Stacey Barchenger reported in today’s Tennessean on the oral arguments held yesterday in State v. Reynolds. The issue raised by the Court of Criminal Appeals was whether Tennessee should adopt the good faith exception. Now the Tennessee Supreme Court has the case. Tennessee has not adopted the good faith exception under the Fourth Amendment.
In
In Harris County Texas, sheriff’s deputies searched a woman’s vagina recently. Radley Balko reported the story in the Washington Post. The deputies searched Charnesia Corley’s car for almost an hour then brought a female officer to the scene for a body cavity search. Ms. Corley refused. More backup officers were requested. Backup arrived and they grabbed
The erosion of the Fourth Amendment is continuing at a rapid pace. I don’t know which will happen first.The disappearance of the Fourth Amendment or the melting of the North Pole. The U.S. Supreme Court dealt another body blow to the Fourth Amendment in Navarette v California . In Navarette , The Supreme Court of
On this day in 1988 , The United States Supreme Court allowed a search of a person’s trash without first obtaining a search warrant . Since that ruling a trash pull has become a standard police tactic in drug crime investigations. Once you put your trash can to the curb , the police can sift through
One police tactic is the ‘ knock and talk " . Basically , the police may not have enough information for a search warrant but they have a tip or suspect some type of criminal activity. It begins with a police officer knocking on the door then requesting to come in in to the house to
A search warrant is one of the main tools that police have in obtaining evidence. Last week , a Robertson County , Tennessee man had his animal cruelty charge dismissed by the assistant district attorney. The reason was that the judge ruled that the search warrant was not legally valid.
The search warrant was signed
How the government will implement collecting DNA at the time of arrest remains a subject of discussion .The Urban Institute Justice Policy Center issued a final technical report on the policies , practices , and implications of collecting DNA at the time of arrest. Here are a few of their findings;
The first step towards a police state is being able to track , locate or identify all the people. The U.S.Supreme Court approved the first step in that process with the case of Maryland v. King . Maryland as well as 28 other states and the Federal Government take DNA samples at the time of
One fear of criminal defense attorneys is to be caught on a wiretap discussing a case with a client. Recently , I was talking to a police officer and asked do you ever get any attorney-client phone calls. There was no admission but I did get some advice. Answer your phone Attorney McKinney.It lets
I read a blog post today at Simple Justice. Scott Greenfield wrote about whether we put too much into what the Supreme Court rules. Does their rulings affect the criminal defense lawyers in the trenches ? I do agree with his arguments that some in the legal world will analyze a ruling to