The Associated Press reports here that “[f]ive fired Memphis police officers were charged Thursday with murder and other crimes in the killing of Tyre Nichols, a Black motorist who died three days after a confrontation with the officers during a traffic stop.” The officers allegedly beat Mr. Nichols to death. All five have been charged with second-degree murder among other crimes. Video of the incident is expected to be released to the public today and those who have seen it describe it as “horrific.” In a local connection, the Chief of Police in Memphis is CJ Davis, who served in a similar position in Durham until 2021. Chief Davis fired the five officers and has described their conduct as “a failure of basic humanity.” The officers’ attorneys say that they have little information about the case but that none of the officers intended to kill Mr. Nichols. Keep reading for more news.
Jeff Welty
News Roundup
The national news this week focused on the discovery of classified documents at President Biden’s home in Delaware and former private office in Washington. Yesterday, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a former federal prosecutor as Special Counsel to investigate the matter. The Associated Press explains here that “The position of Justice Department special counsel is a fairly new creation, enacted by Congress in 1999 following a bruising and politically divisive independent counsel investigation that resulted in [impeachment proceedings against President Clinton]. The purpose was to ensure ultimate Justice Department oversight of sensitive investigations rather than vest them with an independent prosecutor who could operate unchecked and without supervision. Though the attorney general retains ultimate authority over a special counsel’s decisions, special counsels do have the latitude to bring whatever cases they see fit. They are funded by the Justice Department, can bring on their own prosecutors, are entitled to office space and are often expensive.” Keep reading for more news.
May a Judge Rule on a Motion to Suppress Evidence Seized Under a Search Warrant That He or She Issued?
Suppose a superior court judge issues a search warrant authorizing the search of a suspect’s house for drugs. Officers execute the warrant, find drugs, seize them, and charge the suspect with drug offenses. The charges end up in superior court, where the suspect – now the defendant – moves to suppress, arguing that the search warrant application lacked probable cause and that the judge who issued the warrant erred in doing so. Is it OK for the judge who issued the warrant to hear such a motion?
News Roundup
Happy new year! It’s time for the first news roundup of 2023, but I’ll start with one item that dates back to 2022. The Associated Press reports here that “Adnan Syed, who was released from a Maryland prison this year after his case was the focus of the true-crime podcast ‘Serial,’ has been hired by Georgetown University as a program associate for the university’s Prisons and Justice Initiative.” Apparently he will support a class in which “students reinvestigate decades-old wrongful convictions, create short documentaries about the cases and work to help bring innocent people home from prison.” I guess he might know something about that. Keep reading for more news.
New Paper on No-Knock Warrants
I recently finished a paper on the law and practice of no-knock warrants in North Carolina. I went with the creative title, The Law and Practice of No-Knock Search Warrants in North Carolina. You can access the paper here. To give you a sense of the contents, here’s a paragraph from the introduction that notes some … Read more
News Roundup
The biggest national (and international) criminal law story this week involves the December 1988 terrorist attack on Pan Am Flight 103. The flight was destroyed by a bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people – many of them American students on their way home for the holidays. Two Libyan men alleged to have been involved in the attack were tried in 2001. One was convicted and imprisoned, and has since died. The other was acquitted. Two years ago, federal prosecutors charged a third man, former Libyan intelligence officer Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, who is thought to have been the bomb-maker. Al-Marimi is now in US custody and some reports indicate that he has confessed to his role in the attack. However, the circumstances of his reported confession and transfer to the US are unclear, with some suggesting that he was essentially kidnapped by a warlord, forced to admit guilt, and handed over to the US despite the lack of any formal extradition agreement between Libya’s dysfunctional government and the US. The Guardian has more here. I expect significant legal wrangling over the purported confession as the criminal case proceeds. Keep reading for more news.
Circuit Split! New Opinion Upholds Warrantless Tire Chalking
Shea posted here about a 2019 opinion from the Sixth Circuit holding that chalking tires for purposes of parking enforcement was a Fourth Amendment search and rejecting at least some of the proposed legal justifications for the practice. That case led to some further proceedings and eventually to a new opinion, Taylor v. City of Saginaw, Michigan, 11 F.4th 483 (6th Cir. 2021), holding that the suspicionless chalking of tires (1) is a search, (2) is not justified as a community caretaking function, and (3) is not justified as an administrative search. The Taylor court ruled that the law was not previously clearly established, so the parking officer whose conduct was at issue was entitled to qualified immunity. But going forward, warrantless tire chalking is a no-no in the Sixth Circuit. Now another circuit has weighed in with a different perspective.
News Roundup
Yale Law School graduate and Oath Keepers founder Stuart Rhodes was convicted this week of seditious conspiracy for his role in the January 6 storming of the United States Capitol. Reuters reports here that one of Rhodes’s codefendants was convicted of the same charge, while others were acquitted of that offense but convicted of obstructing an official proceeding. Both crimes carry statutory maximum penalties of up to 20 years in prison, but it remains to be seen what punishment the federal sentencing guidelines will recommend. Trials against additional Oath Keepers and Proud Boys are scheduled to begin soon. Keep reading for more news.
Welcome, Joe Hyde!
I am pleased to announce that Joe Hyde has joined our faculty. He will be working in the area of criminal law, especially as it relates to prosecutors. We hope he will post on this blog and expect that he will take the lead on maintaining NCPRO, our online resource for prosecutors. Joe will also … Read more
Does a Dirty Trash Pull Provide Probable Cause to Search a Residence?
The Supreme Court of the United States has held that trash left for collection at the curb is not subject to a reasonable expectation of privacy and therefore may be searched by the police without a warrant. See California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 (1988). So-called “trash pulls” are now a routine feature of drug investigations. When officers find drugs, drug residue, drug paraphernalia, or other indicia of drug activity in the trash, does that provide probable cause to support the issuance of a search warrant for the associated residence?