Orin Kerr writes: Next Monday, the Court will hear oral argument in City of Ontario v. Quon, a Fourth Amendment case on employee rights in text messages. Notably, Quon is one of only two Fourth Amendment cases to be decided this Term. And the other Fourth Amendment case, Michigan v. Fisher, was at best…
Category: Court
Is a Shoebox Like a Suitcase?
Jonathan H. Adler writes: This morning the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued an opinion in United States v. Taylor, affirming the district court’s suppression of evidence (a handgun and ammunition) found in a shoebox. Judge Gilman wrote the opinion for the court, joined by Judge Daughtrey. Judge Kethledge dissented. His dissenting…
Federal court upholds border search of laptop in Texas
Jaikumar Vijayan reports: The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas has become the latest federal court to uphold the right of U.S. customs agents to conduct warrantless searches of laptop computers at U.S. borders. In a ruling last week, the court denied a motion to suppress evidence gathered from a border search…
Does Attaching a Thumb Drive to a Shared Computer Waive Fourth Amendment Rights in its Contents?
Orin Kerr writes: “Yes,” says Judge Maurice Paul in United States v. Durdley, 2010 WL 916107 (N.D. Fla. 2010), handed down on March 11. I haven’t seen any cases quite like this, but I tend to think the decision is wrong. In this post, I wanted to explain the decision and then say why I…