Fourth Amendment

The Sixth Circuit upheld a search warrant under the good faith exception in Leon where there was no probable cause and the affidavit only relied on undated text messages between the defendant and a drug purchaser, loose marijuana and untested substances found in the defendant’s trash, and the defendant’s prior criminal history.

Sitting en banc, the Fourth Circuit held that the exigent circumstances and emergency aid exceptions to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement did not justify the officers’ suspicion-less stop and frisk of the defendant who was an area where officers had heard gun shots being fired less than a minute before. There were other individuals and there was no particularized evidence that the defendant had been involved in the shooting or posed a danger to others.

The Eighth Circuit upheld a conviction for receipt of child pornography because Google was not acting as a government agent when it uncovered files of child pornography in the defendant’s email accounts.

The Second Circuit held that a defendant’s stop was unconstitutional where it was based on the officer receiving an email with a photograph of a suspect who only shared general characteristics with the defendant and the photo did not involve any criminal activity. The Court also held that the attenuation doctrine did not apply because the officers’ misconduct was purposeful or flagrant due to the extreme lack of reasonable suspicion.

The Court reversed the district court’s grant of suppression based on an unlawful protective sweep. The Court held the sweep was justified where, even though officers had acted on an anonymous tip and had already arrested the visible suspects and found no contraband, the existence of multiple vehicles and people at the scene, the observation of a suspect attempting to flee, and the immediacy and brevity of the sweep to the defendant’s arrest supported the sweep.

Sitting en banc, the Court held that a defendant’s alleged abandonment of privacy or possessory interest in the object of a search or seizure does not implicate his Article III standing or the court’s jurisdiction, and the government waives the issue if it fails to argue abandonment.

The Court held that the district court did not err in refusing to consider the defendant’s untimely motion to suppress, since the defendant’s failure was based on a strategic decision. Moreover, the sentencing court did not err in refusing to grant a downward departure for acceptance of responsibility where the defendant challenge his factual guilt throughout the proceedings and at trial.

The Court affirmed the district court’s finding that officers’ warrantless search of a home was justified under the “emergency aid exception.” The Court held that the officers had a reasonable belief that a dog’s whimpering inside the house was a human in need of emergency aid based on their initially responding to a 911 regarding gun shots, the defendant’s belligerent behavior prior to his arrest, and the officers’ belief that someone else may have been in the house.

In an 8-1 opinion, the Supreme Court held that an officer has reasonable suspicion justifying a traffic stop when he runs a vehicle’s license plate and learns that the registered owner’s license has been revoked or suspended. The Court held that it is reasonable for an officer to assume that the vehicle’s driver is the registered owner, even where the registered owner’s license has been suspended, because the data shows that many individuals who have suspended licenses continue to drive anyway.

In a matter of first impression involving the use of ShotSpotter, GPS-enabled technology that detects gunfire, the Court held that there was reasonable suspicion to stop a vehicle emerging from an area where gunfire was detected based on the short lapse of time between the detection and the stop, the vehicle’s proximity to the area, the behavior of the occupants, and other circumstances.