Archives
-
Recent Posts
- VA: Outline of a gun in def’s pocket was RS
- N.D.Ind.: Motion to suppress was near denial of standing by disavowing relationship with premises
- W.D.N.Y.: Def had no standing in a place he wasn’t allowed to be on parole
- CA11: QI for FBI SWAT raiding wrong house at 3:30 am
- NYLJ: Analysis: Turnabout: Cell Site Location Information for the Defense
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2017); ABA Journal Blawg 100 (2015-16) (discontinued 2018)
-
by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com / The Book
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-24,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 425,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 45,000 posts since 2003 (26,730+ on WordPress as of 12/31/23) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
-
Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Outline of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (2012)
ACLU on privacy
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
Section 1983 Blog -
"If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It isn't, and they don't."
—Me -
"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well."
–Josh Billings (pseudonym of Henry Wheeler Shaw), Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (1868) (erroneously attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson, among others) -
“I am still learning.”
—Domenico Giuntalodi (but misattributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (common phrase throughout 1500's)). -
"Love work; hate mastery over others; and avoid intimacy with the government."
—Shemaya, in the Thalmud -
"It is a pleasant world we live in, sir, a very pleasant world. There are bad people in it, Mr. Richard, but if there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers."
—Charles Dickens, “The Old Curiosity Shop ... With a Frontispiece. From a Painting by Geo. Cattermole, Etc.” 255 (1848) -
"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced."
—Williams v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold, J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984). -
"The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence."
—Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961). -
"Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment."
—Yale Kamisar, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 36 n. 151 (1987). -
"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today."
— Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting). -
"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property."
—Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765) -
"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth Amendment."
—United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting) -
"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth."
—Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring). -
"A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable."
—Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987) -
"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected."
—Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967) -
“Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
—United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting) -
“Liberty—the freedom from unwarranted intrusion by government—is as easily lost through insistent nibbles by government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark.”
—United States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989) -
"You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need."
—Mick Jagger & Keith Richards -
"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration camp] -
“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
---Pepé Le Pew "The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime."
—Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948)
Website design by Wally Waller, Little Rock 
Author Archives: fourth
Reason: Probable Cause is Too Hard for the NSA? Too Bad.
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Reason: Probable Cause is Too Hard for the NSA? Too Bad.
NYT: Bits Blog: Microsoft to Stop Inspecting Private Emails in Investigations
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on NYT: Bits Blog: Microsoft to Stop Inspecting Private Emails in Investigations
BLT: Franken Introduces Bill on Smartphone, Internet Privacy
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on BLT: Franken Introduces Bill on Smartphone, Internet Privacy
CT Law Tribune: Gideon: Cellphones And The Fourth Amendment
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on CT Law Tribune: Gideon: Cellphones And The Fourth Amendment
GA: Officer’s request to roll up sleeves so he could look at arms was not a seizure
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on GA: Officer’s request to roll up sleeves so he could look at arms was not a seizure
TX1: Standing in a flowerbed to look in kitchen window violated curtilage
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on TX1: Standing in a flowerbed to look in kitchen window violated curtilage
TX1: Flowerbed under kitchen window facing street was curtilage; entry violated 4A
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on TX1: Flowerbed under kitchen window facing street was curtilage; entry violated 4A
OR: Defendant’s suppression hearing cross-exam showed he believed he was free to leave
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on OR: Defendant’s suppression hearing cross-exam showed he believed he was free to leave
LA5: Leaning and hiding hands during traffic stop warrants patdown
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on LA5: Leaning and hiding hands during traffic stop warrants patdown
CA11: Warrantless cell phone search was harmless based on all the wiretap evidence linking def to Mexican meth cartel
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Comments Off on CA11: Warrantless cell phone search was harmless based on all the wiretap evidence linking def to Mexican meth cartel
FL1: Defendant’s refusal to keep hands out of pockets during talk with officer coupled with nervousness justified patdown
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on FL1: Defendant’s refusal to keep hands out of pockets during talk with officer coupled with nervousness justified patdown
E.D.Mich.: Considering merits of 4A claim in toto, defense counsel not ineffective
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on E.D.Mich.: Considering merits of 4A claim in toto, defense counsel not ineffective
OH1: CI’s tip justified protective frisk for gun
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on OH1: CI’s tip justified protective frisk for gun
CA6: SOL for search 1983 cases run from date of search
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on CA6: SOL for search 1983 cases run from date of search
CA3: “When an apartment is abandoned, authority to consent to a search reverts to the landlord.”
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Comments Off on CA3: “When an apartment is abandoned, authority to consent to a search reverts to the landlord.”
CA9: No REP in a dumpster in a parking lot
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on CA9: No REP in a dumpster in a parking lot
MN: Consent to a blood draw in DUI case was valid
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on MN: Consent to a blood draw in DUI case was valid
CA10: Inventory can include the glove compartment
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on CA10: Inventory can include the glove compartment
CT: A suppression hearing is a search for the truth; reopening not abuse of discretion
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Comments Off on CT: A suppression hearing is a search for the truth; reopening not abuse of discretion
DE: Uncontradicted proof of possessory interest in apt. showed standing
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on DE: Uncontradicted proof of possessory interest in apt. showed standing