A federal judge had to roll back his own rulings after learning police spent over three years watching a Maine man's home through a neighbor's security camera without a warrant — and prosecutors never disclosed it. If a judge can't trust what the government puts before him, no American's front door is safe from the panopticon.
Willie Banks, a Westbrook man, was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm after a March 2024 shooting outside his apartment. The case against him hinged on video footage that Westbrook police officer and Maine Drug Enforcement agent Phil Robinson used to identify Banks and obtain a search warrant. What the court didn't know — until a defense investigator started asking questions — was that Robinson had remote access to a neighbor's security camera trained on Banks' home for years, monitored it with what the Portland Press Herald described as "some regularity," and never documented the arrangement in a single report.
U.S. District Judge Lance Walker had previously denied Banks' motion to suppress evidence, his motion for sanctions against prosecutors, and his request for a hearing to challenge the search warrant's validity. All of those denials were decided on incomplete information, because the government sat on the truth.
In May, a defense investigator interviewed the neighbor, who revealed the surveillance setup. In June, prosecutors finally disclosed text messages between Robinson and the neighbor's spouse spanning five years. The Portland Press Herald reported that Walker, in his July 2 order, laid out the stakes plainly: "At best, we have an untimely disclosure resulting from negligence or miscommunication between the government and its investigative partners that can be adequately cured by reopening suppression proceedings. At worst, we have a serious disclosure transgression resulting from law enforcement's active concealment of the truth from the defense, the court, and perhaps even the government — misconduct for which a greater sanction may be required."
That's the range: bureaucratic sloppiness or deliberate cover-up. Neither is acceptable when a man's liberty is on the line.
Walker's order reopened suppression proceedings and signaled that further sanctions are on the table. A new hearing will determine whether Banks' Fourth Amendment rights were violated, whether the government met its constitutional disclosure obligations, and what to make of Robinson's conduct.
The system only corrected itself because the defense went digging. The surveillance ran for years. The exculpatory evidence stayed buried. The judge ruled on a record that the government had quietly rigged. This is the Fourth Amendment dying by a thousand cuts — warrantless eyes on an American home, concealed from the court, exposed only by accident. The institutions that failed to police themselves now ask you to trust them with more power.
The open question is whether sanctions will match the misconduct — or whether this becomes another case where the only consequence is a do-over.