» Search and Seizure

Facing criminal charges in federal court is intimidating and scary. Any criminal case, and a federal criminal case, in particular, is complicated. It can be helpful and reassuring to understand how a criminal case works, and what to expect. If you be… Read More

The Supreme Court has just made an important step towards protecting defendants in criminal forfeiture. In Honeycutt v. United States, No 16-142 (June 5, 2017), the Court held that a defendant may not be held jointly and severally liable for property… Read More

In this case, the Fourth Circuit ruled that the Motion to Suppress should have been granted because the search warrant application omitted material information about the reliability of the confidential informant, including the informant’s arrest on… Read More

Technology is evolving faster than ever before, with new applications in every area of life, including law enforcement. I wrote back in January about police use of GPS devices to track suspects. Often, the law struggles to keep up with technological… Read More

Back in December, I wrote about a case that was pending before the U.S. Supreme Court that could decide the dividing line between a prosecutor’s ability to freeze a defendant’s assets before trial and the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to hi… Read More

For over 100 years, the United States Supreme Court has recognized some version of the exclusionary rule—the rule of law that allows evidence to be suppressed in a criminal case when the police obtained the evidence illegally. Though originally jus… Read More

Would it surprise you to learn that the federal law governing law enforcement’s ability to obtain emails from your email provider was adopted in 1986 and has remained relatively untouched since then? In 1986, people used phones with cords attached… Read More

With GPS technology becoming better, smaller, and cheaper, law enforcement has turned to it more and more as a way of tracking criminal suspects. Of course, police have used tracking technology, from old-fashioned feet on the ground to radio transmit… Read More