The Colorado Supreme Court upheld the search of Google users’ keyword history to identify suspects in a 2020 fatal arson fire. The Court cautioned it was not making a “broad proclamation” on the constitutionality of such warrants and emphasized it was ruling on the facts of just this one case. At issue before the court was a search warrant from Denver police requiring Google to provide the IP addresses of anyone who had searched over 15 days for the address of the home that was set on fire, killing five people.
According to this AP News article, one suspect asked the court to throw the evidence out because it violated the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures by being overbroad and not being targeted against a specific person suspected of a crime. The Court ruled that the suspect had a constitutionally protected privacy interest in his Google search history even though it was only connected with an IP address and not his name. While assuming that the warrant was “constitutionally defective” for not specifying an “individualized probable cause,” the Court said it would not throw out the evidence because police were acting in good faith under what was known about the law at the time.
Keep reading for more criminal law news.
Death by impaired boating. A deadly boat crash in 2020 has resulted in the first conviction of death by impaired boating in North Carolina. WRAL reports that Matthew Ferster pled guilty to three counts of death by impaired boating, also known as Sheyenne’s Law. He was sentenced to between 9 to 18 years in prison. Sheyenne’s Law was passed in 2016, increasing the penalty for impaired boating that results in death or serious injury from a misdemeanor to a felony.
World’s heftiest speeding ticket. A Georgia man received a $1.4 million speeding ticket for driving 90 mph in a 55 mph zone. He called the court thinking the amount was a typo but was told he either had to pay it or appear in court in December. He later learned that the figure was just a placeholder, generated by e-citation software, that is automatically applied to “super speeders.” In Georgia, drivers caught doing more than 35 mph above the speed limit have to appear in court, where a judge will determine the actual fine.
Inmates escape from Georgia jail. Four inmates escaped custody from a jail in Macon, Georgia on Monday. According to this article, the men climbed out of a damaged window and then exited through a cut fence. A blue Dodge Challenger arrived to help all four inmates escape around 3 a.m. One of the four was being held for murder, one for aggravated assault, one for possession of a firearm and drug trafficking, and the other was being detained by US Marshals.
Family charged in catalytic converter theft ring. AP News reports that three members of a California family pled guilty on Monday to conspiracy for their role in a ring that shipped $600 million worth of stolen catalytic converters from California to New Jersey. Twenty-one people from California and New Jersey have been charged in the case. According to the US attorney’s office, the black-market price for catalytic converters can be above $1,000 each. California accounts for 37% of catalytic converter theft claims nationwide, with about 1,600 reported stolen each month.
The FBI released its annual crime report on Monday, which shows that violent crime across the US decreased last year. While the data reported represented only 83.3% of all agencies covering 93.5% of the population, the data is more plentiful than it has been in previous years due to a change in collection methods. Violent crime decreased collectively by 1.7%, including a 6.1% decrease in murder and non-negligent manslaughter. Rape decreased 5.4%, and aggravated assault dropped 1.1%. However, robbery increased 1.3%. Despite the decrease in violence, property crimes jumped 7.1%, with motor vehicle thefts showing the biggest increase at 10.9%. According to the report, carjackings increased 8.1% from 2021, and the vast majority of carjackings involve an assailant with a weapon.
“The largest fentanyl seizure in the history of Buncombe County.” WRAL reports deputies in western North Carolina arrested five people in what has been dubbed the largest drug bust in the county’s history. The Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office seized 5.03 pounds of fentanyl, 667.1 grams (1.47 pounds) of methamphetamine, 977.5 grams (2.15 pounds) of heroin, approximately 2,500 miscellaneous pills, 31.6 grams of Cocaine, 88 dosage units of suboxone, a Taurus semi-automatic handgun, numerous cellular devices, and numerous drug paraphernalia. Five people face a total of 59 criminal charges from the large-scale drug trafficking operation.
I usually leave the “Florida man” news to my colleagues, but this week’s stories were too good to pass on. This one was my favorite:
Officers with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office were looking for 41-year-old Johnny Yates at a home in Lakeland, Florida when they were greeted by a whiteboard message outside the home that read “Johnny Yates does NOT live here!” A person seen leaving the house informed them that Yates was inside the house “with a few others.” After a few failed attempts to get Yates to exit the home, he was eventually found hiding in a modified chest of drawers.