Will Jones joins AG’s Cyber Crimes team
William M. Jones
Please help us welcome Will Jones, who recently joined the Attorney General’s staff as the Assistant Attorney General assigned to the Cyber Crimes Unit. He assists the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office Special Investigations Division in the investigation of child pornography across the state of Arkansas. Will, who replaces Bart Dickinson, will be appointed as a special prosecutor to handle the cyber crimes cases that result in an arrest and prosecution or will help prepare a case to be turned over to the elected prosecutor. The Attorney General’s Cyber Crimes Unit is two years old. Will is also an adjunct professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and formerly with the UALR Bowen School of Law. Will is a graduate of Henderson State University and the University of Arkansas School of Law. He began his career as a
prosecutor in 2001 in Crawford County. In May of 2002 he was hired by Sixth Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley. There, Will spent approximately eight years in the domestic violence and sexual assault unit before becoming division chief over district courts and citizen complaints. As a prosecutor, Will has tried over 120 jury trials most of which were violent or sexual crimes.
AG Cyber Crimes Unit stats Closed cases: 23 Total sentences: 879 years Open cases: 9 Months in operation: 28
U.S. Supreme Court Limits Detentions Incident to Execution of a Search Warrant By Vada Berger Assistant Attorney General Criminal Department More than 30 years ago, in Michigan v. Summers, 452 U.S. 692 (1981), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows officers executing a proper search warrant to restrain people present where the warrant is being executed even though the officers lack a reason to arrest them or even suspect that they may be involved in criminal activity or pose dangers to the officers. The Court concluded that restraint during a search is allowed because the inconvenience caused by the restraint is small and because the reasons for allowing it are important. The Court identified three important reasons for law enforcement to restrain people who are present during the execution of a warrant: the interest in reducing the risk of harm to officers by allowing them to have unquestioned command of the scene; the orderly and efficient completion of the search; and the prevention of fleeing in case incriminating evidence is discovered during the search. In the recently decided case of Bailey v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 1031 (2013), the Court held that the rule of Summers did not allow officers to restrain a person who left the premises where the search was conducted before it began and who was more than a mile away when restrained. The Court held that the restraint that far from the search was more inconvenient than restraint at the search itself, particularly when the person is returned to the search scene. The Court said that none of the three lawenforcement reasons for allowing the restraint of people present
during a search applied to persons who had left the scene before it had even begun. The Court explained that there was no risk to officers at the scene posed by someone who had left, that a person not present would not interfere with or aid in a search, and that the potential for fleeing did not, by itself, justify the restraint of a person who was not inside or very close to where the search was being conducted. Ultimately, the Court concluded in Bailey that, because the rule in Summers gives police greater authority to restrain persons than what the Fourth Amendment normally allows, its rule authorizing the restraint of people at a search must be limited to what it called the “immediate vicinity” of the place to be searched. In limiting the holding of Summers, the Court did not provide an exact definition of “immediate vicinity” because the restraint in Bailey, which was more than a mile away from the search, was beyond any reasonable understanding of that phrase. It did, however, helpfully explain that the facts to be considered in deciding whether a restraint had occurred in the “immediate vicinity” included the lawful limits of the place searched, whether the person restrained was within line of sight when restrained, and the ease of re-entry from the person’s location. It also explained that “immediate vicinity” was an idea based on distance and not one based upon time. The Court added that its rule did not prevent officers from restraining people who had left the search scene that they could restrain for other reasons, even on the basis of information discovered in the search at issue, such as because the officers had a basis to arrest them or suspected they were dangerous or involved in criminal activity. Page 3