Orin Kerr
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orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr
@orinkerr.bsky.social
30K followers 920 following 2K posts

Professor, Stanford Law School.
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution.

Author, The Digital 4th Amendment:
https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Fourth-Amendment-Privacy-Policing/dp/0190627077/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0

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Orin Samuel Kerr is an American legal scholar known for his studies of American criminal procedure and the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as well as computer crime law and internet surveillance. He has been a professor of law at Stanford Law School since 2025. Kerr is one of the contributors to the law-oriented blog titled The Volokh Conspiracy. .. more

Political science 35%
Law 28%
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orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2h
Fourth Circuit publishes an opinion to make a point that otherwise would go unseen.
www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 6h
Hard to know, but I wonder if this might have been a change to make SCOTUS review less likely. An alternative holding on state law presumably makes it hard to get SCOTUS interested in resolving the uncertainty on cross-enforcing federal law.

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 7h
Ninth Circuit hands down revised opinion in US v. Steinman, the cross-enforcement case from March, on panel rehearing.

Revised op:
cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/op... #N

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 19h
cc @marinklevy.bsky.social

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 1d
h/t @marklemley.bsky.social

Reposted by Mark A. Lemley, James Grimmelmann

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 1d
Below the line of the 1st page of Professor Dan Burk's last article, just published posthumously by the UC Irvine Law Review.

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 1d
Very pleased to say that my new article, "The Two Tests of Search Law: What Is the Jones Test, and What Does That Say About Katz?", has just been published in final form by the Wash. U. L. Rev. You can now download it from here:
wustllawreview.org/2025/11/12/t...

Abstract below.

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d
Last month, I did a talk and conversation on "The Fourth Amendment and Immigration Raids" on the Supreme Court's overturning of the injunction in the LA immigration enforcement case, with Duncan Hosie.

The Chicago case, now pending in the CA7, raises similar issues.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxmO...
The Fourth Amendment and Immigration Raids | Stanford Constitutional Law Center
YouTube video by Stanford Law School
www.youtube.com

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 4d
No, to be clear, it's Prosser poking fun at those questions with an imaginary set of questions back.

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 4d
Back in the 1950s, law schools apparently received inquiries (from potential applicants, I assume?) that sometimes included a lot of questions. Here, Dean Prosser of UC Berkeley imagines a reply.
jle.aals.org/home/vol10/i...

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 4d
I can't believe there's a case on this in 2025, but there it is.

Op here, State v. Hickman.
appellate.nccourts.org/opinions/?c=...
appellate.nccourts.org

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 4d
State Dept of Revenue issues warrant to search for and seize any property of value of suspect for failure to pay taxes on profits from selling meth. Searching her residence, officers find meth.

NC Court of Appeals: Can't get a warrant for this under the 4A. Meth suppressed.

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 4d
Why do you think originalism defeats the concept of a constitution?

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 4d
hat seems odd to me. Why isn't this just a case of so-called "transferred intent"? They were intending to restrain a person, even if, tragically, the wrong person was hit.

Wouldn't effect the result, as there were other issues, but still noteworthy. cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/op...
cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 4d
Officers try to shoot hostage taker, accidentally shoot and kill hostage. This did not "seize" the hostage under Torres v. Madrid, CA9 rules, as the intent to restrain was lacking; they were trying to free the hostage, not restrain him.

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 4d
Here's a law professor lamenting the fads in legal theory popular among law professors that become popular for a decade or two and then fade away— written in 1950. Specifically, it's Roscoe Pound, reflecting on trends since he became a lawyer in 1890.
jle.aals.org/cgi/viewcont...

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 7d
Is it a government vampire?

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 8d
But we're talking about a phrase that appears at the end of a long dissent. You can point that, if this weren't the case and we lived in a different world, you could draw likely conclusions about the phrase. But it's the case in the world we're in, which is why we're discussing it that way.

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 9d
I disagree. When a writer says, "Respectfully, your ideas are stupid," I don't think we treat the words "Respectfully" as adding actual politeness. We know the author is not speaking respectfully, so the "respectfully" addition comes off as insincere.

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 9d
Was 2004 the pre-zinger world? Everyone was on blogs, with insta-commentary on every word choice in opinions and plenty of harsh criticism.

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 9d
I think the press writes a lot about this, which makes it a thing in the press; I don't know whether it's become a thing among the Justices. (But if it is, it's rather silly.)

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 9d
But "I dissent" is not impolite, and "I respectfully dissent" is not polite when it's at the end of a very disrespectful dissent. The characterization at the end doesn't change whether the opinion is respectful.

Reposted by Jonathan H. Adler

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 9d
I agree with Paul Horwitz on this: Although I greatly value respect when dissenting, it seems silly to care whether there's an included statement describing one's own dissent as respectful. It's like a law review article that describes its claims as novel; that's not up to the author to decide.

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 9d
Avoiding the larger split on whether the Takings Clause applies to law enforcement damage to property, CA9 holds that at least there's no taking when officers act reasonably in the necessary defense of public safety.
cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/op...

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 9d
Investors do a lot to make cool businesses possible, so warming their hearts doesn't seem necessarily like a bad thing. But how to make the switch from an economy of things to an economy of software is pretty interesting.

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 9d
For those who didn't read it, I take the lesson to be that, more and more, everything is software and software is usually funded by subscriptions and (to a lesser extent) monetizing data collection. Welcome to the future.

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 9d
Interesting opinions from Judge Bumatay and Judge VanDyke, dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc, on criminal prosecutions for violating agency regulations—and what the limits there are for such prosecutions under the nondelegation doctrine.
cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/op...

orinkerr.bsky.social
Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 9d
A niche application, but it's also great for making notes on teaching a law school class. You put the key ideas and questions to ask students on the left, and you put down explanations and correct answers on the right. Or at least I have found that useful.