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- techdirt: The Problems Of The NCMEC CyberTipline Apply To All Stakeholders
- W.D.Ark.: Parole search waiver moots lack of PC argument
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- NY: Failure to show independent source for officer’s observation of def required reversal
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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,
citations, and links -
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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)
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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)
Website design by Wally Waller, Little Rock 
Category Archives: Police misconduct
The Atlantic: Federal Officials Should Be Accountable for Their Wrongdoing
The Atlantic: Federal Officials Should Be Accountable for Their Wrongdoing by Leah Litman (“And judges need to be the ones to make them pay.”)
CA7: Former police officer stated 4A malicious prosecution claim for false and misleading information in arrest and SW
Plaintiff stated a Fourth Amendment (not called malicious prosecution) for false statements and omissions in support of his arrest and search warrant where the alleged probable cause was thin to begin with. He was tried three times, reversed twice, and … Continue reading
CA6: Ptf stated a 4A claim and overcame QI for the officer’s allegedly manufacturing case against him
Plaintiff produced enough evidence to show defendant officer falsified the case against him and overcame qualified immunity. The prosecutor dropped the criminal case when it was apparent it was bogus, and then plaintiff sued. Parnell v. City of Detroit, 2019 … Continue reading
WaPo: Two people were killed in a botched drug raid. Investigators say the official story was a lie.
WaPo: Two people were killed in a botched drug raid. Investigators say the official story was a lie. by Brittney Martin and Eli Rosenberg:
WaPo: A Florida cop planted meth on random drivers, police say. One lost custody of his daughter.
WaPo: A Florida cop planted meth on random drivers, police say. One lost custody of his daughter. By Meagan Flynn:
The American Conservative: Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s Friendly Police Fantasy
The American Conservative: Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s Friendly Police Fantasy by James Bovard: Better relations will only come when we repeal the legions of laws empowering cops to unjustifiably accost peaceful citizens. You may not agree, but the author has valid … Continue reading
E.D.Ark.: Negligent investigation doesn’t state a 4A claim for malicious prosecution
Plaintiff is a dentist and he was investigated for alleged sexual molestation of a patient. He was tried and acquitted of the sexual assault, and then sued the police officers involved for malicious prosecution under the Fourth Amendment. The claim … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Ptf adequately pled that def officers used SWs as excuse to commit theft and robberies of search targets
Plaintiff adequately pled that defendant officers, members of CPD Team 6713, were engaged in a theft and robbery ring where they used bogus and apparently real search warrants to rob their victims. Motion to dismiss for failing to state a … Continue reading
Techdirt.com: California Town OKs Destruction Of Police Shooting Records Days Before They Could Be Obtained By The Public
Techdirt.com: California Town OKs Destruction Of Police Shooting Records Days Before They Could Be Obtained By The Public by Tim Cushing: California has long protected police officers from accountability. Most police misconduct records are impossible to obtain via public records … Continue reading
NYTimes: When the Police Become Prosecutors
NYTimes: When the Police Become Prosecutors by Alexandra Natapoff Officers quietly wield a lot of unchecked prosecutorial power.
D.D.C.: FBI Agent’s tampering with evidence in def’s case doesn’t lead to dismissal; not significant enough to case
Defendant’s 2255 for proven misconduct by an FBI agent involved in his case of tampering with evidence during the search that surfaced after defendant’s guilty plea does not lead to overturning his conviction. While the agent’s misconduct in another case … Continue reading
NYTimes: Three Florida Police Officers Are Sent to Prison for False Arrests
NYTimes: Three Florida Police Officers Are Sent to Prison for False Arrests by Christina Caron: Three former Florida police officers were sentenced to prison this week for conspiring to falsely arrest people to improve the department’s crime statistics – at … Continue reading
LA Times: Gov. Jerry Brown signs landmark laws that unwind decades of secrecy surrounding police misconduct, use of force
LA Times: Gov. Jerry Brown signs landmark laws that unwind decades of secrecy surrounding police misconduct, use of force by Liam Dillon and Maya Lau: Gov. Jerry Brown ushered in a new era of transparency in California law enforcement on … Continue reading
CA6: Alleged inappropriate search of 17-year-old girl before letting her go to bathroom during traffic stop that led to a drug dog and finding nothing gets to go to jury
A traffic stop of plaintiff’s family led to calling a drug dog. While waiting for the drug dog, plaintiff had to use the bathroom, and the detaining officers called for a female officer to escort her to a nearby bathroom … Continue reading
CA11: Ptf’s claim officers falsified seizure of crack was speculative; MSJ properly granted
Plaintiff was the subject of a search for drugs, and officers at first found only marijuana. In defendant’s kitchen, in a coffee maker, officers found what they believed was a rock of crack cocaine. It was submitted to the crime … Continue reading
Miami Herald: The chief wanted perfect stats, so cops were told to pin crimes on black people, probe found
Miami Herald: The chief wanted perfect stats, so cops were told to pin crimes on black people, probe found by Charles Rabin, Jay Weaver & David Ovalle:
The Virginian-Pilot: She spent 3 months in jail despite a Norfolk police video proving her innocence
The Virginian-Pilot: She spent 3 months in jail despite a Norfolk police video proving her innocence by Scott Daugherty She was allegedly in a video selling drugs. Only she wasn’t. They didn’t look for 114 days.
WaPo: Opinion: ‘The Watch’ blog: Lunch links: Louisiana attorney general approves of arresting people who threaten to file police complaints
WaPo: Opinion: ‘The Watch’ blog: Lunch links: Louisiana attorney general approves of arresting people who threaten to file police complaints by Radley Balko:
Reason: Detroit to Pay $225000 After Cops Shoot Three Dogs in Marijuana Raid
Reason: Detroit to Pay $225000 After Cops Shoot Three Dogs in Marijuana Raid by C.J. Ciaramella The settlement is the latest big payout in a string of lawsuits over dog shootings by Detroit police.
NYTimes: ‘Testilying’ by Police: A Stubborn Problem
NYTimes: ‘Testilying’ by Police: A Stubborn Problem by Joseph Goldstein Police lying persists, even amid an explosion of video evidence that has allowed the public to test officers’ credibility.