Collect Call with Lawstache

🚨 USA v. Bejar-Guizar (2025) – Border Patrol Stop & 9th Circuit Immigration Ruling Explained 🚨 In this video, we break down the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in United States v. Bejar-Guizar, a key 2025 immigration case involving a border patrol stop near San Diego, California. The court upheld the legality of the stop based on reasonable suspicion as it related to immigration charge...

Can a misdemeanor conviction really strip you of your Second Amendment rights? In this video, we break down the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' major decision in United States v. Michael Blake DeFrance (No. 23-2409), where the court reversed a federal conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9) — the law that prohibits firearm possession after a domestic violence misdemeanor. You’ll learn: ~What § 9...

The Fifth Amendment’s privilege against selfincrimination generally applies only to those who “claim it.”  Saechao, 418 F.3d at 1077 (quotation omitted).  However, this general rule does not apply when an individual is “denied the free choice to admit, to deny, or to refuse to answer.”  Id.  This can occur when the government creates a situation where “an individual’s refusal to answer incriminati...

While “knock and talks”—as defined by the United States Supreme Court—are considered constitutional, “knock and talks”—as defined and executed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”)—are not. Considering the policies and practices governing how ICE conducts its “knock and talks,” the more accurate title for certain law enforcement operations would be “knock and arrests.” This Order ser...

“The automobile exception provides ‘police who have probable cause to believe a lawfully stopped vehicle contains evidence of criminal activity or contraband may conduct a warrantless search of any area of the vehicle in which the evidence might be found.’”  (People v. McGee(2020) 53Cal. App.5th 796, 801, quoting People v. Evans(2011) 200Cal. App.4th 735, 753.)  The scope of a warrantless search i...

The panel affirmed the district court’s revocation of Jackson Daniel Bowers’ supervised release in a case in which Bowers argued that Article III, section 2 of the Constitution affords supervisees the right to a jury trial in revocation proceedings held under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(e). In Bowers’ view, Article III and the Sixth Amendment are independent from each other and the Sixth Amendment trial-by-j...

The latest government case-by-case records reveal that as of March 31, 2025, federal efforts to prosecute white-collar crimes have continued to decline – down more than 10 percent from FY 2024 in the last full year of the Biden administration. The FBI is the lead investigative agency in many of these investigations. Thus, this decline is likely to grow even larger given a series of recent federal...

What Officer Hill reasonably suspected, namely that Lopez–Soto had not affixed a registration sticker to his rear window, simply was not a violation of Baja California law. This cannot justify the stop under the Fourth Amendment. Nor is it possible to justify the stop objectively, as did the court in Sanders, with the facts available to Officer Hill when he made the stop: in his mistaken belief th...

The government argues that we should credit Jankowski's testimony because of his nineteen years of experience as a police officer and thousands of hours of "stash house" surveillance. But while courts analyze the facts leading to an investigatory stop in light of a trained officer's experience, these facts must be "more than the mere subjective impressions of a particular...

On November 12, 1999, at approximately 2:05 a.m., Sergeant Thomas Carmichael observed a blue Honda traveling at 70 m.p.h. northbound in the right lane on Interstate 15. Carmichael first observed the Honda from his patrol car, which was positioned 75 yards behind it. He observed the car drift onto the solid white fog line on the far side of the right lane and watched the car's wheels travel al...

Few statements in the law are as often repeated: "[A]n investigative stop or detention predicated on mere curiosity, rumor, or hunch is unlawful, even though the officer may be acting in complete good faith." ( In re Tony C. (1978) 21 Cal.3d 888, 893 [ 148 Cal. Rptr. 366, 582 P.2d 957].) The Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures dictates that traff...

The starting point for our analysis of whether the INS had reasonable suspicion to stop Serrano is United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975). In that case, the Supreme Court held that the fourth amendment prohibits INS roving patrols from stopping vehicles in areas near but not at the Mexican border or its functional equivalent and from questioning a vehic...

