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Judge Rules Blanket Search of Cell Tower Data Unconstitutional

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Re: Judge Rules Blanket Search of Cell Tower Data Unconstitutional

#61

Post by dragonwriter »

addicted wrote: post #55
ty6853 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I believe, in good faith, I have not broken the law. I should not be convicted.

If you believe in good faith that you have not broken the law, and can reasonably convince a jury of that, you almost certainly will receive a lighter sentence than you would have otherwise and in some cases also be acquitted. So this isn’t really a good argument even if we ignore the fact that it’s a non sequitur. A better argument is that the good faith exception, while making sense in principle, can easily be abus…

> If you believe in good faith that you have not broken the law, and can reasonably convince a jury of that, you almost certainly will receive a lighter sentence than you would have otherwise

Juries usually don't decide sentencing, and even if they did I don't think that would matter with crimes viewed as wrong in themselves (mala in se) though it might with crimes viewed as wrong because they are prohibited (mala prohibita).

Re: Judge Rules Blanket Search of Cell Tower Data Unconstitutional

#62

Post by Zak »

nemomarx wrote: post #25
Terr_ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, when they lie in conversations/interrogations, they can lie about what the law is , as well as what official acts can/will undertake. To me there is a fundamental difference between lies like: 1. "Your buddy in the next room already ratted you out." 2. "Sign this admission and you'll only get 6 months, tops. If you don't, we can seize your house and your mother will be living on the streets. "

I get your point but actually why can they lie and claim your buddy ratted you out?

The assumption, as I understand it is that a guilty person is more likely to confess if they believe the evidence against them is strong, but an innocent person will not believe the lie because they know they didn't commit the crime and generate the purported evidence.

I fear like many other old assumptions about criminal justice that isn't a close match to reality.

Re: Judge Rules Blanket Search of Cell Tower Data Unconstitutional

#63

Post by mjd »

Jimmc414 wrote: post #48

Interesting that the recent ruling against blanket cell tower data searches wouldn't have affected the Mark Gooch case. In that insatnce, investigators used targeted cell phone data (ie "geofencing") to track his movements, not a mass data collection. Under the new standards, this type of focused surveillance would still be permitted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBBTfy29WKI They absolutely wouldn't have caught hi…

The judge's opinion explains this in detail. It depends on the so-called "good-faith exception" to the exclusionary doctrine.

The idea is that if the police tell the truth in their warrant application of what they are looking for and why, the judge issues a search warrant, and the police lawfully execute the warrant, then there's no point in suppressing the evidence just because, years later, it's determined that the warrant should not have issued.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good-faith_exception

Re: Judge Rules Blanket Search of Cell Tower Data Unconstitutional

#64

Post by aftbit »

mjd wrote: post #5

It took me a while to track down the actual opinion. The case, United States v Spurlock , is 3:23-cr-00022 in the Nevada federal district. The opinion itself is ECF document #370, and I have hosted a copy at https://plover.com/~mjd/misc/cell-tower-dump-opinion.pdf in case other people are interested.

Thanks for finding this! Here's a link to Courtlistener/RECAP, which has a copy of this hosted for free as well.

Docket: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67397036/united-states-...

Order: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nvd.162...

Re: Judge Rules Blanket Search of Cell Tower Data Unconstitutional

#65

Post by kevinventullo »

mjd wrote: post #16
Analemma_ wrote: post #8

Do law schools even bother teaching about "fruit of the poisoned tree" anymore? It's clearly a dead letter; this is yet another ruling that if you gather evidence illegally you'll get a finger-wag but allowed to proceed as usual. Why even have a notion of legality of evidence if it doesn't matter?

The purpose of the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine is to disincentivize illegal collection of evidence. But there has always been a good-faith exception to it: if the police genuinely believed that what they were doing was legal, as they did in this case, relying on established legal precedent, then throwing out the evidence doesn't disincentivize anything. But the declaration that cell tower dumps are illegal…

if the police genuinely believed that what they were doing was legal, as they did in this case, relying on established legal precedent, then throwing out the evidence doesn't disincentivize anything

This is obviously false. It would disincentivize the police from collecting evidence without first ensuring that the method of collection was legal.

Re: Judge Rules Blanket Search of Cell Tower Data Unconstitutional

#66

Post by _DeadFred_ »

mjd wrote: post #42
ceejayoz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The police did not commit a crime here. They did, however, violate the Fourth Amendment. Per the court.

The Fourth Amendment was violated by the magistrate judge who issued the illegal warrant, not by the police officers who, acting in in good faith, executed it.

If my lawyer tells me selling a specific analog version of fentanyl is legal because it's different enough/whatever, and I good faith sell an analog version of fentanyl, do I get a good faith exemption?

Re: Judge Rules Blanket Search of Cell Tower Data Unconstitutional

#67

Post by _DeadFred_ »

reverendsteveii wrote: post #3

How many times recently have we seen rulings from judges that establish that something is definitely illegal but the person who did is still allowed to do it or at least there's no mechanism by which they can be punished for doing it? Having laws and then picking and choosing when they'll be enforced and against whom is the same as not having laws in the first place. And before you cite the good faith exception, pass…

Remember in every system people push up to and just as far over the line as they can get away with.

'Good faith' is given when chain of custody is broken. 'Good faith' is given way too much. Either the 4th Amendment is serious enough to have power/force over law enforcement/judicial, or it doesn't. And with good faith, it doesn't.

'our side violated the law but because of the divisions of power, our side didn't violate the law and we are going to give good faith to our side that our side was acting in good faith'. It's all window dressing to say 'the fourth amendment is superseded by other factors that a judge get's to decide at their discretion and the fourth amendment is not in fact the law of the land, a judge can overrule it with 'good faith''.

Re: Judge Rules Blanket Search of Cell Tower Data Unconstitutional

#68

Post by lucb1e »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #66
mjd wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fourth Amendment was violated by the magistrate judge who issued the illegal warrant, not by the police officers who, acting in in good faith, executed it.

If my lawyer tells me selling a specific analog version of fentanyl is legal because it's different enough/whatever, and I good faith sell an analog version of fentanyl, do I get a good faith exemption?

Bad analogy but I'll try it:

I take it fentanyl is some illegal drug, but some people can legally sell drugs (licensed apothecaries). If they go for a license, get it approved, then sell a drug, and then it turns out the license is invalid due to no fault of their own and should not have been issued, I don't think anyone is surprised if the apothecary is not on the hook for that. But I'm not a lawyer, much less a judge, so who knows what they'd actually rule

In the example where "someone told me to do it", you're glossing over evidence (this was in writing, not hearsay). In the example of addictive substances, you can be reasonably expected to do your own research and not take a random person's written word for it. The analogy is so hyperbolic, I don't get the impression you're trying to reasonably think about this case

Re: Judge Rules Blanket Search of Cell Tower Data Unconstitutional

#70

Post by fsckboy »

what's the difference between eyewitnesses reporting their recollections of EMF data gathered by their eyes, a surveillance camera collecting and recording EMF data, and a cell tower collecting and recording EMF data? In the case of the cell tower, the suspect is always carrying a "flashlight", but in the other cases he may be.
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