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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (discontinued 2018)
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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 -
© 2003-25,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 500,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 47,000 posts since 2003 (30,000+ on WordPress as of 12/31/24) -
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Fourth Amendment cases,
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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
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"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, Let it Bleed (album, 1969) -
"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)
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Category Archives: Reasonable expectation of privacy
W.D.Wis.: Code inspectors looking at ptf’s place from the street didn’t violate any REP
“Przychocki alleges that defendants Kearns, Grimm, and Schill violated her Fourth Amendment rights by surveilling her property from the street to identify code violations. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. A government action is a ‘search’ only … Continue reading
CA9: No REP in data in planted GPS device
Downloading data from a planted GPS device violated no reasonable expectation of privacy. McNeely v. Loeschner, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 9537 (9th Cir. Apr. 22, 2025). The facts of the planted device are below: McNeely v. City of Sparks, 2024 … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Squatters have no REP
Squatters have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the property they’ve appropriated. Lewis v. Blakeslee, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75568 (E.D. Cal. Apr. 21, 2025). In a written order denying an arrest warrant of a male victim of an alleged … Continue reading
D.Nev.: There’s no 4A claim from officers running the serial number of a gun found in plain view
There is no Fourth Amendment claim for officers running the serial number of a gun after it was lawfully encountered, so no ineffective assistance of counsel. United States v. Hylton, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71338 (D. Nev. Apr. 14, 2025). … Continue reading
CO: PC a gun was in car permits search of trunk
Defendant was a suspect in a shooting incident. He was found outside a car. There was probable cause to believe the gun was inside the passenger compartment or trunk, even though the windows were down and the trunk closed when … Continue reading
N.D.N.Y.: No REP in workplace computer
Plaintiff had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his workplace computer. Zennamo v. Cty. of Oneida, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 66916 (N.D.N.Y. Mar. 18, 2025). One officer accidentally shooting another when using deadly force against a civilian was not an … Continue reading
W.D.Mich.: Corporate Transparency Act reporting requirements are an unreasonable search
The Corporate Transparency Act reporting requirements amount to an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment. Small Bus. Ass’n of Mich. v. Yellen, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40975 (W.D. Mich. Mar. 3, 2025):
C.D.Cal.: “4A privileges and immunities” are two claims, not one, and both denied here
Plaintiff’s case claimed Fourth Amendment privileges and immunities, but that’s two claims because privileges and immunities is under Art. IV, § 2, cl. 1 but it doesn’t state a claim under either. Gay v. Sheriff of L.A. Cty., 2025 U.S. … Continue reading
CA2: Officers using iPhone flashlight and camera to see through car window’s tinting did not violate any reasonable expectation of privacy.
Officers used their iPhone flashlight and camera to see through car window’s tinting, and this did not violate any reasonable expectation of privacy. Tinting the windows doesn’t create an objective expectation of privacy. United States v. Poller, 2025 U.S. App. … Continue reading
MS: Police cell phone search as extensive as prior private search was reasonable
The warrantless search of defendant’s cell phone was the same as a private search that already occurred, and it did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Knight v. State, 2025 Miss. LEXIS 51 (Feb. 20, 2025). An NOLA officer seeing an … Continue reading
CA8: False statement van was “secured” was based on secondhand information and was neither material or reckless
The officer’s statement that defendant’s van was “secured” was not sufficient false and misleading to even be reckless. The officer was passing on information from other officers about the van, but the windows were missing and it was accessible. United … Continue reading
OH5: RS permits putting def into a patrol car to maintain the status quo
Officers had reasonable suspicion to initiate a brief investigative stop of defendant based on the totality of the circumstances, including the citizen’s tip, the late hour, the location, and the defendant’s suspicious behavior upon seeing them. Placing him in the … Continue reading
Orin S. Kerr, The Two Tests of Search Law: Reconciling Katz and Jones
Orin S. Kerr, The Two Tests of Search Law: Reconciling Katz and Jones on SSRN. Abstract:
IN: Cell phone ping to locate missing 13-year-old was with exigent circumstances
The ping of defendant’s cell phone to find him when a 13-year-old girl went missing was based on exigency under state statute. Brooks v. State, 2025 Ind. App. LEXIS 19 (Jan. 31, 2025). All the factors supported reasonable suspicion: CI … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Alleged mishandling of drugs during execution of SW didn’t make them inadmissible
Even if the officers (mis)handled the drugs during the search, they’d still come into evidence at trial. United States v. McDonald, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11844 (N.D. Ohio Jan. 22, 2025). The trial court suppressed this cell phone search as … Continue reading
MA: Community caretaking transport of juvenile permits patdown for safety
A patdown of a juvenile found with gang members being taken to his caregiver was reasonable for safety purposes under the community caretaking function. Commonwealth v. Demos D., 105 Mass. App. Ct. 193 (Jan. 17, 2025). Reasonable suspicion not required … Continue reading