We look at cross-jurisdictional authority when an officer issues a citation outside his or her jurisdictional limits. The law is specific, and you or the prosecutor need to bring the receipts to court if you want the cite to hold.
We previously discussed past precedents, and now we look at recent case rulings on what is reasonable when detaining someone after a traffic stop. Details matter.
When you detain someone for a traffic infraction, how much time is reasonable – and thus, constitutional – to delay someone while you search for other criminal activity? We review the basics in part one of a two-part series that will help guide your work on the street.
Is this issue headed to the State Supreme Court? We now have a third district court ruling about potential racial stereotyping in the use of products of “creative expression” for prosecution. Courts are split on whether the judicial review granted in the 2023 law should be retroactive to ongoing cases.
If you search a suspect believing he or she is subject to a probation search clause, but it turns out they weren’t, will the evidence be admitted? Were you acting in legal “good faith?” We explore several examples that may help you out in the field.
In an Oct. 10 ruling, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal granted the California AG’s emergency petition to stay a lower court ruling from just weeks earlier that struck down a penal code section prohibiting large capacity magazines. For now, they are illegal again.
Since the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision set standards to evaluate every state’s Second Amendment statutes, appellate courts have been reevaluating California’s restrictions on owning and carrying firearms.
A citizen reports a misdemeanor vandalism and the officer detains a suspect after a positive ID. But the citizen is hesitant to make a “private person arrest.” Can the officer initiate an arrest? One rule says no, but courts say the Constitution can allow it.
In this article, Professor Ray Hill provides an update on Canines, Consent Searches, Pretext Stops (SB50); LWOP cases (SB94) and decriminalization of certain drugs (SB58).
If investigators already have lawful possession of evidence, do you need to seek another warrant, or can you use that evidence just as the original agency could? What about cellphones, which contain huge amounts of personal information? Can victims’ DNA gathered to investigate their cases be used to prosecute them?
