example of how this court found the CI’s detail sufficient. United States v. Martinez, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30335 (D. Utah Feb. 19, 2025)*:
Officers used their iPhone flashlight and camera to see through car window’s tinting, and this did not violate any reasonable expectation of privacy. Tinting the windows doesn’t create an objective expectation of privacy. United States v. Poller, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3932 (2d Cir. Feb. 20, 2025):
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The warrantless search of defendant’s cell phone was the same as a private search that already occurred, and it did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Knight v. State, 2025 Miss. LEXIS 51 (Feb. 20, 2025).
An NOLA officer seeing an apparent gun on his person in the French Quarter was reasonable suspicion. United States v. Hill, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30118 (E.D. La. Feb. 20, 2025).*
Officers coming to a residence to serve legal papers could enter the driveway and look in the cars where they saw a sleeping person. The person in the car didn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy from being seen. A gun case reveals the contents. United States v. Phillips, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30069 (E.D. Ky. Feb. 20, 2025).*
For this cell phone search, “As explained above, however, the first and fourth search categories are sufficiently specific, and defendant conceded below that the third category is sufficiently specific. Further, the sixth category’s command to search for location information—as circumscribed by the limitations included in those categories, such as specific phone numbers, dates, and types of information—is sufficiently specific and does not authorize ‘undue rummaging.’ See Mansor II, 363 Ore. at 220 (without specificity, digital searches ‘raise the possibility of computer search warrants … sanctioning the undue rummaging that the particularity requirement was enacted to preclude’ …).” State v. Meyers, 338 Or. App. 59 (Feb. 20, 2025).
Sovereign citizen’s § 1983 case was essentially an appeal of state traffic convictions and was barred by Heck. Justice v. Moreau, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 29551 (E.D. Tex. Jan. 23, 2025).*
The use of force question here is fact bound and not proper for summary judgment. Monroy v. Perez, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3875 (9th Cir. Feb. 20, 2025).*
In the Brianna Taylor civil rights prosecution, the battering ram to the door of the apartment with shots being fired was a seizure of the occupants. United States v. Hankison, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 29347 (W.D. Ky. Feb. 19, 2025).*
Defendant didn’t get to see all the redacted warrant affidavit because it named the CI. On the whole it showed probable cause. People v. Etienne, 2025 NY Slip Op 00979 (2d Dept. Feb. 19, 2025).*
Defendant had standing to challenge a tracking order on a vehicle he’d been driving, didn’t own, and parked it and another drove off. Under Byrd, one doesn’t have to own a vehicle to have standing. As to the tracking order, it was issued with probable cause. As to defendant’s cell phone, it was seized with exigency and put into airplane mode. He conflates seizure and search of the phone needing a warrant. United States v. Hutchins, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28949 (W.D. Ky. Jan. 27, 2025).*
Petitioner’s Franks 2255 claim fails because it was already litigated. United States v. Aviles, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28912 (M.D. Pa. Feb. 19, 2025).*
Hannah Bloch-Wehba, “A Fourth Amendment Press Clause,” in Marc Ambinder, Jennifer R. Henrichsen, and Connie Rosati (eds), National Security, Journalism, and Law in an Age of Information Warfare, Ethics, National Security, and the Rule of Law (New York, 2024; online edn, Oxford Academic, 20 Feb. 2025) at 43-60. Abstract:
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Defendant’s guilty plea is set aside as a due process as a result of the government withholding information about a second CI in the search warrant papers where the first couldn’t identify him. When the government made a later 775-page document dump, the pertinent information was handwritten in a few margins, and it even eluded the government’s attorneys for a while, who should have just confessed error when it came up. United States v. Garrett, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3769 (4th Cir. Feb. 19, 2025) (2-1, decided less than four weeks after submission of a case docketed in 2022). This summary doesn’t do it justice. It’s actually quite stout:
A cross-gender jail strip search of a transgender woman with gender dysphoria stated a claim. Griffith v. El Paso Cty., 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3734 (10th Cir. Feb. 19, 2025).
Defendant was involved in a head-on crash driving on the wrong side of the road. His bloodshot watery eyes supported probable cause for BAC. State v. Brain, 2025 Iowa App. LEXIS 165 (Feb. 19, 2025).*
Officers had reasonable suspicion to extend the traffic stop based on defendant’s nervousness, the wad of cash, his lie about his whereabouts, and information from the ongoing narcotics investigation. Their threat to get a warrant was justified and not coercive. Commonwealth v. Metz, 2025 PA Super 37 (Feb. 19, 2025).*
The protective sweep here was unjustified by any reasonable belief there was a justification for it. Trial court suppression order affirmed. El Pueblo de P.R. v. Rondón, 2025 PR App. LEXIS 206 (Jan. 27, 2025).*
Plaintiff pled to state charges and was to be released by the Illinois DOC. But it was a holiday weekend, and he spent four days in jail. This was neither a Fourth, Eighth, nor Fourteenth Amendment violation. Peoples v. Cook Cty., 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3668 (7th Cir. Feb. 18, 2025).
