Evidence

A San Antonio man, during a traffic stop outside his mother's house, throws his jacket onto a garbage can on her property. Police grab the jacket and find a gun inside. Felon in possession? Suppress the evidence? District court: No suppression Fifth Circuit: Suppression. Tossing an item onto property you often visit and are welcome isn't abandonment, so the cops couldn't just search the jacket willy-nilly. You need a warrant for that but you didn't get one. Conviction vacated. Dissent: Anyone could've taken that jacket.

A federal court on Wednesday formally dismissed the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, granting the controversial request from the Justice Department that generated a public outcry and spurred the largest mass resignation of senior federal prosecutors in decades.

In 2020, Burlington, Wash. officers get a warrant to scour a man's computer after an alleged sexual assault, including a catch-all "dominion and control" clause that effectively authorized an unlimited search of any documents or files. They find child porn from 2016 and charge him in federal court. Ninth Circuit (over a partial dissent): That's an unlawful general warrant if we've ever seen it—no good-faith exception, no plain view, no dice.

If you're charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm but you don't know you're a felon, are you really a felon in possession of a firearm? Fourth Circuit: Nope, not according to the Supreme Court. That means our friend the accused should get his day in court—oh, but he still has to show prejudice (or actual innocence) to win if he procedurally defaulted (even if the gov't forgot to bring up that little detail). Concurrence: Eh, mostly agree.

Police: Our search of the defendant's backpack was valid because our only alternative to impounding it would have been to abandon it in public. It's not like we could just give it to the mysterious stranger who came up mere seconds after the defendant asked for his "girl" and who kept asking us to give it to her. She could have been anyone! Tenth Circuit: Um, or she could have been his girl. Nice try. Evidence suppressed!

Detroit man spends more than 20 years in prison for a 12-year-old girl's murder—a crime he did not commit. Indeed, another man's fingerprints are on the murder weapon, and the defendant's confession (which got the cause of death wrong) followed a detective's telling him he could go home after signing it. Once he's released, he sues the city and involved officials who, as you might expect, assert qualified immunity.

Civil rights lawyer Nancy Abudu has been confirmed to the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, where she will be the first Black woman to sit on the Atlanta-based court (view Senate press release).

Man is convicted of sex crimes in Indian country against an Indian victim under statute that applies if either the perpetrator or victim is an Indian—but does not apply if both are. Man: The feds didn't show I am not an Indian. Feds: That's your fault for not objecting to the jury instructions. Tenth Circuit: That's your fault for not proving an essential element of the crime. Convictions reversed.

The case is United States v. Simpkins, No. 22-7048 (10th Cir. Jan. 24, 2024).

Is it okay for a criminal-defense counsel to tell his (Black) client that if he goes to trial, the jury "would be culled of any minorities" and he'd be tried before an all-white jury? Tenth Circuit: No, it is definitely not okay. And given that misrepresentation about the right to a fair and impartial trial, the client's resulting guilty plea can't be said to have been knowing and voluntary. He gets to withdraw his guilty plea.

In 2020, federal investigators found that Springfield, Mass. cops were routinely using excessive force and then lying and withholding exculpatory evidence not only to cover it up, but also to obtain convictions against the very victims of their violence. Even so, the district attorney's office has continued to withhold from criminal defendants (past and future) that officers involved in their cases were implicated in these abuses. Unanimous Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court: Prosecutors have an "inescapable constitutional dut[y]" to investigate and disclose such info.