Category: Search and Seizure

Police may obtain a search warrant before evidence arrives at the location to be searched. This is known as an anticipatory search warrant. The warrant is generally executed only after a specified future event, called the triggering condition, establishes that the evidence is likely to be present.

If federal...

Federal agents cannot obtain a wiretap merely by showing that intercepted conversations might produce useful evidence. Title III requires the government to explain why ordinary investigative procedures have failed, appear unlikely to succeed, or would be too dangerous.

If federal prosecutors obtained evidence from intercepted telephone calls, text messages,...

A person does not have to allow police to search a home merely because officers ask for permission. When the government relies on consent instead of a warrant, prosecutors must prove that the consent was voluntary and that police remained within their permitted scope.

If police entered or searched...

Cellphones can reveal an extraordinary amount of information about where a person goes, where a person lives, and with whom a person associates.

Federal law enforcement agencies have used devices commonly known as StingRays to locate cellphones with far greater precision than traditional cell-tower records may provide.

Police may seize a cell phone during a lawful arrest, but they generally cannot search its digital contents without first obtaining a warrant. Modern phones contain messages, photographs, financial information, location history, medical records, and years of personal communications. The Fourth Amendment provides substantial protection for that information.

If...

Police cannot stop a vehicle merely because it leaves a house or property associated with suspected drug activity. A vehicle stop is a Fourth Amendment seizure, and officers ordinarily need particularized reasonable suspicion directed at the vehicle, driver, or occupants.

If police stopped your vehicle because you visited or...

Attorney Michael J. Petro is pleased to announce a successful defense result: Pinellas County drug charges against Mr. Eric Eugene Mozell, Sr. were dismissed after Attorney Petro filed a Motion to Suppress challenging the legality of the traffic stop and vehicle search. The case involved serious allegations of trafficking in cocaine and...

A court's conclusion that a search warrant lacked probable cause does not necessarily mean the evidence will be suppressed.

That surprises many criminal defendants.

The reason is the Leon good-faith exception.

In United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984),...

Police generally need a search warrant before examining the digital contents of a cell phone. But obtaining a warrant does not automatically make every seizure reasonable. Officers must also act diligently after taking the device and cannot hold it indefinitely while delaying the warrant application.

If police seized your...