The issue before this court is whether Captain Walsh was justified in making entry into the Defendant’s residence without first obtaining a search warrant. The United States Supreme Court has held that a warrant is not required to enter a person’s home when “the exigencies of the situation make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that the warrantless [entry] is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 393-94 (1978) (internal quotation marks omitted). “One exigency obviating the requirement of a warrant is the need to assist persons who are seriously injured or threatened with such injury.” Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006). Under this “emergency aid” exception, “officers may enter a home without a warrant to render emergency assistance to an injured occupant or to protect an occupant from imminent injury.” Id. Officers do not need “ironclad proof of a likely serious, life-threatening injury to invoke the emergency aid exception[.]” Michigan v. Fisher, 558 U.S. 45, 49 (2009) (internal quotation marks omitted).

…

It is worth noting that all cases where a court has found that an exigent circumstance existed appear to share two common factors. First, in all of the cases in which courts found exigency, officers observed events obviously occurring within the residence or building. For example, cries for help, screams, loud noises, or an observation of a struggle or fight within the structure by looking through a window. Second, courts have found exigent circumstances exist when officers observed events or evidence leading directly to a structure. For example, a blood trail leading to a closed door.

There was no evidence leading directly into the home, such as a trail of blood, and there were no noises, voices or screams leading officers to believe someone inside may be in immediate distress or in need of protection. Here, nothing at the accident scene caused Captain Walsh to believe that the driver was seriously injured. By the time Captain Walsh arrived at the residence, the Defendant had already managed to walk back to his house and fall asleep in his bedroom upstairs. Captain Walsh did not see or hear anything to cause one to think that someone was in the home, much less that someone was in need of immediate assistance.

Full case here: State v. Gibson, No. M2012-02363-CCA-R3-CD, 12 (Tenn. Crim. App. Oct. 18, 2013), https://casetext.com/case/state-v-gibson-395

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“To invoke the Fourth Amendment protections, a person must show that [they] had a legitimate expectation of privacy.” U.S. v. Shryock, 342 F.3d 948, 978 (9th Cir. 2003) (citing Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 740 (1979)). An expectation of privacy is legitimate if it is one that society accepts as objectively reasonable. See Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 95-96 (1990); California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35, 3940 (1988).

“The Fourth Amendment shields not only actual owners, but also anyone with sufficient possessory rights over the property searched.” Lyall v. City of Los Angeles, 807 F.3d 1178, 1186 (9th Cir. 2015). “[A] defendant who lacks an ownership interest may still have standing to challenge a search, upon a showing of ‘joint control’ or ‘common authority’ over the property searched.” United States v. Thomas, 447 F.3d 1191, 1198 (9th Cir. 2006) (citation omitted). “Common authority rests ‘on mutual use of the property by persons generally having joint access or control for most purposes.’” Id. For example, “a defendant may have a legitimate expectation of privacy in another’s car if the defendant is in possession of the car, has the permission of the owner, holds a key to the car, and has the right and ability to exclude others, except the owner, from the car.” Id. at 1198 (9th Cir. 2006).
…
Rubin does not challenge the validity of the search warrant but rather challenges the continued placement and monitoring of the GPS tracking device as unreasonable after law enforcement became aware that Morgan was no longer driving the white pickup. (ECF No. 26 at 5-6, 10-11.) The issue here is essentially whether the continued GPS tracking was conducted within the scope of the warrant. “If the scope of [a] search exceeds that permitted by the terms of a validly issued warrant . . ., the [search and any] subsequent seizure [are] unconstitutional without more.” Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 140 (1990). “Whether a search exceeds the scope of a search warrant is an issue [courts] determine through an objective assessment of the circumstances surrounding the issuance of the warrant, the contents of the search warrant, and the circumstances of the search.” United States v. Hitchcock, 286 F.3d 1064, 1071 (9th Cir.), opinion amended andsuperseded on other grounds, 298 F.3d 1021 (9th Cir. 2002); see, e.g., United States v. Hurd, 499 F.3d 963, 966-69 (9th Cir. 2007) (application of the Hitchcock test)).
…
An objective assessment of the circumstances surrounding the issuance of the warrant does not support the conclusion that the issuing judge authorized the GPS tracking of the white pickup while driven exclusively by someone other than Morgan-such as Rubin.

