Court-Martial Trial Practice BlogHere are the military justice related articles in the new Army Lawyer.
Searching for Reasonableness—The Supreme Court Revisits the Fourth Amendment
“I’ve Got to Admit It’s Getting Better”*: New Developments in Post-Trial
Articles Tagged with Search & Seizure
Search Incident to Arrest
Thanks to Fourthamendement.com, here is an article about Arizona v. Gant.
Arizona v. Gant: Does it Matter? by Barbara E. Armacost of the University of Virginia School of Law in 2009 S.Ct. Rev. __ (2010).
And from the abstract:
New CAAF opinion dealing with search authorizations in CP cases
United States v. Clayton. Another special exception, in of course, a CP case.
The dissent says it all.
RYAN, J., with whom ERDMANN, J., joins (dissenting):
Who would have believed it
FourthAmendment blog reports a new case:
Police reports were "deceptive and deficient," but the court believes officer without a credibility determination: Ties go to the runner, or the government. The court finds the officer deceptive and believes him anyway because of a presumption police officers tell the truth [even when their reports are "deceptive and deficient"]. United States v. Jauregui-Barrajas, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19064 (D. Ariz. January 13, 2010).
Several new CAAF opinions
United States v. Cowgill.
WHETHER THE MILITARY JUDGE ABUSED HER DISCRETION IN
DENYING THE DEFENSE MOTION TO SUPPRESS ALL EVIDENCE
FROM APPELLANT’S HOME.
The two underlying point were: potential erroneous information given for a search warrant (statements were factually incorrect, but believed to be true by the detective at the time), and if there was erroneous information, was there enough probable cause without the erroneous information.
On base search, evidence in state prosecution
Federal law should govern a federal NCIS search on a military base for evidence of a murder of a civilian employee on the base that ends up prosecuted in state court. The court finds that this is a narrow issue in this case. The security search of defendant’s car on the military base was also valid. State v. Torres, 2009 Haw. App. LEXIS 781 (December 15, 2009).
Fourthamendment.com.
No search of cellphone without warrant?
Thanks to howappealing.law.com, here is a Ohio State Supreme Court opinion in State v. Smith. The issue is warrantless searches of cell-phones. While this issue may have been raised in a court-martial, I don’t see a relevant military appellate decision. So the issue is apparently an open one for court-martial cases.
Here is a link to a New York Times editorial on the Ohio case.
The Ohio Supreme Court has struck an important blow for privacy rights, ruling that the police need a warrant to search a cellphone. The court rightly recognized that cellphones today are a lot more than just telephones, that they hold a wealth of personal information and that the privacy interest in them is considerable. This was the first such ruling from a state supreme court. It is a model for other courts to follow.
Cellphone search requires warrant
Ohio holds today (4-3) that a cell phone search requires a warrant without exigent circumstances. Therefore, it was not subject to a search incident. Today’s cell phones are analogous to a computer. State v. Smith, 2009 Ohio 6426 (December 15, 2009).
FourthAmendment blog reports. Seems there ought to be similar results for a military search and that the fruits of a warrantless search should similarly be excluded at court-martial.