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- MA: Cell phone call logs don’t require a search warrant
- D.Kan.: Drug dog touching car door handle with nose isn’t unreasonable search
- D.N.M.: DEA’s failure to make a detailed inventory in violation of policy doesn’t require exclusion of evidence
- WaPo: These cities bar facial recognition tech. Police still found ways to access it.
- C.D.Cal.: SW materials in case with weighty public interest ordered unsealed
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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: Informant hearsay
Two on informant hearsay
“The information provided to the agents came from a vetted CS who had known Thomas for years. The CS’s information, as noted above, was then corroborated using audio recordings and physical surveillance as well as the agents’ independent check of … Continue reading
D.Mass.: A foreign law enforcement agency can be a CI, and these are the standards
“Given these facts, the Magistrate Judge reasonably relied on the foreign agency’s tip in concluding that probable cause existed to issue the search warrant because (1) ‘a tip from one federal law enforcement agency to another implies a degree of … Continue reading
NM: Social media platforms reporting to NCMEC are reliable informants
Social media providers sent suspected child pornography to NCMEC, and they were reliable informants. “The State appeals the district court’s grant of Defendant James Henz’s motion to suppress child pornography found in the search of his home, arguing that the … Continue reading
OR: Questions unrelated to stop unreasonably extended it
“At the outset of the stop, West asked defendant a series of questions: (1) ‘Do you live in this area?’; (2) ‘What are you doing up here?’; (3) ‘Where are you coming from today?’; and (4) if West could see … Continue reading
CA8: SW not needed for parked car just driven there
A dog alert on a parked Yukon did not require a search warrant before the search. It was parked on the property of a storage facility, and it was just driven to that spot while officers were getting a warrant … Continue reading
IA: Boilerplate language alone in an affidavit for SW does not establish nexus
Boilerplate language alone in an affidavit for warrant does not establish nexus. State v. Bracy, 2022 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 29 (Mar. 18, 2022) (citing § 6.14 of Treatise (§ 3:13 of 3d ed.). Omitting a CI’s criminal history from the … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Officer’s personal knowledge of the accused and the place to be searched is sufficient for PC
“In short, if the source of the information here had been a citizen-informant rather than a law enforcement officer, this assertion of personal knowledge by a known informant, under oath and personally present before the clerk-magistrate, combined with corroborating details … Continue reading
D.Vt.: Overnight guest had standing despite his illegal acts
“Defendant spent the night at the Apartment and was found by law enforcement sleeping in a bed. His alleged illegal activities in the Apartment do not render his expectation of privacy unreasonable.” He has standing. United States v. Santini, 2022 … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Govt’s suggestion in briefing in opposition to motion to suppress CI was a witness requires disclosure
The government’s brief in opposition to defendant’s motion to suppress suggests that the CI is a potential witness here, so the government is ordered to disclose his or her ID. Disclosure is enough. The court won’t go so far as … Continue reading
D.Minn.: When the CI has apparent inside information, corroboration of innocent details can be enough
“Here, the caller provided descriptive information regarding both Defendant and the gun that he was holding, as well as predictive information indicating that Defendant would be found at the apartment because he was seen running back inside there. ‘The information … Continue reading
CA10: The specifics of the bag on Greyhound Bus search weren’t raised below, so waived
The specifics of defendant’s argument that his bag was handled on a Greyhound Bus in Albuquerque weren’t raised in the district court. His expansion of the issue on appeal was waived. United States v. Fernandez, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 3129 … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Nothing about 911 man-with-a-gun call could be corroborated; backpack def set down when told to come outside was not abandoned
A 911 call about a man with a gun couldn’t be corroborated by anything at the scene. Officers got defendant outside and frisked him finding nothing. They searched his backpack, and that produced drugs. The government’s argument the backpack was … Continue reading
OH10: No REP in possession of a stolen laptop that sent its location information
Appellant’s motion to reopen his appeal to reargue his Fourth Amendment claims is denied. Not one thing he proffers can change the outcome of the appeal. There was a basis for a GPS warrant on his vehicle, and there was … Continue reading
CA2: MLAT treaty search of Netherlands server was a foreign search
El Chapo’s case: The district court was correct in not suppressing telephone calls on a drug cartel network set up in the Netherlands to facilitate their drug trafficking. The information was obtained by an MLAT treaty request, and it was … Continue reading
CA11: FBI’s negligence in taking six months to search def’s truck and computers did not require suppression
“Bruce Nicholson, an Alabama man convicted of federal child sex crimes and sentenced to life in prison, challenges his conviction on direct appeal. The main question in this criminal appeal is, as it often is, whether a criminal should ‘go … Continue reading
CA10: That officer could have provided false affidavit is not a ‘substantial preliminary showing’ for Franks
“Velarde-Pavia has offered no evidence that Officer Juarez lied in his affidavit. Rather than make the needed ‘substantial preliminary showing,’ Velarde-Pavia only speculates that Officer Juarez could be lying–that is not enough.” As to informant hearsay, the affidavit for the … Continue reading
CA2: Def’s possession of multiple cell phones and drugs packaged for street sale created inference more in hotel room
The search of defendant’s person produced multiple cell phones and drugs packaged for street-level sale. There was a fair probability there would be more in his hotel room since drug dealers usually have a base of operations. United States v. … Continue reading
D.Conn.: CI was personally involved in info he provided, and he was further corroborated by an unrelated wiretap
The CI here was untested for prior reliability, but the information was detailed and had the CI’s personal involvement. Moreover, an unrelated wiretap provided some corroboration of the CI’s involvement. This probable cause finding is not a close call. If … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Officers’ versions of arrest and search show two valid versions of why it was valid
The two officers involved in defendant’s stop and search of his person and car had somewhat different versions of what happened. Under either, the search of his person and car were both reasonable. Defendant had no DL which was an … Continue reading
TN: Even if a viable motion to suppress existed, it was reasonable strategy to work a plea deal considering all the evidence of guilt
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not filing a suppression motion and working a plea deal instead. First, with the mountain of evidence against defendant, it was wise to work out a deal and avoid sentencing after trial for sexual assault … Continue reading