Full case: United States v. Rubin, 3:22-cr-00012-MMD-CSD-1, 5 (D. Nev. Apr. 21, 2023), https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-rubin-38

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On August 26, 2020, at approximately 2:32 AM, Odom drove past two California Highway Patrol officers at 92 miles per hour, in violation of California law. ECF No. 1 at 5. The officers followed the vehicle and instructed Odom to stop, roll down the windows, and turn off the car. He complied immediately. Dashcam 1:04-1:12. After the car stopped, Officer Guajardo approached the passenger-side window and Officer Lee approached the driver’s side. Id. at 1:32-1:42. Officer Guajardo told Odom that he was speeding and asked for his license, insurance, and registration. ECF No. 1 at 5. Odom explained that he did not have any of those items, and his license was suspended, but provided Officer Guajardo with a California Identification card. Id. According to Officer Guajardo, Odom “was shifting and moving around in the vehicle” and “appeared nervous.” ECF No. 39-1 ¶ 5. Odom explained that the car belonged to his sister. Dashcam 2:22. A few seconds later, Officer Guajardo asked “How far are you from home?” Id. at 2:19, and Odom replied that it was “literally right up the street.” Id. at 2:21. When asked whether he was on probation or parole, Odom said he was not. ECF No. 39-1 ¶ 5.

The officers then conducted a DMV records check and a Criminal Records Information Management System (CRIM) check. The parties dispute whether Officer Guajardo ran both checks himself or whether he requested help from dispatch. Based on the DMV records check, Officer Guajardo learned that Odom’s license was withheld for failure to appear. From the CRIMS record check, Officer Guajardo learned “that Odom had affiliations with criminal gang activity and that Odom had firearms-related criminal history.” Id. ¶ 7.

Because Odom did not have a valid license, Officer Guajardo “planned to have the vehicle towed after the completion of the stop.” Id. ¶ 11. Officer Guajardo asked Odom to step out of the vehicle, conducted a pat-down search, and felt a firearm near Odom’s waistband. Id. Officer Guajardo removed the firearm, which contained one round of ammunition in the chamber, placed Odom in handcuffs, and then recovered 19 rounds of ammunition from Odom’s person. Id. Officer Guajardo then placed Odom under arrest pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1).

Odom now moves to suppress the gun and ammunition found during the search because (1) Officer Guajardo unconstitutionally prolonged the stop by asking about Odom’s probation and parole status; (2) Officer Guajardo unconstitutionally prolonged the stop by running a CRIMS check on Mr. Odom; (3) the Government has not carried its burden of establishing that towing the car was lawful; (4) the Government has not shown that the pat-search was constitutional; and (5) the Government has not established any exception to the exclusionary rule. ECF Nos. 34; 42. The Government opposes the motion. ECF No. 39.

Full text here: United States v. Odom, 588 F. Supp. 3d 1032 (N.D. Cal. 2022), https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-odom-69

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Under the Fourth Amendment, defendant had a legitimate expectation of *320 privacy in his rented hotel room. See Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 490, 84 S.Ct. 889, 11 L.Ed.2d 856 (1964); United States v. Kitchens, 114 F.3d 29, 31 (4th Cir. 1997). Additionally, warrantless searches are presumptively unreasonable unless the search falls within a valid exception. See Hupp v. Cook, 931 F.3d 307, 326 (4th Cir. 2019) (citing Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 586, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980)).

The government cites the so-called “community caretaker” exception as justification for the officers dispensing with the warrant requirement in entering the hotel room. Community caretaking functions include established procedures or routine activities such as impoundment of a vehicle that impedes the safe flow of traffic, entry into a car after a traffic accident to assess occupants’ medical conditions, or opening a truck compartment to identify the owner. See South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 368–69, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000 (1976); United States v. Johnson, 410 F.3d 137, 145 (4th Cir. 2005); Durney v. Doss, 106 F. App’x 166, 169 (4th Cir. 2004). The Fourth Circuit has held that the community caretaking doctrine also extends to activities “protecting the safety of persons or property.” United States v. Gillespie, 332 F. Supp. 2d 923, 929 (W.D. Va. 2004); see Phillips v. Peddle, 7 F. App’x 175, 178 (4th Cir. 2001). Courts have distinguished this doctrine from the separate, but related, exception justified by exigent or emergency circumstances. See, e.g., Hunsberger v. Wood, 570 F.3d 546, 554 (4th Cir. 2009) (“The community caretaking doctrine requires a court to look at the function performed by a police officer, while the emergency exception requires an analysis of the circumstances to determine whether an emergency requiring immediate action existed. Thus, as the district court noted, the doctrines have different intellectual underpinnings.”).

Read more here: United States v. Hewitt, 543 F.Supp.3d 317 (2021), https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-hewitt-19

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The Court concluded that “[o]nce the entity at issue is beyond the border, the concerns animating the border search doctrine, namely the integrity of the border, diminish, and the robust Fourth Amendment requirements adhere.” This was because the installation of a GPS device “implicates a search away from the border, once the target has gained entry into the country.

