T
he United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington’s denial of a defendant’s motion to suppress evidence of child exploitation, holding that investigators relied on an overbroad and unspecific warrant provision when they discovered the evidence.
Background ...
The Supreme Court of Colorado held that the police conducted an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment of a defendant’s vehicle during a traffic stop when they facilitated entry into the vehicle by a drug-sniffing dog without probable cause.
Tien Dinh Pham was observed leaving an area police alleged to ...
The Supreme Court of Illinois ruled that a defendant retains the right to challenge his sentence when he enters a “blind” guilty plea, i.e., a plea that does not specify the sentence as part of the plea.
Background
Sedrick White admitted to fatally shooting Arnel Adamore in August 1998 while ...
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia abused its discretion by failing to address the defendant’s non-frivolous argument for a downward variance.
Tytus Lamaar Shields was importing drugs for distribution in Parkersburg, West Virginia, ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
Federal law enforcement agencies have been paying private companies for the information they collect on users—information for which agents would need a warrant to collect themselves.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Carpenter v. United States, 585 U.S. 296 (2018), that the government must obtain a ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
An open-source initiative is empowering citizens to monitor automated license plate readers (“ALPRs”) worldwide, cataloging their locations to reveal how police and private companies deploy these surveillance tools.
Flock Safety (“Flock”), a leading ALPR vendor in the United States, markets its technology as a means to ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The Metropolitan Police Department (“MPD”) in Washington, D.C., has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to monitor social media activity, targeting protesters and others not suspected of crimes, according to public records obtained through a 2022 lawsuit by the Brennan Center for Justice and Data for ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts upheld a trial court’s order for a new trial after it concluded that defense counsel had a conflict of interest where counsel could potentially be called to testify about the events that occurred during a voluntary police interview that formed ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that a defendant being compelled to provide a thumbprint constitutes a testimonial act where it is used to establish ownership of a cellphone and its contents.
Background
Jeffrey Brown, Markus Maly, and Peter Schwartz were charged ...
by Anthony W. Accurso
The Supreme Court of Colorado held that a defendant who had her hands bagged and secured with zip ties to preserve any evidence of gunpowder residue without her consent at the police station and was confined to an interrogation room with the door closed was in ...