Neither the holding nor logic of Cady justifies such warrantless searches and seizures in the home. Cady held that a warrantless search of an impounded vehicle for an unsecured firearm did not violate the Fourth Amendment. In reaching this conclusion, the Court noted that the officers who patrol the “public highways” are often called to discharge noncriminal “community caretaking functions,” such...

The panel reversed the district court’s order denying the defendant’s motion to suppress evidence obtained from warrantless searches of his cell phone by Customs and Border Protection officials, and vacated his conviction for importing cocaine. Applying United States v. Cotterman, 709 F.3d 952 (9thCir. 2013) (en banc), the panel held that manual cell phone searches maybe conducted by border offici...

The latest available data from the Justice Department show that during January 2025 the government reported 3196 new immigration prosecutions. According to the case-by-case information analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), this number is up 2.5 percent over the previous month. See the full reports here: https://tracreports.org/tracreports/bulletins/immigration/monthlyj...

Jesus Munguia Mendoza appeals the sentence imposed following his plea of guilty to possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute, a violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Mendoza contends that the district court erred in concluding that it lacked legal authority under the Sentencing Guidelines to depart downward on the ground that Mendoza had no control over, or knowledge of, the purity of...

Respondent Mena and others were detained in handcuffs during a search of the premises they occupied. Petitioners were lead members of a police detachment executing a search warrant of these premises for, inter alia, deadly weapons and evidence of gang membership. Mena sued the officers under 42 U. S. C. §1983, and the District Court found in her favor. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that the...

The Fourth Amendment specifically requires a warrant to include a description of the “place to be searched.” The police officers here—at first—complied with that requirement, obtaining a warrant that listed a motel room suspected of being a hub for drug trafficking. The officers then decided to search the suspect’s home as well, and asked the judge over the phone to expand the scope of the warrant...

Respondents' private residence was damaged by an early morning fire while they were out of town. Firefighters extinguished the blaze at 7:04 a.m., at which time all fire officials and police left the premises. Five hours later, a team of arson investigators arrived at the residence for the first time to investigate the cause of the blaze. They found a work crew on the scene boarding up the ho...

This case presents the question whether a police officer violates the Fourth Amendment by initiating an investigative traffic stop after running a vehicle’s license plate and learning that the registered owner has a revoked driver’s license.  Under this Court’s precedents, the Fourth Amendment permits an officer to initiate a brief investigative traffic stop when he has “a particularized and objec...

During the investigation of two traffic incidents involving an orange and black motorcycle with an extended frame, Officer David Rhodes learned that the motorcycle likely was stolen and in the possession of petitioner Ryan Collins. Officer Rhodes discovered photographs on Collins' Facebook profile of an orange and black motorcycle parked in the driveway of a house, drove to the house, and par...

Before Officer Nichols could pull over petitioner, petitioner parked and got out of his car. Nichols then parked, accosted petitioner, and arrested him after finding drugs in his pocket. Incident to the arrest, Nichols searched petitioner’s car and found a handgun under the driver’s seat. Petitioner was charged with federal drug and firearms violations. In denying his motion to suppress the firear...

Doggett v. United States , 505 U.S. 647 (1992), is a Supreme Court case addressing the right to a speedy trial under the Sixth Amendment. Facts: Marc Doggett was indicted in 1980 for drug-related charges. Shortly after the indictment, he left the United States. While authorities knew he was in Colombia and later Panama, they failed to apprehend him due to logistical issues. In 1982, Doggett return...

A police officer looked in an apartment window through a gap in the closed blind and observed respondents Carter and Johns and the apartment's lessee bagging cocaine. After respondents were arrested, they moved to suppress, inter alia, cocaine and other evidence obtained from the apartment and their car, arguing that the officer's initial observation was an unreasonable search in violati...

Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause/Vehicular Tows  The panel affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment for the City of Portland in an action brought by Andrew Grimm alleging that the City’s procedures for notifying him that his car would be towed were deficient under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Grimm parked a car on the side of a downtown street, paid for an h...