Skip navigation
PYHS - Header

Articles by Anthony Accurso

Massachusetts Supreme Court: Commonwealth Failed to Show GPS Monitoring as Condition of Probation Is Constitutional

by Anthony W Accurso

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts overturned a Superior Court’s denial of a defendant’s motion challenging a condition of his probation which required GPS monitoring, ruling the Commonwealth failed to prove that the search occasioned by the monitoring was constitutionally justified.

Timothy M. Roderick was convicted ...

Montana Supreme Court: Odor of Marijuana by Itself Insufficient to Prolong Traffic Stop

by Anthony W. Accurso

The Supreme Court of Montana ruled a state trooper impermissibly extended a traffic stop to investigate a drug possession based solely on the odor of marijuana and undeveloped hunches.

William James Harning was driving a truck full of ceramics to an art show around 10:00 a.m. ...

False Confession Generator: How Accusatorial Interrogations Undermine the Pursuit of Justice

by Anthony W. Accurso

There are many aspects of the criminal justice system in the U.S. that are in desperate need of reform, but one aspect — how we obtain information from potential suspects — is perhaps more troubling than others because it does more than just undermine the pursuit ...

Arizona Supreme Court Announces Jury Unanimity Required Regarding Narcotic Type Under Possession Statute

by Anthony W. Accurso

The Supreme Court of Arizona held that “the identity of an alleged narcotic drug is an element of ARS § 13-3408, and therefore jury unanimity is required.”

Jorge Romero-Millan, Ernesto Hernandez Cabanillas, and Marco Antonio Garcia-Paz are all Mexican nationals who were lawfully residing in the U.S. ...

Colorado Supreme Court: Police Officer’s ‘Hunches’ Cannot Establish Probable Cause, Determination Requires Consideration of Facts Weighing in Favor and Against Probable Cause

by Anthony W. Accurso

The Supreme Court of Colorado held that facts used in determining probable cause to conduct a warrantless search must include those that militate against a finding of probable cause.

Colorado State Patrol Trooper Christian Bollen was watching eastbound traffic on I-70 around 8:00 a.m. on the ...

Kentucky Supreme Court Announces Obtaining Real-Time CSLI Data Constitutes a Search Under Fourth Amendment, Addressing Legal Question U.S. Supreme Court Explicitly Left Open in Carpenter

by Anthony W. Accurso

In a case of first impression, the Supreme Court of Kentucky upheld a suppression order, holding that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their real-time cell-site location information (“CSLI”) and that searches thereof are subject to the Fourth Amendment.

Late one evening, Dovontia Reed ...

Variability in Records Requests Obscures Police Use of Surveillance

by Anthony W. Accurso

An effort by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (“EFF”) to track police use of surveillance technologies is butting up against the decentralized nature of our law enforcement networks in that open-records requests to different agencies for the same information result in wildly variable information — if anything ...

Fog Data Science, Your Hometown Data Broker

by Anthony W. Accurso

Criminal Legal News has previously reported on data broker companies — companies that buy and sell data on consumers, most often location data harvested from mobile apps. Fog Data Science is one such company, though one that some believe is quite possibly more dangerous to ...

Sixth Circuit: District Court Confused ‘Attenuation Doctrine’ and ‘Inevitable Discovery Exception’ in Applying Exclusionary Rule

by Anthony W. Accurso

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit vacated the U.S. District Court for the District of Western Tennessee’s denial of a defendant’s suppression motion, ruling the court applied the standard for judging exceptions to the warrant requirement under the attenuation doctrine instead of the ...

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Announces New Rule Governing Warrants for CSLI and Tower Dumps, Suppresses CSLI Evidence Because Warrant Lacked Particularized Facts Establishing Nexus Between Defendant’s Use of Cell Phone and Charged Crimes

by Anthony W. Accurso

The Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) of Massachusetts validated one warrant for cell site location information (“CSLI”) while finding a second deficient for failure to establish probable cause, and it issued prospective guidelines for CSLI warrants going forward.

Seven businesses around the Boston area were subject to ...

 

 

Stop Prison Profiteering Campaign Ad 2
Advertise here
Prison Phone Justice Campaign