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- CA9: Compelled use of fingerprint to open a cell phone didn’t violate 5A
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- MO: No duty of care owed by police to fleeing motorist
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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2017); ABA Journal Blawg 100 (2015-16) (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 -
© 2003-24,
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) -
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Fourth Amendment cases,
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Congressional Research Service:
--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 -
"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: School searches
MO: School search merely for tardiness was unreasonable
School search of a student for merely being tardy was unreasonable under Vernonia and Earls and other cases for lack any factual basis, let alone reasonable suspicion. State v. Williams, 2017 Mo. App. LEXIS 659 (June 27, 2017):
NYTimes: ‘How Far Can They Go?’ Police Search of Hundreds of Students Stokes Lawsuit and Constitutional Questions
NYTimes: ‘How Far Can They Go?’ Police Search of Hundreds of Students Stokes Lawsuit and Constitutional Questions by Jacey Fortin: Worth County High School was buzzing with late-year activities on April 14. Seniors had recently taken their group photo for … Continue reading
OH: School protocol to search unattended book bags made this search reasonable
“Based on the facts of this case, we hold that the school’s protocol requiring searches of unattended book bags—to determine ownership and whether the contents are dangerous—furthers the compelling governmental interest in protecting public-school students from physical harm. We further … Continue reading
techdirt: Legislators, School Administrators Back Off Cellphone Search Bill After Running Into ACLU Opposition
techdirt: Legislators, School Administrators Back Off Cellphone Search Bill After Running Into ACLU Opposition by Tim Cushing:
LA4: In school handoff from suspected MJ dealer to another student was RS as to the latter
In a school, one student who was a suspected marijuana dealer handed something to another student. That was reasonable suspicion as to the recipient. “Here, Mr. Gaddies observed K.L. receive something from a student known to have issues with marijuana. … Continue reading
FL4: Search of student’s purse with RS that turned up nothing was dissipation of the RS
Based on a report, the school security officer had reasonable suspicion under T.L.O. that the student had a Taser-like device on her person. He searched her purse and didn’t find one, so the reasonable suspicion thus dissipated. A second search … Continue reading
CA11: Breath test to enter HS prom was reasonable as school search, but unnecessary detention of those who passed was not
Plaintiffs rode a party bus to their high school prom. The prom had a strict no alcohol, drug, or tobacco policy. A champagne bottle was found on the bus, and that led the school district to detain everybody on the … Continue reading
IA: School officials had RS to search football player’s equipment bag on hearing metal clunk
Defendant was a high school football player injured during a game, and he went to the hospital. He was expressly concerned about the contents of his school-issued equipment bag to the point that school officials nearly had reasonable suspicion. When … Continue reading
Cal.1st: Warrantless school search of cell phone on RS justified by T.L.O.
A warrantless search of cell phone in a school was justified by reasonable suspicion under T.L.O. that the student had been in possession of a firearm found at school. There was sufficient exigency for Riley under T.L.O. Alternatively, the search … Continue reading
IA: Def’s nervousness about his school issued equipment bag going to a certain person, its search was reasonable under T.L.O.
Defendant was a high school football player injured during a game. When he was going to the hospital, he was so overly concerned with his equipment bag that it only go to a certain person that the school administration saw … Continue reading
D.Alaska: SW for house includes the trash containers outside
A search warrant for a house includes the trash containers outside. United States v. Johnson, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72729 (D. Alaska May 2, 2014). Specific information that the juvenile in this case was planning to bring a gun to … Continue reading
New Law Review Article: School Surveillance And The Fourth Amendment
Jason P. Nance, School Surveillance And The Fourth Amendment, 2014 Wis. L. Rev. 79. Abstract: In the aftermath of several highly-publicized incidents of school violence, public school officials have increasingly turned to intense surveillance methods to promote school safety. The … Continue reading
Cal.1st: Unverified report student shot another on a school bus the day before justified a locker search that found a sawed-off shotgun
The search of the juvenile’s school locker was validly based on an unverified report that he shot somebody on a school bus the day before. It was reasonable for the school officials to act on that information. A sawed-off shotgun … Continue reading