United States Supreme Court - Ryburn v. Huff - 4th Amendment - Unreasonable Searches - Police/Cop Qualified Immunity

Ryburn v. Huff    4^th Amendment - Unreasonable Searches  - Police/Cop Qualified Immunity        

Facts: A principle at a high school gets word of some threat. According to students, the threat came from Vincent Huff, a student often bullied at school (of course the police claim this fit the ‘profile’ of a school shooter). The Burbank, CA police arrive to investigate, but Vincent Huff was absent. The police go to Vincent’s home. Vincent’s mother refused to allow the cops entry into their home. The police beg, and again she refuses. The opinion claims the police asked Ms. Huff if there are any guns in the home. In response, the police claimed that Ms. Huff turned and ran into the house. The police, of course, followed Ms. Huff into her home uninvited. Upon entering the home, Vincent Huff’s dad confronted the police and questioned their authority to be in his home. The police claimed they left 10 minutes later. At no time during this investigation did the police seek or possess a warrant authorizing entry or a search the Huff home. The lower courts denied immunity to the police. 
Issue: Whether qualified immunity protects the police? 

Held: Yes.

Reasoning:   No Justice put his or her name to the decision; the Court issued it Per Curium. Nevertheless, the Court goes through a litany of reasons why Ms. Huff raised officer suspicions, but none discloses any criminal conduct (further, no mention that parent involvement also fit the profile of school shooters). For example: Ms. Huff refuses to speak to the police when they call; Ms. Huff declined to discuss anything with the police when they arrived; Ms. Huff refused the police entry into her home. Thus, instead of exhibiting criminal behaviour, Ms. Huff, uniquely and unambiguously exercised her constitutional rights. Unfortunately the Court disagreed, found qualified immunity, and recited the testimony of one of the cops, “Ryburn’s experience as a juvenile bureau sergeant, it was ‘extremely unusual’ for a parent to decline an officer’s request to interview a juvenile inside.” Somehow all this equates to reasonable officer conduct, and thus, immune from any civil suit. The Court essentially bought the line of exigent circumstance - despite it being an exigency of the police officers' own imagination and creation, that is officer safety. 
Link to Ryburn v. Huff  here

United States Supreme Court - U.S. v. Jones - 4th Amendment - Warrantless Search - GPS Tracker

United States v. Jones            Warrantless Search – GPS Tracker

Facts: The Government obtained a warrant to put a GPS tracker on a suspected drug trafficker’s car. The trial court granted the motion, but directed the Government to put the tracker on the car within 10 days of the order. The Government affixed the GPS tracker to Mr. Jones' car on the 11^th day – outside the time limit for the warrant.

Issue: Whether tracking people with a GPS tracker amounts to a search or seizure under the Fourth Amendment?

Held: Yes.

Reasoning: Justice Scalia wrote the majority opinion. Although no Justice dissented, the Court produced three opinions, the majority and two concurring opinions.

            The Government hinged its case on Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967), where, in concurrence, Justice Harlan formulated the definition of a search, “My understanding of the rule that has emerged from prior decisions is that there is a twofold requirement, first that a person have exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy and, second, that the expectation be one that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’” (citations omitted) Thus, the Government, here, claimed because all of the vehicle's movements could be viewed in the open by anyone, Mr. Jones had no reasonable expectation of privacy.

Justice Scalia reached back past Katz, to when Supreme Court jurisprudence only defined searches to be some trespass onto property. However, Justice Scalia reasoned, “As Justice Brennan explained in his concurrence in Knotts, Katz did not erode the principle ‘that, when the Government does engage in physical intrusion of a constitutionally protected area in order to obtain information, that intrusion may constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment.’ We have embodied that preservation of past rights in our very definition of ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’ which we have said to be an expectation ‘that has a source outside of the Fourth Amendment, either by reference to concepts of real or personal property law or to understandings that are recognized and permitted by society.’”

Justice Alito quarreled with the Court’s ‘reviving’ of old trespass tort law to decide the case. Justice Alito, with Justices, Kagan, Ginsberg, and Breyer joining, wrote a concurring opinion that would have simply decided the case in favor of Mr. Jones under the reasoning of Katz.

Nevertheless,  every Justice agreed that tracking people in the United States without a warrant or in excess of a warrant (as was done here) amounts to unconstitutional conduct by the Government.
Link to United States v. Jones here