Category Archives: Search and Seizures
Dallas D.A. Forfeiture Funds: The Temptation of All That Stuff and the Craig Watkins Scandal
Here in Dallas, more and more people are aware of how government authorities have been seizing property from people without sufficient judicial process and keeping those assets for their own uses. This is good because forfeiture is a big problem that not enough folk realize exists. We’ve been discussing this problem — the problem of…
Stingray Use by Feds and Local Police is Growing: Are You Being Monitored?
Police officers and law enforcement agencies are limited by the federal constitution as well as federal and state laws in what they can do. They are not supposed to snoop on citizens or eavesdrop on people unless they’ve got specific legal authorization to do so. . . The problem is — as any experienced criminal…
Child Porn Charges: Busted By FBI Computer Surveillance and Now, Private Web Hackers on Social Media
Federal authorities in North Texas and the Dallas – Fort Worth metro area are working very hard it seems at investigating and charging people with child pornography sex crime charges. . Recent Computer-Related Federal Child Porn Charges Consider the following five examples of news releases from the local FBI (Dallas) office and the U.S….
Holder’s New Limits on Asset Forfeiture: Big Deal.
Last Friday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder revealed new federal limits on asset forfeiture, possibly due to the growing public awareness and criminal defense outcry concerning the shocking ways in which local police departments and various state agencies have been profiting through the seizure of private property without bothering to arrest the property owner. Literally…
Will Media Coverage Finally Stop Government From Grabbing Your Property in Forfeiture?
Finally, the public is waking up to the wrong that is civil forfeiture laws – something that we’ve been monitoring here since April 2010. There’s still lots to be done, but there is reason to be optimistic that the government’s ability to grab your property without any criminal wrongdoing even being alleged on your part…
Lessons of The Gas Pipe Bust: Traffic Stop Leads to Major Synthetic Marijuana Bust and Big Federal Forfeiture Grab
It all began with a simple traffic stop back on December 4, 2013. That’s when a Denton County Deputy Sheriff pulled over a Ford pickup truck and asked the driver if he could search the vehicle. The driver said okay, and the Deputy Sheriff discovered stuff used to grow marijuana, as well as marijuana residue…
Seal Broken by Judge Today and Now We Know How The Police Are Eavesdropping on Public With Stingray Devices
For a long while, criminal defense lawyers along with civil rights activists as well as citizens who have been arrested by law enforcement in Police Departments all over the country have known that police have been using new technology to eavesdrop on phone calls and text messages. That’s not news. It’s been a real big…
Navarette v. California: Supreme Court Okays Anonymous Tip for Traffic Stop — We’ve All Lost Something Today
Back in January, we warned about what happened today: the United States Supreme Court has okayed police pulling people over to search their vehicles based upon an anonymous tip in the case of Navarette v. California. In February, we were still reeling from the SCOTUS decision in Fernandez, where they found it legally permissible and…
Six AM No Knock Warrant Gets Burleson County Deputy Killed as Homeowner Arrested for Capital Murder: Is There an 1983 Suit Here?
Around an hour before sunrise one Thursday this month, in rural Burleson County near the town of Somerville, a man named Henry Goedrich Magee was awakened to the sound of someone breaking into his mobile home and as his lawyer explained later, thinking that he was the victim of a home invasion, Magee grabbed his…
Dog Sniffing Searches and the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: Have Your Privacy Rights Against Unreasonable Search and Seizure Gone to the Dogs in Texas?
Dogs are great, and no one is going to challenge that dogs have the ability to hear and to smell things that human beings cannot. Dogs, after all, have the ability to hear sounds at a much larger frequency range than humans — from 67 Hz to 45 kHz (humans max out at 23 kHz)….