That the CI participated in supervised controlled buys with defendant is powerful corroboration, as the Second Circuit has recognized. United States v. Kelly, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28189 (D. Conn. Feb. 18, 2025).*
Under NJ law, it’s not required that the state allege more than an ounce of marijuana was involved since unregulated delivery of any amount is a crime. State v. Gomez, 2025 N.J. Super. LEXIS 14 (Feb. 19, 2025).*
Sublessee of an apartment had standing to challenge its search. This can’t be compared to burglars or squatters. United States v. Ephron, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28794 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 18, 2025).
Defendant wasn’t seized during his encounter with the police at a car wash where he was asked for his ID and it was returned to him. He wasn’t blocked in other otherwise restrained. State v. Shipman, 2025 N.C. App. LEXIS 62 (Feb. 19, 2025).*
Plaintiff inmate sued over his legal mail being opened, searched, and maybe even seized outside his presence. Caselaw supports the claim, but it’s not fully clear here. The motion to dismiss is denied for now so the issues can be fleshed out, particularly qualified immunity. Warner v. Chambers-Smith, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28844 (S.D. Ohio Jan. 15, 2025).*
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not challenging a will defendant wrote saying he’d kill his wife then himself found on his person at the time of arrest. At least inevitable discovery applied because it would have been found in booking inventory. MacKenzie v. Morrison, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 3699 (6th Cir. Feb. 18, 2025).*
Nexus was shown to defendant’s cell phone because the CI said that it was used to communicate with co-conspirators. United States v. Kelly, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28189 (D. Conn. Feb. 18, 2025).*
“Probable cause ‘is not a high bar,’ see Kaley v. United States, 571 U.S. 350, 338 (2014), and it has been met here. This is all the Constitution requires. The black Jaguar was tied to drug trafficking, and as far as the agents knew at the time of his arrest, Derrick Baldwin (and not Jarman Hargrove) owned it. Defense counsel’s suggestion notwithstanding, agents had sufficient probable cause to detain Mr. Baldwin, even if they didn’t witness him engage in suspicious hand-to-hand transactions at various gas stations or find his fingerprints on items recovered from the trash pull.” United States v. Baldwin, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28382 (S.D. Ohio Feb. 18, 2025).*
Defendant was stopped for overtinted windows and his furtive movements in and out of the car gave reasonable suspicion to extend the stop. State v. Reuschling, 2025-Ohio-516 (11th Dist. Feb. 18, 2025).
The statute excluding evidence unlawfully seized also is intended to restore noncontraband property. The state could appeal the latter, too. Here, it was Delta-8 THC gummies. State v. Islam, 2025 Ga. LEXIS 31 (Feb. 18, 2025).
There was reasonable suspicion to extend this traffic stop. Reece v. State, 2025 Ga. App. LEXIS 57 (Feb. 18, 2025).*
Cause was shown for an administrative search warrant for rental property safety issue. “[I]t is well settled that a municipality may obtain a warrant for administrative inspections of properties, and probable cause may be based upon a showing that reasonable legislative standards for conducting an inspection are satisfied. Said standards were satisfied in this case.” Dep’t of Dev. Servs. for the City of N. Canton Ohio v. CF Homes LLC, 2025-Ohio-522 (5th Dist. Feb. 18, 2025).*
The towing of defendant’s car left on the interstate without a valid LPN was reasonable. The officers didn’t have to permit him to find his own sources. The inventory was not proved to be pretextual. “But the departures from procedure on which Stamps relies fail to prove that the inventory search here was pretextual. True, Klepacz started his inventory search without actually writing anything down, searching the passenger compartment and the trunk for about ten minutes before Officer Cheatham appeared with the PD50-6 form. But Klepacz stated aloud the items that he found—information that was contemporaneously recorded by his body camera. And when Officer Cheatham returned with the form, he wrote down the information as Klepacz dictated it to him.” Stamps v. Commonwealth, 2025 Va. App. LEXIS 97 (Feb. 18, 2025).
The affidavit for warrant was not so devoid of facts that there wasn’t probable cause or that the good faith exception should apply. “The court disagrees with Mulamba’s argument that this suspicious behavior does not factor into the probable cause determination.” United States v. Milton, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27782 (S.D. Ga. Jan. 23, 2025).*
There was reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop, so defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not challenging it. State v. Burson, 2025-Ohio-499 (12th Dist. Feb. 18, 2025).*
Reason: Hawaii Can Auction Off Your Car Without Ever Convicting You by Dan Alban and Elyse Smith Pohl (“Civil forfeiture allows the government of Hawaii to take your property and sell it for profit without proving you did anything wrong.”)
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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.
