Man Steals Hearse for a Joy Ride, Finds Out Later a Corpse Came Along It’s a bad weekend when a family member dies. It only gets worse when the funeral home calls you later to say their hearse was stolen — and your loved one’s body was inside. Maybe the only one having a worse […]
READ MORENinth Circuit on ‘Good Faith’ Exception When Warrant Clearly Unsupported By Probable Cause
The U.S. v. Leon rule allowing officers to rely in “good faith” on what turns out to be an inadequate warrant does not apply when it was not objectively reasonable in the first place for the officers to believe that the warrant was supported by probable cause, a Ninth Circuit panel held today in U.S. […]
READ MORECA 2d District on Patdown Search for Identification
A patdown search merely to find a suspect’s identification is not okay under Terry v. Ohio. That’s the holding of People v. Garcia, B187453, decided today by the California Second District Court of Appeal. In this case, a police officer stopped a man for the heinous offense of riding a bike without a headlamp and […]
READ MORECA 4th District on Traffic Stop of Vehicle Without License Plates
A police officer does not violate the Fourth Amendment by conducting a traffic stop of a car that has no license plates, even if that car has valid temporary registration papers properly displayed, if the officer does not see those registration papers before conducting the stop. That’s the holding of the California Fourth District Court […]
READ MORESavannah Attorney Arrested on Counterfeiting Charges
Savannah attorney, Arthur Gibson, 63, was arrested last week on counterfeiting charges after an investigation that lasted several months. During the course of the investigation, as detailed in this complaint and affidavit, Gibson purchased $10,000 of counterfeit currency for $2,000. As detailed in the affidavit, Gibson came to the attention of the U.S. Secret Service following his […]
READ MOREWhitey Bulger’s Girlfriend to Plead Guilty
Whitey Bulger’s longtime girlfriend, Catherine Greig, is set to enter a guilty plea today in federal court in Boston to multiple counts relating to her 16 years on the run with the notorious Boston gangster. The Bulger case has fascinated us for almost 2 decades after his flight to avoid prosecution just before his indictment in […]
READ MOREObama Restricts Police Military ear, says it can alienate
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — President Barack Obama ended long-running federal transfers of some combat-style gear to local law enforcement on Monday in an attempt to ease tensions between police and minority communities, saying equipment made for the battlefield should not be a tool of American criminal justice. Grenade launchers, bayonets, tracked armored vehicles, weaponized aircraft […]
READ MOREThe Private Drug War and the Tattered Fourth Amendment
Pete at Drug WarRant had an troubling post this weekend about a couple ways that private companies have beenstepping in to the police’s shoes in carrying out drug policing. Pete wrote about a private, “voluntary” drug and alcohol screening stations for motorists (see examples here and here), and also about the use of Blackwater to […]
READ MORECA 4th District on Warantless Search of Probationer
A police officer can not use a probationer’s search condition to retroactively justify a warrantless detention that begins before the officer learns of the condition, the CA Fourth District Court of Appeal held 1/4/07 in People v. Miller, G033762. The officer in Miller stopped a car purely because of the car was in a dark […]
READ MORECA 1st on Detention By Spotlight, Officer Tone
A police officer who stopped his car about 35 feet away from a man, shined his spotlight directly at the man, and then began to walk briskly toward him while questioning him about his legal status, did in fact “detain” the man by taking these actions, implicating the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and […]
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