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Orin Kerr

Orin Kerr

@orinkerr.bsky.social

31K followers 930 following 2.3K 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

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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Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 19h

Myra Melford, "Park Mechanics," from Life Carries Me This Way (2013), solo piano.
myramelford.bandcamp.com/album/life-c...

Life Carries Me This Way, by Myra Melford

myramelford.bandcamp.com

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 21h

Lordy, that is truly ridiculous. But emblematic of the problem.

Reposted by Orin S. Kerr

Jonathan Todres @jtodres.bsky.social · 1d

Years ago, I had an offer pulled from a journal because as the student editor apologetically explained, their professor approached them last minute with an article and they felt they had to defer.

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 1d

QI is about establishing principles, not finding a case with identical facts, CA10 says: In this case, the principles of its precedents established that the government's conduct was excessive force. www.ca10.uscourts.gov/sites/ca10/f...

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 1d

Fantastic.

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 1d

Related. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Editorial Bias in Legal Academia

In academia, journals serve as a proxy for quality, where prestigious journals are presumed to publish articles of higher quality than their less prestigious co

papers.ssrn.com

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 1d

Yep.

Reposted by Nathan Richardson

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 1d

One of my least popular periodic tweets: If you're a law professor, you might consider not submitting your articles to your own school's law review. Doing so can be unfair to authors elsewhere, as your home law review may evaluate your scholarship under a more lenient standard.

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 1d

District court blocks defense from cross examining officer about a prior case in which the officer's conduct violated the 4th Am. CA6, per Thapar: That was not an abuse of discretion under Rule 403, and didn't violate the Confrontation Clause, either. www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf...

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d

They had a warrant to search the phone.

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d

BTW, this seems correct to me under Arizona v. Mauro, 481 U.S. 520 (1987), where the person arrested really wanted to speak to his parents and officers allowed him to have that conversation—with officers recording the whole thing, and then using it against him. Held, no Miranda violation.

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d

But people don't read summaries, either.

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d

I just wanted to understand your argument for why the decision is wrong, and I think you're now saying you think the ruling you said was bullshit is actually correct.

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d

Yes, that's what I do, too. It's mostly loaded up in the mental RAM, and you present it in a way that seems to engage the audience most as you go.

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d

The usual norms-based ways. Slight audience annoyance, a sense that the presentation wasn't necessarily a huge success, maybe a friend after saying, "ya know, you might think about presenting that a little differently," that sort of thing.

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d

Got it. My point is that you wouldn't normally do that at a US law school. People would think you had stage fright and were too nervous to actually speak, and they would be annoyed that it was just a boring reading of script.

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d

I love the sense of humour! My question, though, was whether the norm was to read from any kind of script, not read from the original paper. In the US, reading from any script would be a little weird in a law school environment.

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d

Is the norm amount UK legal academics to read papers or to present them with notes?

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d

I think it's right that lawyers are trained as oral advocates, whether it's law school moot court, responding to socratic questioning in class, or something else. That doesn't necessarily mean going into court, but oral argument and persuasion seems a significant part of the training.

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d

Claude offered this explanation, which strikes me as persuasive.

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d

This isn't new, but it's still interesting to me that different academic fields have different expectations in terms of whether a professor speaking on a panel or giving a talk is expected to read from a prepared text or just speak to the audience from notes.

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d

I'm confused. You said it was a bullshit ruling, and I asked why.

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d

There's disagreement about exactly when after checkout time a hotel renter's 4th A rights in the room end—exactly at that time, or a bit later—but here, it's an easy case, CA3 holds: By any standard, there were no 4th A rights 5 hours after.
www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/251...

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d

But as you know, the Supreme Court has rejected a "seeking information" standard for Miranda interrogation; in RI v. Innis, they instead adopted the standard of reasonably likely to elicit a testimonial response that the prosecution would use at trial. How dos that apply here?

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 2d

Why?

Reposted by Neil Pederson, Steve Peers, Fabián Muniesa , and 11 more Neil Pederson, Steve Peers, Fabián Muniesa, Juan Cole, Sanford F. Schram, Orin S. Kerr, McKenzie Wark, Samantha Brennan, Michael D. McDonald, Mark Rice, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, Stephen A. Meserve, Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Jeannette Sutton

Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 3d

New: we've obtained material explaining how an ICE surveillance system, called Webloc, works. Draw shape on a map, see all phones available there, follow them home. All without warrant

“This is a very dangerous tool in the hands of an out-of-control agency.” www.404media.co/inside-ices-...

Inside ICE’s Tool to Monitor Phones in Entire Neighborhoods

404 Media has obtained material that explains how Tangles and Webloc, two surveillance systems ICE recently purchased, work. Webloc can track phones without a warrant and follow their owners home or t...

www.404media.co

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 3d

What was the interrogation for Miranda purposes?

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 3d

What did they do that counted as an interrogation, though?

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 3d

United States v. Lira-Prado, No. 23-CR-02515-JES, 2026 WL 21792, at *1 (S.D. Cal. Jan. 5, 2026).

Reposted by Ann Bartow

Orin Kerr @orinkerr.bsky.social · 3d

Man is arrested, asks for a lawyer, and expresses concern that cops are taking away his banking info. Cops offer to let him use his cell phone to take photos of the info to send to a family member. He does, unlocking phone to do it. Cops see password, use it. Held: No Miranda violation.