The placement of a GPS device at the border necessarily implicates a search away from the border, once the target has gained entry into the country. As Justice ALito noted in his concurring opinion in Jones, the OCurt defined the search as encompassing both the installation and use of the GPS, rather than separating the procedures. Therefore, this OCurt is hesitant to mechanically apply the border search doctrine where the search stretches far beyond the conduct at the border to create a “precise comprehensive record of a person’s public movement. Ultimately, the Court concludes the placement of a GPS device on a vehicle at the border, combined with the subsequent tracking of data over a prolonged period away from it, cannot be justified by the border search exception.

Read the full case here: https://www.nacdl.org/Document/United-States-v-Slavco-Ignjatov,-et-al

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The Border Search Doctrine is one of the longstanding warrantless search exceptions to the 4th Amendment.

Most searches at the border do not require a warrant or probable cause because of Congress’s authority to regulate commerce and maintain sovereignty.
• Border Search can be classified as “routine” or “non-routine”.
o Pat-Down or X-Ray versus Body Cavity Search.
o Non-Routine require reasonable suspicion
• Distiction does not apply in the context of vehicles.
o United States v. Flores-Montano – suspicionless disassembly of a fuel tank at the border

Extended Border Search (Checkpoints)
• Travelers who have not crossed the border cannot be thought to have given their implied consent to warrantless searches merely by traveling near the border.
• Require Reasonable Suspicion
• Law enforcement must also have “reasonable certainty” that the vehicle or contraband crossed the border.
• The Code of Federal Regulations defines “reasonable distance” to “mean within 100 air miles from any external boundary of the United States or any shorter distance that may be fixed by the chief patrol agent for CBP, or the special agent in charge for ICE.”
• 2/3 of the U.S. population, or about 200 million people, reside within this expanded border region.

Reasonable Suspicion, Time and Distance
• United States v. Alfonso, 759 F.2d 728, 728 (9th Cir. 1985). – Search ship a second time within a day and a half of arrival at port
• United States v. Rangel-Portillo, 586 F.3d 376, 376 (5th Cir. 2009) – No Reasonable Suspicion. Vehicle about 500 yards from the border.
• The Ninth Circuit upheld extended border searches in these scenarios:
o Castillo-Garcia v. United States, 424 F.2d 482, 482–84 (9th Cir. 1970) (concluding that while the search of the vehicle occurred seven hours and 105 miles from the border, the fact that there was “constant surveillance after the border crossing until the search, and there had been a change of drivers,” the possibility that the 165 pounds of marijuana being placed after the crossing was obviated and the search was thus lawful).
o Rodriguez-Gonzalez v. United States, 378 F.2d 256, 256–59 (9th Cir. 1967) (affirming the lower court’s decision that a valid border search occurred even though it was fifteen hours and twenty miles from the border, because while there was a change in drivers after crossing the border, the information provided by an informant gave the customs officials reasonable suspicion that the defendants may have been carrying marijuana).
o United States v. Cotterman, 709 F.3d 952, 961–62 (9th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 571 U.S. 1156 (2014). Held that property, such as a laptop and other electronic storage devices, presented for inspection when entering the United States at the border may not be subject to forensic examination without a reason for suspicion. Computer taken at the border, but search occurring miles away in a forensic lab. Because “Cotterman’s computer never cleared customs [and] entry was never effected,” the extended border search doctrine did not apply.

Watch Part 1: https://youtu.be/xMW2tY3VZuc
Watch Part 2: https://youtu.be/n04dqhZVIQU

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The Fourth Amendment protects individuals from unreasonable government searches and seizures.
• Seizures can be split into two categories.
o A seizure of property is “some meaningful interference with an individual’s possessory interests in that property.”
o A seizure of an individual occurs when an individual reasonably believes that he is not at liberty to leave a government official’s presence, given all of the circumstances surrounding the incident.
• Warrantless searches under the Fourth Amendment are typically per se unreasonable.
o The Supreme Court decided in Katz v. United States that the attachment of an eavesdropping device outside of a public phone booth constituted an unreasonable search.
 REP. If an individual has a subjective expectation of privacy over the domain in question and society objectively recognizes that expectation as reasonable, then the search is unconstitutional unless law enforcement acquired a warrant or one of the exceptions to the warrant requirement applies.

• Technology and 4th Amendment
o In United States v. Knotts, the Supreme Court concluded that the surveillance, tracking, and following of an individual traveling on a public roadway did not constitute as a search or seizure.
 Beeper
 Consent from original owner
 No REP on public roadways
 Does not address duration of the surveillance

o In United States v. Karo, the Supreme Court held that the warrantless use of an electronic monitor within a container was reasonable and did not infringe on Karo’s interests within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
 Beeper
 Led to the facility and not the specific locker
 No REP on public roadway

o In United States v. Jones, the Supreme Court held that law enforcement committed a search by attaching a GPS tracking device to a vehicle.

