This week's federal circuit decisions redrawing the boundaries of the Fourth Amendment (and the constitutional issues around it) for criminal defense practitioners. Seven decisions, in order:
- Jones v. City of St. Louis (8th Cir., 7/27/26): Section 1983 excessive-force claims by four pretrial detainees, and the court's case-by-case qualified-immunity analysis.
- Horocofsky v. City of Lawrence (10th Cir., 7/24/26): Denial of leave to amend affirmed on Rule 16 procedural grounds.
- United States v. Williams (6th Cir., 7/24/26): How an unconditional guilty plea waives your pretrial suppression motions. No Fourth Amendment ruling on the merits.
- Carrin v. Strong (11th Cir., 7/23/26): Whether Bivens still offers a damages remedy for federal prison medical care under the Eighth and Fifth Amendments.
- United States v. Pereda (9th Cir., 7/23/26): Probable cause to search a trailer and pickup tied to a supervisee under warrantless-search conditions, built on months of GPS residence data (Bumatay, J.; Paez, J., dissenting).
- United States v. Fordham (6th Cir., 7/22/26): A RICO prosecution of the Almighty Vice Lord Nation, with four separate suppression rulings including a Title III wiretap necessity challenge.
- United States v. Kendrick (7th Cir., 7/9/26): Warrantless pole-camera surveillance of a fenced commercial property is not a Fourth Amendment search. Denial of suppression affirmed.
Hosted by Jay Ruane, Ruane Attorneys, Connecticut.
What is Unreasonable Expectations: A 4th Amendment Podcast?
The Fourth Amendment is having the fight of its life, and every week Unreasonable Expectations breaks down the search and seizure decisions that landed while you were in court. Host Jay Ruane, criminal defense trial lawyer and founder of The Criminal Mastermind, surveys the newest rulings from courts across the country, calls out the wins you can put to work in a case that same day, and flags the losses that could reach your pending files and reshape your case theory. No ivory tower. Plain language, real doctrine, and takeaways you can carry straight into your next suppression hearing. Built for working criminal defense lawyers, and for anyone who cares about where the line between you and the government gets drawn. New episodes every Monday.