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Archive | good faith

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2022

Second Circuit Holds That a Fourth Amendment Challenge to Evidence Seized Under a State Warrant Is Not Precluded by a Prior Guilty Plea in State Court.

In United States v. Jones, No. 20-3009 (2d Cir. Aug.1, 2022), the Circuit (Livingston, joined by Chin and Nardini) held that the defendant’s state guilty plea did not preclude him from challenging the evidence seized pursuant the state warrant in his federal case because the Fourth Amendment claim was not raised in state court. On the merits, the Court upheld admission of the evidence under the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule.

Jones had pled guilty to sexual exploitation of a minor in Tennessee based on evidence seized under several warrants and was subsequently charged in federal court with production of child pornography with respect to another minor. The defendant moved to suppress that evidence seized under the Tennessee warrants, and the federal warrants as fruit of the poisonous tree. The district court held that Jones’s state guilty plea collaterally estopped him from challenging the Tennessee warrants and, …

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Categories: collateral estoppel, Exclusionary Rule, Fourth Amendment, good faith

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Friday, August 28th, 2020

Government operation of child pornography website to catch visitors is not outrageous government misconduct and the good faith exception applied to evidence found through a warrant based on the site.

United States v. Caraher, No. 18-511 (2d Cir. August 25, 2020)(Hall, joined by Lynch and Menashi), involved the government’s takeover and operation of the child pornography website “Playpen” for two weeks so that it could track visitors to the site, identify their identities and locations, and search their computers. The FBI obtained a warrant allowing them to search “activating computers” of “any user or administrator who logs into the Playpen website by entering a username and password.” Caraher was such a visitor and agents located him and searched his computer. The district court held that the warrant violated Fed. Rule Crim P. 41(b) and 28 U.S.C. 636(a) but applied the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule.

The Court followed its prior decision in United States v. Eldred, 933 F.3d 110, 111 (2d Cir. 2019), addressing the same warrant and holding that, even if the search and the …

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Categories: child pornography, good faith

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Categories: child pornography, good faith

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Tuesday, October 1st, 2019

Circuit Affirms Conviction and Sentence for Felon in Possession of a Firearm

In United States v. Wiggins, No. 18-1337-cr, __ F. App’x __ (2d Cir. Sept. 30, 2019), the Court summarily affirmed the defendant’s conviction and 78-month prison sentence for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. First, the Court rejected the defendant’s argument that suppression was required because the district court improperly authorized a second search warrant of his cellphone despite the absence of probable cause. Even if probable cause was lacking, the Court ruled, the police officers executed the warrant in good faith, such that suppression was not required.

Second, the Court upheld evidentiary rulings: (1) admitting certain text messages; and (2) excluding sweatpants that the defendant allegedly wore at the time of his arrest, police recordings of his arrest, and a summary of those recordings.

The text messages tended to show that the defendant had access to a firearm as recently as a “few weeks” before his arrest …

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Categories: crime of violence, evidence, good faith, search warrant

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Thursday, August 15th, 2019

Circuit Upholds, On Good Faith Grounds, A Search Warrant Issued By An Out-of-District Magistrate In Violation of Former Rule 41(b)and 28 U.S.C. §636(a).

United States v. Eldred, No. 17-3367-cr (August 9, 2019) involved a Network Investigative Technique warrant, essentially a government hacking tool that penetrates an anonymous “dark” web site to gain identifying data from computers communicating with the site. The warrant was issued by a magistrate judge in Virginia, but was used to obtain the IP address of a computer in Vermont, which agents subsequently seized. Eldred argued that the warrant was void because it violated the since-amended Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(b) (limiting the authority of a magistrate-judge to issue warrants to persons and property within her district) and 28 U.S.C. 636(a)(limiting the jurisdiction of magistrates to the district in which they sit).

Rule 41 (b) was amended in 2016 to specifically allow this type of warrant. However, the Court acknowledged that the old Rule applied here and that Section 636(a) arguably provided independent statutory ground for suppression in …

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Categories: Fourth Amendment, good faith, Warrants

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Tuesday, December 5th, 2017

“Unrelated inquiries that prolong or add time to a traffic stop violate the Fourth Amendment absent reasonable suspicion of a separate crime.”

