Archives
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Recent Posts
- Book Review of Unreasonable: Constitutionalizing Racism
- N.D.Ga.: Exigency shown for warrantless entry to prevent destruction of drugs
- E.D.Cal.: Failure to provide medical care to an arrestee can be a 4A issue
- TN: Def opened door to admit suppressed cell phone evidence by asking the one question too many
- MN: Order for buccal swab during pendency of case requires SW
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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 (27,400+ on WordPress as of 7/23/24) -
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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: Stop and frisk
MD: No fixed distance for SI; here, handcuffed def’s coat
Officers entered with an arrest warrant and found defendant in bed. He was handcuffed. Getting his clothing to dress him, a gun was found in a coat. This was valid as a search incident, despite his being handcuffed. Also, there … Continue reading
IL: Taking the keys to a car can still be only a Terry seizure, not an arrest
Taking the keys to a car can still be only a Terry seizure, not an arrest. Reasonable suspicion not decided below, so remanded. People v. Pellegrino, 2024 IL App (2d) 230343, 2024 Ill. App. LEXIS 1675 (July 18, 2024). Defendant’s … Continue reading
D.Md.: Asking a person to be frisked what’s on him can’t be used to justify the frisk
Asking a person about whether he has anything on him about sharp objects is reasonable and related to the frisk. Any admission cannot, however, be used to justify the frisk. United States v. Freeman, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 123297 (D. … Continue reading
CA5: Exigency is measured objectively, not subjectively
“Borden argues the officers’ actions indicate they did not actually think a medical emergency existed, but their subjective beliefs are irrelevant. See Toussaint, 838 F.3d at 509. Given the totality of the circumstances, a reasonable view of the evidence supports … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Protective sweep permissible even after def removed from premises
A protective sweep is for persons, and it is reasonable to conduct one after defendant was removed from the premises. United States v. Spann, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105082 (E.D. Mo. Apr. 15, 2024),* adopted, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 104446 … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: “Furtive movements can support reasonable suspicion that an individual is armed, justifying a frisk.”
“Furtive movements can support reasonable suspicion that an individual is armed, justifying a frisk. Moorefield, 111 F.3d at 14. An officer ‘need not be absolutely certain’ that movements are an attempt to ‘hide narcotics or a firearm’ for ‘the issue … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Change in facts after SW application emailed to USMJ but before signing wasn’t material or knowing false statement
There was no Franks violation where the government emailed to the USMJ the search warrant request where defendant was arranging to meet an officer in a sting operation before defendant called off the meeting. This change wasn’t material to the … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Here, RS was thin, and frisking under jacket was unreasonable
The reasonable suspicion here is thin at best, but, even if there was enough for a stop, there wasn’t for a frisk. Going under defendant’s “jacket to feel his waist and groin area” was unreasonable because there wasn’t suspicion he … Continue reading
CA: Avoiding the police in a high crime area isn’t RS
Defendant’s avoiding the police and not wanting to interact with them did not rise to reasonable suspicion, even in a high crime area. The officers before the trial court didn’t articulate enough to show there was reasonable suspicion here. People … Continue reading
DC: A backpack left in a house and to be retrieved wasn’t abandoned
Defendant did not abandon his backpack that he left in the house he had a connection to. He intended to come back and get it. His reasonable expectation of privacy was objectively reasonable. United States v. Pope, 2024 D.C. App. … Continue reading
LA4: Merely having a concealed firearm isn’t RS for a frisk
“The State asserts that the evidence should not be suppressed because the NOPD was entitled to conduct a La. C.Cr.P. art. 215.1, ‘Terry stop’ on Mr. Green, which would have revealed the firearm. See Terry v. Ohio, …. However, the … Continue reading
CA6: Asking def before a patdown during arrest what he had on him wasn’t barred by Miranda
Asking defendant before a patdown during arrest what he had on him wasn’t barred by Miranda. United States v. Lester, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 9162 (6th Cir. Apr. 16, 2024). The evidence supports the trial court’s conclusion defendant consented to … Continue reading
WA: No immediate bail for DV arrest violates neither 4A nor due process
A no bail arrest for domestic violence until the first appearance violates neither the Fourth Amendment nor due process. State v. Clare, 2024 Wash. App. LEXIS 462 (Mar. 12, 2024). CoA denied. Petitioner doesn’t show that his state Fourth Amendment … Continue reading
CA4: Court instructing that the legality of searches were questions for the court wasn’t error
Defense counsel asked a question about something being in plain view which led to discussion of whether those words were an effort to challenge the search before the jury. The court instructed the jury that the legality of searches was … Continue reading
CA7: Not following state and local laws on strip searches doesn’t make one unreasonable
“Shaw raises three responses, but they are unavailing. First, he contends that the officers did not follow Wisconsin and local laws that instruct officers to obtain written authorization from a supervisor before a strip search. But a violation of state … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Defense of denial of possession in drug case meant no assertion of standing to challenge the search, so no IAC
Since the defense was not my dope, not filing a motion to suppress where standing would have to be pled and shown was not ineffective assistance of counsel. United States v. Robinson, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 52526 (S.D. Ohio Mar. … Continue reading
PA: With PC, moving a car to a police location for a SW was reasonable
Probable cause was developed on the streets for search of defendant’s car for drug evidence when officers saw him take money, return to the car, get something small, and return to the payor, twice. Removing the car to a different … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Terry stop with guns drawn was reasonable here
An otherwise lawful Terry stop wasn’t made unreasonable because officers, fearing a weapon, approached with guns drawn. United States v. Thomas, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 234913 (D. Minn. Dec. 13, 2023), adopted 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21178 (D. Minn. Feb. … Continue reading
Guam: Seizure of USB found during frisk for officer safety unreasonable; clearly not a weapon
During a stop for stalled car, officer safety dictated the officer conduct a patdown. Seizure of a USB off defendant’s keyring was unreasonable. The stop should have ended there. Instead, the officer asked for consent which the court finds involuntary … Continue reading
DC: Frisk of jacket in car was without RS
Defendant was a passenger in a rideshare, and the car was stopped for a traffic offense. They were all ordered out, and defendant took off his jacket while “blading,” said the officer, and left it in the car. The officer … Continue reading