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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2017); ABA Journal Blawg 100 (2015-16)
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© 2003-19,
online since Feb. 24, 2003
WebPage Visits: real non-robot hits since 2010; approx. 25k posts since 2003~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and linksLatest Slip Opinions:
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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)
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LII State Appellate Courts
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
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Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
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General (many free):
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Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
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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“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"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
2017 ABA Journal Web 100
Category Archives: Border search
D.D.C.: Officers’ testimony about smell of PCP was too equivocal to be reliable
The officers’ testimony about allegedly smelling PCP when they stopped defendant was too equivocal through the hearing to be reliable. A patdown of defendant off that alleged smell produced a gun in his pocket. Defendant’s alleged consent to the patdown … Continue reading
CA5: No RS for def’s stop on totality <50 miles from border
There was no reasonable suspicion on the totality for defendant’s stop less than 50 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas. Officer’s experience was too limited to provide much of anything. United States v. Freeman, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 2622 … Continue reading
CA3: Cabin search of cruise ship at border non-routine, but QI granted here
This is a suit over a 2008 search at USVI port of the plaintiff’s cabin on the Adventure of the Seas cruise ship. Plaintiff was in the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS), a CBP database for intel, from prior travels … Continue reading
techdirt: CBP Will Search You And Your Property If You’re Paying Too Much Attention To An Agent. Or Too Little.
techdirt: CBP Will Search You And Your Property If You’re Paying Too Much Attention To An Agent. Or Too Little. by Tim Cushing:
D.V.I.: Court doubts legal authority for border searches from mainland to VI, but GFE applies
The court doubts the legal basis for customs searches of people traveling nonstop from the U.S. mainland to the Virgin Islands because there is no international travel. Reliance on the V.I. Code doesn’t provide any real help to the government. … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Border search of love letter in car led to more inquiries and then finding CP
A secondary search at the border can still be “routine” depending on its intensity. In this district, “routine” deals with searches of the person. Here, it was a search of a letter in the car that was a basically love … Continue reading
engadget: New lawsuit shows your phone is unsafe at American borders
engadget: New lawsuit shows your phone is unsafe at American borders by Violet Blue: CBP = Customs and Border Profiling
Gizmodo: Woman Sues Border Agents to Make Them Return Data They Seized From Her Phone
Gizmodo: Woman Sues Border Agents to Make Them Return Data They Seized From Her Phone by Melanie Ehrenkranz:
WaPo: In horrifying detail, women accuse U.S. customs officers of invasive body searches
WaPo: In horrifying detail, women accuse U.S. customs officers of invasive body searches by Susan Ferriss, Center for Public Integrity:
S.D.Cal.: Cell phone was validly searched under border search exception; obtaining passcode was likely unlawful, but government isn’t going to use it
Defendant was arrested at Calexico for importing meth. While in the holding cell, she gave up the password for the cell phone. The government isn’t going to use her revealing the password as evidence, but it wants to use the … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Warrantless search of cell phone six years after border crossing violated 4A
Defendant crossed the border in July 2012, and his phone was seized and somewhat analyzed. On the eve of trial in July 2018, the government did a full search without a warrant. Defendant moves to suppress, and it’s granted. The … Continue reading
TX8: Hospital can’t be sued under § 1983 for medical negligence and battery in conducting intensive body, pelvic, and rectal searches for CBP that produced nothing at all
Plaintiff, an El Paso resident, was stopped at the border coming into El Paso from visiting a friend and subjected to several searches for drugs, including taking her to the appellant hospital for x-rays and a pelvic exam. Nothing was … Continue reading
