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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
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
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: Abandonment
D.V.I.: Nearly two month old information for a bank robbery SW wasn’t stale
Where there were two bank robberies allegedly attributable to defendant (September 2 and October 23, 2014). The search warrant issued after the latter could seek information and evidence from the former because it was apparently an ongoing operation. Even if … Continue reading
TX9: Def abandoned trailer he was living in along with all its contents
Defendant and his family were living in a trailer they abandoned. After a broken water line inside, the trailer and contents were damaged, and they moved out, apparently never to return. When the owner found the trailer, there was mold … Continue reading
PA: There’s no right to a warning before fleeing from the police during a stop
Defendant had no right to a warning before he fled from police when he was stopped. “Here, as a practical matter, it is not all clear that police had a reasonable opportunity to issue Dunham verbal commands directing his movement. … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Leaving CP in a briefcase in attic and selling house and leaving it behind is abandonment
Defendant abandoned child pornography by secreting it with a cell phone in a briefcase in his attic. After he sold the house, he left it behind. He says he instructed a friend to retrieve it, but that didn’t happen. On … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Court doesn’t find running away from a wrecked car was unequivocally an abandonment
Defendant was an accused bootlegger who knew he was being tailed and he wrecked his car and ran away. The court doesn’t find this to be unequivocally an abandonment because he knew he was being followed but not necessarily by … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Bank robbery suspect who fled car after PIT maneuver stopped it abandoned it
“After looking at the collective knowledge of law enforcement at the time of the arrest—which includes four eyewitness identifications, one voice identification, and a tip from the defendant’s own girlfriend turning him in for the People’s Bank robbery—the court finds … Continue reading
NY1: Tossing backpack from car is waiver of REP
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a backpack he tossed from a car as he was being stopped by the police. (This conviction was February 2013; nearly six years being decided on appeal.) People v. Febo, 2018 N.Y. … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Dropping gun just before arrest treated as abandonment [?]
A firearm that fell from defendant’s pants as he was being arrested and getting out of a car was treated as abandoned. United States v. Franklin, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 197783 (W.D. Mo. Nov. 20, 2018). I have to disagree … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Car not abandoned by fleeing def because a co-def stayed with it
A car is not abandoned by the defendant merely because, when he fled, a confederate stayed behind. United States v. Gibbs, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 187572 (N.D. Ga. Nov. 2, 2018). The audio recording of the police-citizen interaction has enough, … Continue reading
PA: There was no PC for entry on a two-month-old capias
Defendant was arrested as a result of an entry on a capias for a domestic relations “violation.” The warrant was two months getting served, and there was no inquiry into whether defendant was residing at the home of a friend … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Collective knowledge doctrine doesn’t require any specifics be held by officer making the stop
Under the collective knowledge doctrine, the officer actually making the stop doesn’t have to know much of anything that the officers with knowledge know. Nothing needs to be communicated, other than the identity of the person or car stopped. There … Continue reading
AL: Def waived REP in cell phone by leaving it at crime scene
Defendant waived any reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell phone by leaving it at the crime scene. Tolbert v. State, 2018 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 65 (Oct. 15, 2018). The child pornography affidavit for search warrant wasn’t a “model … Continue reading