The title is the holding of today’s Second Circuit opinion in United States v. Gomez (Parker, Wesley, Droney) (on appeal from D. Conn.). Specifically, the Circuit held that (1) the Fourth Amendment was violated when officers prolonged a minutes-long traffic stop to investigate matters unrelated to the pretextual basis for the stop, but that (2) suppression was not warranted because the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applied. The opinion is available here.

A DEA task force had been investigating Mr. Gomez in connection with a heroin trafficking operation. One of the task force members, a Hartford police officer, testified that he observed the defendant commit three traffic violations. The officer used these violations as grounds to conduct a traffic stop. “From the moment” the officer first approached the car, “his questioning detoured from the mission of the stop (Gomez’s traffic violations) to the DEA’s heroin-trafficking investigation.” Slip …

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Categories: forfeiture, Fourth Amendment, good faith, traffic stop, waiver

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Categories: forfeiture, Fourth Amendment, good faith, traffic stop, waiver

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Friday, May 27th, 2016

More Thoughts on Ganias

Today there was a big decision (both metaphorically and literally – the decision runs 104-pages) from the Second Circuit in United States v. Ganias about search warrants in an age of digital data. In Ganias, the government seized and made identical copies of three hard drives that belonged to an accountant, Stavros Ganias, pursuant to a warrant (the “2003 warrant”) in a fraud investigation. The government continued to hold the files, even after reviewing them for all relevant information contained in the 2003 warrant. In 2006, the government obtained a second warrant (the “2006 warrant”) as part of an IRS tax evasion investigation and they searched the files anew pursuant to that second warrant.

There were two questions presented:

  1. Whether the fourth amendment was violated when, pursuant to a warrant, the government seized and cloned three computer hard drives containing both responsive and non-responsive files, retained the cloned hard
…
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Categories: Fourth Amendment, good faith, search warrant

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In En Banc Opinion, Second Circuit Upholds “Good Faith” Reliance on Search Warrant

Today the Second Circuit issued a 104-page en banc opinion in United States v. Ganias, 12-240-cr.

In Ganias, the Court affirmed the judgment of the district court, holding that the government had relied on a search warrant in good faith and declining to reach the Fourth Amendment question raised by the defendant.

The case involved the government’s retention of a mirrored hard drive containing data that went beyond the scope of a search warrant issued in 2003.  In 2006, the government searched this data pursuant to a search warrant obtained in 2006.  Mr. Ganias contended that the 2006 search would not have been possible if the government had not retained a copy of the data that was not responsive to the 2003 search warrant. The Court held that the government’s good faith reliance on the 2006 warrant was objectively reasonable, and so did not reach the question …

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Friday, March 11th, 2011

A Good-Faith-Based Decision

United States v. Clark, No. 09-3462-cr (2d Cir. March 8, 2011) (Sack, Raggi, Lynch, CJJ)

In the district court, defendant Clark moved to suppress physical evidence and statements obtained after execution of a search warrant, and the district court granted the motion. On this, the government’s appeal, the circuit agreed that the warrant was defective – it did not establish probable cause – but that, contrary to the district court’s conclusion, the good faith exception applied. The court accordingly reversed and remanded.

Background

Local police officers in Niagara Falls, New York, obtained a warrant from a city court judge to search Clark and “1015 Fairfield Ave, being a multi family dwelling” for drugs and drug dealing paraphernalia. The supporting affidavit disclosed that an informant of “unknown reliability” told them that Clark was selling cocaine there, and that Clark had “full control” over the location. The affidavit also described two controlled …

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Categories: good faith, probable cause, Uncategorized

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Sunday, September 28th, 2008

Good Faith Efforts

United States v. Falso, No. 06-2721-cr (2d Cir. September 24, 2008) (Jacobs, Sotomayor, Livingston, CJJ)

This opinion, a three-way split, adds another confusing piece to the circuit’s oeuvre in reviewing search warrants in child pornography cases. Judges Sotomayor and Jacobs held that the warrant lacked probable cause; Judge Livingston held that it did not. Judges Sotomayor and Livingston held that the agents relied on the warrant in good faith; Judge Jacobs held that the good faith exception should not apply. In the end, Falso’s conviction and thirty-year sentence were affirmed.

Background

All of the evidence against Falso was recovered from a search of his home and a consensual interview that took place there. This led to a 242-count indictment that covered travel with the intent to engage in sexual contact with minors, production of child pornography, receiving child pornography via the internet, and transporting and possessing child pornography – 242 …

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Categories: good faith, probable cause, Uncategorized

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