Probable Cause to Conduct Thermal Search in the Eighth Circuit: At Volokh Conspiracy, Orin Kerr discusses the en banc opinion of the Eighth Circuit in United States v. Kattaria.  Kerr criticized the panel decision in October of 2007, which held the police only needed reasonable suspicion to obtain a "warrant" to conduct thermal imaging monitoring of a home.  Kerr reports that the en banc decision allows the evidence without reaching the reasonable suspicion issue.  In his post Kerr takes issue with Judge Loken's concurrence in the decision.  Kerr does not like Loken's assertion that a warrant can be based on "enough particularized suspicion to justify the minimal intrusion caused by the exterior thermal imaging of heat emissions, without regard to whether there is probable cause to issue a warrant to conduct a full physical search."  Kerr believes this is too far removed from the requirement that probable cause to issue a warrant to conduct a full physical search means there is probable cause to believe that a full physical search would provide the evidence described in the warrant.
 
Kansas v. Ventris Oral Argument Summary:  At SCOTUSblog Scott Noveck, a Stanford Student, provides a recap of January 21st's oral argument in Kansas v. Ventris.  The question before the U.S. Supreme Court in Ventris is whether the Sixth Amendment prevents a confession to a jailhouse informant from coming in for impeachment purposes.  Noveck's summary indicates that Justice Ginsburg was concerned with whether  police could have a cellmate "affirmatively elicit" statements from the defendant, or if the police may only listen for information without actively soliciting it.  Kansas Solicitor General Stephen R. McCallister correctly responded that cellmates can listen, but cannot "affirmatively elicit." (Our amicus brief for Kansas v. Ventris discusses this issue and can be found here.)   Assistant to the Solicitor General Nicole A. Saharsky then took the podium to face questions from the Chief Justice on whether exclusion would truly achieve any meaningful deterrence. Assistant appellate defender Matthew J. Edge was also questioned by Chief Justice Roberts on this issue.  He argued that permitting the use of uncounseled statements, even just for impeachment, would fail to offer any deterrence against the constitutional violation at issue here.  The transcripts of the argument is available here.