Appellate courts must defer to a trial judge’s determination that a drug-sniffing dog was reliable unless that finding was clearly wrong, Maryland’s top court has ruled in setting the review standard for the often-decisive factor in whether police had probable cause to search a vehicle.

Tagged with: canine drug-sniffing dogs drugs fourth amendment traffic stops

Police officers were constitutionally justified in searching a car’s trunk for illegal drugs despite only finding them in a passenger’s possession during a traffic stop in Germantown and after a fruitless search of the vehicle’s interior, a divided Maryland high court ruled Friday.

Tagged with: fourth amendment marijuana possession traffic stop trunk search

ANNAPOLIS – The House Judiciary Committee has dropped from omnibus anti-crime legislation a provision that would permit prosecutors to appeal judges’ decisions to suppress from evidence at trial guns the judges conclude were seized from defendants in violation of their ...

Tagged with: Bobby Zirkin crime bill fourth amendment gun possession kathleen dumais scott shellenberger

ANNAPOLIS – Appellate courts should review anew the qualifications of drug-sniffing dogs when determining if police had probable cause to search a vehicle based on the canines’ whiff, a defense attorney said Thursday in urging Maryland’s top court to question ...

Tagged with: drug-sniffing dogs fourth amendment probable cause

ANNAPOLIS – Two Democratic delegates say they will not wait to see if the U.S. Supreme Court will rule that police need search warrants to track criminal suspects based on their cellphone use. Del. Charles E. Sydnor III said he ...

Tagged with: Carpenter v. United States cellphones fourth amendment search warrants Supreme Court

A Baltimore man who filed a federal lawsuit after the Court of Special Appeals ruled police did not have a valid warrant to use cell site simulator technology to locate him is asking a judge to reject the Baltimore police’s motion to dismiss ...

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The Supreme Court on Monday let stand without comment a Maryland man’s robbery, assault and theft convictions based on evidence from his cellphone, which police had seized with a controversial search warrant. In his unsuccessful request for Supreme Court review, ...

Tagged with: cellphones fourth amendment Riley v. California search warrants Supreme Court

Consent to a police search need not be spoken in the digital age, a federal judge in Greenbelt held Tuesday.

Tagged with: cell phone search fourth amendment Search by consent

A federal appeals court will determine if Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby is immune from a lawsuit by five police officers who claim she maliciously prosecuted them in the death of Freddie Gray. Maryland Assistant Attorney General Karl Pothier told ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals fourth amendment Freddie Gray Freddie Gray immunity Marilyn Mosby

The mere contention that criminals use cellphones to memorialize their crimes cannot be sufficient to secure a warrant to search a suspect’s phone, Maryland’s public defender has stated in papers urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review and overturn a ...

Tagged with: cellphones fourth amendment Riley v. California search warrants Supreme Court