BLOG BULLETS: The Sentencing Commission has published new proposed guidelines amendments which will apply to any defendant sentenced after November 1 if the amendments are adopted. One amendment adjusts the loss tables to reflect inflation, which has the effect of increasing the loss ranges by 25 to 40 percent. Other potentially favorable amendments modify the […]

BLOG BULLETS: There’s an argument that Riley applies to probation searches, so the usual looser standards for probation searches don’t extend to the search of a cell phone. Even the Cotterman case as it presently stands can be used to support this argument. Riley may not just bar suspicionless probation searches of cell phones; it […]

BLOG BULLETS: A recent NACDL report provides a good case law resource and some good arguments for various limitations on computer searches. Remember to think about arguing for both the enforcement of any search protocols or other limitations included in the warrant and the use of reasonable search protocols in execution of the warrant even […]

Five jail inmates who alleged that they were brutally beaten and shocked by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies have been awarded more than $5 million in legal fees. The amount, approved by a federal judge last week, is unusually large for such cases and may encourage more attorneys to represent indigent plaintiffs who claim abuse […]

BLOG BULLETS: The Ninth Circuit recently applied Riley v. California’s limits on cell phone searches in United States v. Camou – to (1) reject a claim that the possibility of losing data on a cell phone creates exigent circumstances justifying a warrantless search and (2) hold that cell phones are not “containers” for purposes of […]