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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© 2003-23,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 350,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 45,000 posts since 2003 (25,700+ on WordPress as of 12/31/22)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and linksLatest Slip Opinions:
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FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $Research Links:
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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
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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“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!”
"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."
---Pepé Le Pew
—Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948)
Website design by Wally Waller, Little Rock
Category Archives: Uncategorized
CNS: Prison warden faces suit for firing guard after ordering her strip search
CNS: Prison warden faces suit for firing guard after strip search (“An Arkansas federal court allowed a prison guard to bring her retaliatory seizure and unlawful seizure claims against the prison warden, who fired her a few days after she … Continue reading
This blog is 20 years old today
First post: February 24, 2003, with 40,000 or so posts since then on three different platforms. More importantly, today is also the 262d anniversary of James Otis’ 1761 argument at the Boston Old State House against the writs of assistance … Continue reading
NPR: Colorado looks at law allowing police to take guns from people deemed too dangerous
NPR: Colorado looks at law allowing police to take guns from people deemed too dangerous by Andrew Kenney (“A review of the more than 300 requests to invoke Colorado’s red flag law since it was enacted three years ago shows … Continue reading
VT: Realtime CSLI (“pinging”) requires a SW under state constitution
Realtime CSLI (“pinging”) requires a search warrant under the state constitution, following some states. That information is not regularly kept by cell phone providers, and the state has an interest in protecting that privacy interest. State v. Murphy, 2023 VT … Continue reading
Reason: The Feds Are Buying Their Way Around the 4th Amendment
We gave away our privacy, fair and square, and capitalism trumps the Fourth Amendment: Reason: The Feds Are Buying Their Way Around the 4th Amendment by David McGarry (“Government agencies have paid to access huge amounts of Americans’ data.”)
Bing’s ChatBot: NYT: Help, Bing Won’t Stop Declaring Its Love for Me
NYT: Help, Bing Won’t Stop Declaring Its Love for Me by Kevin Roose (“A very strange conversation with the chatbot built into Microsoft’s search engine left me deeply unsettled. Even frightened.”):
Reason: WV Family Court Judge with History of Arranging Warrantless Searches Resigns
Reason: West Virginia Family Court Judge with History of Arranging Warrantless Searches Resigns by J.D. Tuccille (“We may have finally discovered a limit to judicial immunity.”)
Miami Herald: Florida athletes may have to submit menstrual history to school
Miami Herald: Florida athletes may have to submit menstrual history to school. Anybody see a Fourth Amendment issue here, or is it just me?
Professional Responsibility in Criminal Defense Practice (4th ed. 2023) now on Westlaw
The author’s Professional Responsibility in Criminal Defense Practice (4th ed. 2023) uploaded to Westlaw this morning. The book and ebook will be on the Thomson Reuters bookstore shortly. The table of contents is here. The first edition was published in … Continue reading
Orin S. Kerr, Terms of Service and Fourth Amendment Rights on SSRN
Orin S. Kerr, Terms of Service and Fourth Amendment Rights on SSRN:
S.D.Cal.: Databases checked by probation officers showed def was still on probation before probation search; GFE applies
Defendant claimed his probation search was unreasonable because he was off probation when the search occurred. All the evidence, however, shows that the officers acted in good faith because they checked databases, and it all showed he was still on … Continue reading
Did a Tesla rat out its owner?
LATimes: Driver of Tesla that plunged off Northern California cliff arrested; CHP calls crash intentional After examining evidence, investigators “developed probable cause to believe this incident was an intentional act,” and placed Patel under arrest, according to the CHP. Authorities … Continue reading
NYT: Their Flights Canceled, Southwest Travelers Were Threatened With Arrest by
NYT: Their Flights Canceled, Southwest Travelers Were Threatened With Arrest by Michael Levinson (“A police officer at Nashville International Airport told travelers whose Southwest flights had been canceled that they would be arrested for trespassing if they did not leave … Continue reading
Lawfare Podcast: Chris Slobogin on Virtual Searches
Lawfare Podcast: Chris Slobogin on Virtual Searches by Jen Patja Howell:
N.D.Fla.: SW used to get caller information on Google Voice call
Here, the government got a search warrant for information from Google over who placed a Google voice call. United States v. Alford, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 219552 (N.D. Fla. Nov. 8, 2022),* adopted, CoA denied, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 218090 … Continue reading
WaPo: All the ways Amazon’s home gadgets are spying on you
WaPo: All the ways Amazon’s home gadgets are spying on you by Geoffrey A. Fowler (“You may not realize all the ways Amazon is watching your home, your family and you.”). The title inside: Tour Amazon’s dream home, where every … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Request for TRO against cell phone search denied; aside from the fact criminal investigations are almost never enjoined, nothing is shown here to justify even hearing it yet
Plaintiff’s claim that the government’s seizure of his cell phone should be enjoined and it should be returned is denied. There is no proof of service on anybody for the government. (1) There is no effort to comply with F.R.C.P. … Continue reading
techdirt: Yet Another Data Broker Found To Give Massive Amounts Of Location Info To Law Enforcement
techdirt: Yet Another Data Broker Found To Give Massive Amounts Of Location Info To Law Enforcement by Tim Cushing:
Working on a book manuscript
Will catch up soon
techdirt: Ohio Court Says Distance Learning ‘Room Scans’ Violate The Fourth Amendment
techdirt: Ohio Court Says Distance Learning ‘Room Scans’ Violate The Fourth Amendment by Tim Cushing:
