Articles Posted in Fourth Amendment

I just got word that all charges were dismissed against my client in a federal criminal case I have been working on for several years.  It feels good for several reasons, some obvious, others are more subtle. One of the main reasons the dismissal feels so good is that I am virtually certain that my…

I’m currently working on a federal criminal case in a court near Atlanta, and am plowing through the manner by which various law enforcement agents seized evidence that the Assistant United States Attorney (also called the “AUSA”)  wants to use against my client.  This process has me thinking about the many ways that law enforcement…

In a huge decision impacting how criminal defense lawyers handle their cases, here in Atlanta and elsewhere, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in Carpenter v. United States.  For me, the case demonstrates two aspects of handling criminal defense matters here in the second decade of the 21st century, slow change in the legal field,…

Swear to God, same thing happened to me!  Go to a party on a Saturday night, cops bust in,  homeowner claims to “know nothing”, everybody gets busted and goes down to the police station.  Officers make arrests for trespassing, since the homeowner dummies up.  That is basically the fact pattern from District of Columbia v. Westby,…

OK, those unfortunate souls who occasionally read this blog know that I like to go on about the intersection of the 18th Century language in our Bill of Rights (which includes such tremendous ideas like religious liberty, freedom of expression, the right to not incriminate oneself and the right to be free from unreasonable searches),…

Here in Atlanta and the rest of Georgia we have a law that prohibits texting and driving.  This law says that a driver cannot operate his or her motor vehicle “…while engaging in a wireless communication using a wireless telecommunications device.”  To “engage in a wireless communication” means “talking, writing, sending, or reading a text-based communication,…

A major decision on the future of technology and crime investigations was issued a few hours ago by all the judges who sit on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, the offices of which are a few blocks away from us here in Atlanta.  The eleven judges wrote over 100 pages…

The United States Supreme Court yesterday issued another “dog case”, an opinion discussing whether and when the police can use a K-9 to sniff for drugs or contraband prior to getting authorization to do so from a judge.  We have previously posted about these issues.  Yesterday’s case concerned the question as to how long the…

Federal criminal cases are no different than cases brought in state courts such as Georgia, Florida or Alabama. The explosion of technology requires courts to balance the needs of law enforcement with the protections for individual liberty enshrined in our Constitution. Sometimes, when the suspect is investigated for a “bad” crime like targeting minors for…

I previously posted here about a case in front of the United States Supreme Court that deals with how far does the rule from Georgia v. Randolph extend. Recall that in Randolph, the Supreme Court confronted the question of what happens when one resident of a home (there it was the wife) tells the police…