Fourth Amendment

Justice Department IG seeks new protections on seizing communications of lawmakers, journalists

The Justice Department during Donald Trump’s first presidential term used concerning and surreptitious tactics to obtain communications from members of Congress, their staffers and news reporters as prosecutors investigated public leaks of sensitive government information, according to a report released Tuesday by the Justice Department’s inspector general.

Dec 10, 2024 1:15 PM CST

What laws could Trump invoke to fast track deportations?

President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to invoke a 1798 law known as the Alien Enemies Act to remove noncitizens he says are part of a “migrant invasion” in the United States. And he could try to invoke a second law to get the military involved.

Dec 10, 2024 9:45 AM CST

Can a lost phone be searched without consent? 9th Circuit will consider

In December 2017, Dontae Hunt dropped his iPhone when he was shot five times by a gunman in an Oregon parking lot. The phone was later found by local police and stored in evidence for 25 months until federal Drug Enforcement Administration officers obtained a warrant, cracked the password and used data found on the iPhone to convict Hunt in 2022 of drug trafficking charges. “The real question is: Does someone expect that because they lost their phone that anyone who finds it—including the police—should be able to look through all their photo albums, their emails, their messages or the entire history of where they’ve been if they have location tracking on?”

Dec 1, 2024 1:00 AM CST

Lawyer alleges ‘impeachment by subterfuge’ after federal appeals judge, 97, suspended for another year

Judge Pauline Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has been suspended from hearing cases for another year amid concerns about her “cognitive state.”

Sep 9, 2024 9:44 AM CDT

5th Circuit nixes ‘general, exploratory rummaging’ of location data to find suspects

A federal appeals court's decision Friday on the constitutionality of geofence warrants has “case-of-the-year importance,” according to a law professor's blog post.

Aug 13, 2024 10:58 AM CDT

Federal appeals judge, 97, who refused to cooperate in fitness probe loses challenge to disability law

Updated: A federal judge has upheld a disability law used to suspend a 97-year-old federal appeals judge from hearing new cases while dismissing the remaining claims in her legal challenge.

Jul 9, 2024 12:20 PM CDT

Warrant required for overhead zoom-lens search that could reveal ‘intimate’ and ‘unflattering’ details, top state court says

The Alaska Constitution requires police to get a warrant if they use binoculars or cameras with zoom lenses to look into a yard from a plane, the Alaska Supreme Court has ruled.

Mar 12, 2024 1:29 PM CDT

Federal judge refuses to order reinstatement of 96-year-old federal appeals judge, her second loss in a week

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has refused to order reinstatement to new case assignments for a 96-year-old federal appeals judge who claims that the laws governing judicial disability are unconstitutional.

Feb 12, 2024 3:56 PM CST

Qualified immunity shield may depend on size and publication rate of federal appeals court, new report says

Qualified immunity “protects officials too much and our rights too little,” according to a new report by the Institute for Justice based on an analysis of more than 5,500 federal appeals decisions over an 11-year period.

Feb 7, 2024 8:47 AM CST

Arrested citizen journalist wasn’t ‘martyr’ for journalism, 5th Circuit says in tossing her First Amendment suit

Police and prosecutors have qualified immunity that protects them in a lawsuit filed by a citizen journalist arrested for publishing nonpublic information provided by a police source, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

Jan 25, 2024 9:24 AM CST

Judges ‘do not do double duty as sheriffs,’ 4th Circuit says in denying judicial immunity for home search

A West Virginia judge who led a warrantless search of a divorce litigant’s home is not entitled to judicial immunity because she engaged in a nonjudicial act, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.

Oct 31, 2023 1:29 PM CDT

Police shootings of dogs spark Fourth Amendment lawsuits, challenges to qualified immunity

An estimated 10,000 dogs are fatally shot by U.S. law enforcement officers each year, according to the Department of Justice. Some incidents result in lawsuits citing Fourth Amendment violations, including unreasonable search and seizure, and challenge an officer’s immunity. Some generate settlements of more than $1 million.

Oct 24, 2023 1:30 PM CDT

Standing by in case of ‘dystopian problems,’ court allows use of keyword search data to find suspects

The Colorado Supreme Court has refused to toss evidence obtained through a keyword search warrant that found people who had searched online for a specific address before a fatal arson at a home.

Oct 17, 2023 1:16 PM CDT

Louisiana man’s jokes about sheriff’s department are protected free speech, 5th Circuit says

A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of a Louisiana man who was arrested after posting on Facebook that a local sheriff’s department had ordered its deputies to shoot people who were infected with COVID-19.

Aug 28, 2023 11:43 AM CDT

Lawyer’s quest for warrant requirement for border cellphone searches rebuffed by 5th Circuit

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not violate a lawyer’s constitutional rights when it seized his phone as he entered the United States, sent it to a forensics lab to bypass his passcode, and obtained its data after using a “filter team” to protect privileged material, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

Aug 17, 2023 11:07 AM CDT