 GPS
 Government “physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information,” the encroachment and intrusion on a protected area constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment.
 Distinguished Karo, where law enforcement obtained consent of the original owner prior to the beeper being placed in the container to track the vehicle.
 “The Katz reasonable-expectation-of-privacy test [] added to, not substituted for, the common-law trespassory test.”

o Carpenter v. United States, holding that the warrantless acquisition of cell-site information violated Carpenter’s Fourth Amendment right against searches and seizures.
https://youtu.be/VmjsxoM83rM
 cell-site information implicated greater privacy concerns than did GPS tracking
 A cell-site information system would allow the Government to gather “near perfect surveillance”

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The Fourth Amendment protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” This protection is not limited to only a physical intrusion on property. It also protects a person’s “reasonable expectation of privacy.” Warrants are therefore necessary in almost all instances for a valid search to occur, unless an exception applies. The Border Search Doctrine, however, is one of the few exceptions to this general rule.

The Border Search Doctrine predates the Fourth Amendment and derives its powers from Congress’s inherent authority to regulate commerce and enforce immigration laws. No warrant is necessary at the border for most searches and seizures because of the government’s inherent power to control who or what comes within a nation’s borders. This is an intrinsic attribute of national sovereignty. The Fourth Amendment’s balance of interests thus leans heavily in favor of the government at the border. Even though courts favor government interests at the border, searches and seizures must remain “reasonable” dependent on the facts and circumstances in question.

What about GPS Searches and Tracking that is initiated at the border with a continuous surveillance within the United States?

Much of the information discussed in these videos, came from Kimberly Shi, GPS Tracking at the Border: A Mistaken Expectation or a Chilling Reality, 27 Wash. & Lee J. Civ. Rts. & Soc. Just. 161 (2020).
Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/crsj/vol27/iss1/6

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Warrant. Defendant argues that the affidavit was insufficient because there is no information on the reliability of either confidential informant provided therein. Although the Court acknowledges that the affidavit lacks evidence related to the reliability of the two confidential informants, the information provided by the informants was sufficiently corroborated. First, each informant corroborates the other. See Schaefer, 87 F.3d at 566 For example, both informants stated that they had observed the same types of firearms in the Defendant’s residence and said that Defendant was stockpiling firearms to “prepare for the end of the world.” Both informants also similarly described the inside of the Defendant’s apartment. Thus, the Court finds that the affidavit submitted by Agent McNeil sufficiently established probable cause to issue the search warrant for Defendant’s apartment.

__________
Custodial Interrogation. The key to determining whether an interrogation was custodial, and therefore whether Miranda warnings should have been given prior to interrogation, is whether “a reasonable person would believe he is `in custody’ under the circumstances.” See United States v. Pagan-Santini, 451 F.3d 258, 263 (1st Cir. 2006). The Supreme Court has held “the safeguards prescribed by Miranda become applicable as soon as a suspect’s freedom of action is curtailed to a `degree associated with formal arrest.'” Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 440, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984) (quoting California v. Beheler, 463 U.S. 1121, 1125, 103 S.Ct. 3517, 77 L.Ed.2d 1275 (1983)).

___________
Van Seizure. The Supreme Court has held that moving an individual’s belongings from one location to another constituted a substantial intrusion on the individual’s possessory interests. United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 710 n. 9, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983).

(“Under the `automobile exception,’ the only essential predicate for a valid warrantless search of a motor vehicle by law enforcement officers is `probable cause to believe that the vehicle contains contraband or other evidence of criminal activity.'”) (quoting United States v. Panitz, 907 F.2d 1267, 1271 (1st Cir.1990)). There is nothing immediately apparent about the criminality of a vehicle itself. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 462, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971) (“The word `automobile’ is not a talisman in whose presence the Fourth Amendment fades away and disappears.”). Absent some information linking the van to the crimes for which the Defendant was arrested, the Court cannot find that there was probable cause to seize the van.

Full case here: US v. Widi, 686 F. Supp. 2d 107 – Dist. Court, D. Maine 2010, https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=11852379228199280172&q=us+v.+widi+686+F.Supp.2d+107&hl=en&as_sdt=2006&as_vis=1

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But intoxication alone does not preclude a valid waiver. See United States v. Figueroa-Serrano, 971 F.3d 806, 815 (8th Cir. 2020) (finding a valid Miranda waiver when the suspect, after using marijuana, did not appear affected by intoxication and told officers he understood his rights). Instead, the test is whether, considering the totality of the circumstances, the mental impairment “caused the defendant’s will to be overborne.” United States v. Jones, 842 F.3d 1077, 1083 (8th Cir. 2016).

Read full case here: United States v. Harris, — F.4th —- (2023), https://ecf.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/23/04/221210P.pdf

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