New Episode: Smart Microwave
Chatrie
The latest summer episode of the podcast, Smart Microwave:
After a quick check on the Nina Totenberg embargo kerfuffle and one more revelation from Justice Thomas’s memoir, we devote the episode to Chatrie v. United States, the Court’s first major Fourth Amendment decision in years. We trace how the geofence-warrant ruling builds on — and goes beyond — Katz, United States v. Jones, and Carpenter v. United States, and what’s left of the third-party doctrine and the mosaic theory. Will explains the positive law model of the Fourth Amendment; Dan tries to claim Justice Gorsuch’s separate opinion for his general-law approach. We close with the dissents, the advisory-opinion objection, and whether the Court should be saying more about the Fourth Amendment or less about everything. Along the way: Venmo heroin deals, smart microwaves, whether Will has genuinely forgotten his passcode, and a field-trip assignment for Chicagoland listeners.
If you look to the original motivation for the 5th ammendment, I don't believe it supports the idea that it only protects you from legal jeopardy when what you refuse to tell the government is 'testimonial'
The harm this part of the 5th ammendment was meant to protect against was either about the idea that you were forcing people to put their immortal soul at risk (obviously they wouldn't want to admit their guilt and so you were forcing them to lie under oath) or just that it felt wrong to put them into this catch 22.
Both of those seem to be true about providing the password. It has the same catch-22 aspect: give us the evidence of your crime or you'll be prosecuted for your crime and potentially put in jail for contempt
In practice it has the same issue with forcing them to lie under oath since -- in order to put them in contempt -- the court needs to know that they do know the passcode and the natural temptation is (exactly as happened with an actual lawyer on the podcast) to insist that you forgot.
My wife is from Aurora Illinois and I was actually there when this episode came out. Based on what I was able to determine from asking a group of retired Aurora PD officers is that Aurora Tap Tavern became The Web and is now Aurora Tap House after being passed down through the family. I didn't have time to make a field trip over before I left but I can make an expedition when I'm back up in the near future.