Collect Call with Lawstache

Thank you all for an incredible year! I experienced the biggest surge in viewership, and it’s all because of your amazing support in sharing my videos. A special thank you to everyone who purchased my Do Not Arrest This Person t-shirts—you’ve made this journey even more rewarding! ~ Anton V. aka LAWSTACHE 1. NOT a crime for citizen to refuse entry to her home to police who do not have an appropria...

Ultimately, the Court is presented with two facts: (1) Mr. Russell consumed marijuana at least two hours before the stop; and (2) Mr. Russell may have had bloodshot, watery eyes and/or droopy eyelids. These facts put this matter on all fours with Patzer, where the driver was observed only to have “bloodshot and glassy eyes” and admitted to smoking marijuana. 277 F.3d at 1082. Under the Idaho law a...

May officers, as a matter of standard procedure and in the name of "officer safety," detain and frisk a driver stopped for an equipment infraction solely on the basis that the stop occurs in a high crime area at night? Here we conclude that the Fourth Amendment does not permit such an intrusion and that any incriminating evidence flowing from the illegal contact, which may include statem...

Most of us nowadays carry a cell phone. And our phones frequently contain information chronicling our daily lives—where we go, whom we see, what we say to our friends, and the like. When a person is suspected of a crime, his phone thus can serve as a fruitful source of evidence, especially if he committed the offense in concert with others with whom he might communicate about it. Does this mean th...

The Fourth Amendment guarantees “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons . . . and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. A traffic stop is a “seizure” of “persons” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 251 (2007) (holding that passengers as well as the driver are seized during a traffic stop). Therefo...

The Fourth Amendment guarantees “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. When determining whether someone’s Fourth Amendment rights have been violated, “the ultimate touchstone . . . is ‘reasonableness.’ ” Brigham City, Utah v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006) (citations omitted). Even...

The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons ...  against  unreasonable  searches  and  seizures.”U.S.  Const.amend.  IV.    A  traffic  stop constitutes a “seizure” under the Fourth Amendment.  Whren  v.  United  States,  517  U.S.  806, 809–10 (1996);Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 653 (1979).  The reasonableness of a traffic stop  depends  on  whether...

Responding to a report of suspicious activity in the area, a police officer unlawfully detained a bystander who had no apparent connection to the report. The officer ran a records search and learned that the bystander, Duvanh Anthony McWilliams, was on parole and subject to warrantless, suspicionless parole searches. The officer proceeded to search McWilliams and his vehicle, where the officer fou...

Following denial of his suppression motion, defendant pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana for sale. Defendant had approached the Needles, California plant quarantine inspection station in a vehicle bearing Michigan license plates. The quarantine officer, feeling that a more detailed inspection was necessary, identified himself and requested to look into defendant's vehicle trunk. Defend...

Police stopped Robert Lidster at a checkpoint set up to find information about a recent hit-and-run accident. Lidster was arrested, and later convicted, for drunk driving. Lidster successfully appealed his conviction to the Illinois Appellate Court. It relied on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Indianapolis v. Edmond (2000) holding that a checkpoint is unconstitutional if its only purpose...

Homeland Security Investigations and Customs and Border Protection have credible information that an individual in the Baja California border region (the “Recruiter”) has placed help wanted advertisements on Facebook seeking persons to transport currency across the border. Credible information indicates at least some individuals who responded to the ads and drove vehicles across the border were no...

We review questions of probable cause de novo, but with "due weight to inferences drawn from [the] facts by resident judges and local law enforcement officers." Ornelas v. United States,517 U.S. 690, 699, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996). We need only find that the issuing magistrate had a substantial basis for finding probable cause. Illinois v. Gates,462 U.S. 213, 239, 103 S.Ct....

Upon this evidence, and knowing that the box was at the airport in the possession of DEA agents, the magistrate issued a warrant for a search of Hendrick's residence at N. Sidney. Although the warrant states that "on the premises known as 2835 N. Sidney . . . there is now being concealed . . . a . . . cardboard box [containing cocaine]," (emphasis added) it further states "this...

The Ninth Circuit has repeatedly affirmed searches of homes of suspected drug dealers even where there is no direct evidence linking the homes to illegal activity, because the presence of evidence in a drug dealer's home is a reasonable inference to draw. See, e.g., United States v. Fannin, 817 F.2d 1379, 1381–82 (9th Cir.1987); United States v. Angulo–Lopez, 791 F.2d 1394, 1399 (9th Cir.1986...

The general rule in the Ninth Circuit concerning knock and talk encounters is: Absent express orders from the person in possession against any possible trespass, there is no rule of private or public conduct which makes it illegal per se, or a condemned invasion of privacy, for anyone openly and peaceably, at high noon, to walk up the steps and knock on the front door of any man's "castl...

It is well established that, even when officers have probable cause to believe that contraband is present in a home, a warrantless search of the home is unlawful unless exigent circumstances exist at the time of entry. See Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 589, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980). The government bears the burden of demonstrating exigent circumstances that overcome their presumpt...

The purpose behind the decision to impound is crucial because of the reason for condoning inventory searches of impounded cars. "In the interests  of public safety and as part of what the Court has called `community caretaking functions,' [citation], automobiles are frequently taken into police custody." ( Opperman, supra, 428 U.S. at p. 368.) "When vehicles are impounded, loca...

Petitioner city operates vehicle checkpoints on its roads in an effort to interdict unlawful drugs.  The District Court denied respondents a preliminary injunction, but the Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that the checkpoints contravened the Fourth Amendment. Held: Because the checkpoint program's primary purpose is indistinguishable from the general interest in crime control, the checkpoin...

Because the Fourth Amendment protects "people, not places," Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), Davis must first demonstrate that he personally had a "legitimate expectation of privacy" in the place searched or the thing seized. Rakas v. Illinois,439 U.S. 128, 143, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978). If the Fourth Amendment does not p...

As a general matter, “police can stop and briefly detain a person for investigative purposes if the officer has a reasonable suspicion supportedby articulable facts that criminal activity ‘may be afoot,’ even if the officer lacks probable cause.”  At the outset, we note that the Supreme Court has held “actual” roadside drug checkpoints are unconstitutional. In City of Indianapolis v. Edmond,531 U....

As an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, "police may, without a warrant, impound and search a motor vehicle so long as they do so in conformance with the standardized procedures of the local police department and in furtherance of a community caretaking purpose, such as promoting public safety or the efficient flow of traffic."...

This court recognized the emergency exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement in United States v. Cervantes,219 F.3d 882, 889 (9th Cir. 2000). In Cervantes, this court held that the emergency exception doctrine justified an officer's entry into an apartment to investigate a chemical smell associated with methamphetamine production. Id. at 891. We applied the doctrine in Cer...

Around midday on December 7, 2004, three uniformed police officers entered the fenced-in backyard of a private home in a residential neighborhood of Portland. Guns drawn, but without a warrant, one scaled the fence and another kicked open a padlocked gate leading into the backyard. The only information the officers had at that time was (1) a call from a neighbor reporting that the owners were at w...

https://youtu.be/dKtN0rEI-rs The Fourth Amendment provides that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” U.S. Const., amend. IV. “[H]ouses,” for Fourth Amendment purposes, include a home's curtilage, and a home's “front porch is the classic exemplar” of curtilage. Florida v....

The knock-and-talk exception permits police “to encroach upon the curtilage of a home, for the purpose of asking questions of the occupants.” United States v. Lundin, 817 F.3d 1158,1158 (9th Cir. 2016) (cleaned up). The exception is based on the theory of implied consent: a resident's consent is implied from the custom of treating the “knocker on the front door” as an invitation (i.e., licens...