Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Fourth Amendment

Criminal Law

: Fourth Amendment

CA3: GFE saved the search here because the issue was complicated; it it was complicated to the court, it was to the police, too

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

The district court’s “brusque good faith analysis” was inconsistent with the [almost extreme] degree of analysis it went through to find that the search warrant lacked probable cause. The good faith exception did apply to the warrant, and the suppression order was reversed. United States v. Stearn, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 4909 (3d Cir. March 9, 2010): Additionally, the District Court's good faith analysis plainly charged the executing officers with a greater knowledge of the law than our precedent requires. Even though the District Court ultimately declined to credit the informant's tip and declined to apply the Burton inference to Joseph Doebley and Edward Stearn's residences, it did so only after a detailed analysis of our case law, analysis we neither expect nor require from "nonlawyers in the midst and haste of a criminal investigation...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on March 12, 2010 (boomark / email).