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- N.D.Ala.: All parts of a SW are read in context, and that narrows it so it’s not overbroad
- WA: No immediate bail for DV arrest violates neither 4A nor due process
- S.D.N.Y.: Overseas seizure of Russian oligarch’s megayacht not governed by 4A
- CA7: No IAC in failure to more aggressively pursue Franks challenge
- CA9: Compelled use of fingerprint to open a cell phone didn’t violate 5A
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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)
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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: Police misconduct
CA7: Summary judgment for gov’t premature in case alleging frame up by crime lab analyst
Summary judgment was improperly granted for the government in a FTCA case that plaintiff was framed by knowingly false testimony from an arson lab analyst. Remanded. Bunch v. United States, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 2283 (7th Cir. Jan. 30, 2018). … Continue reading
WaPo: Baltimore Police officer who turned off body camera charged with tampering with evidence
WaPo: Baltimore Police officer who turned off body camera charged with tampering with evidence by Justin Fenton: A grand jury has indicted a Baltimore Police officer on charges of misconduct and fabricating evidence in connection with a body camera video … Continue reading
NYTimes: New York Detective Guilty of Lying About Drug Arrest
NYTimes: New York Detective Guilty of Lying About Drug Arrest by Joseph Goldstein and John Surico: A Queens jury on Wednesday convicted a detective of lying under oath in a trial that raised troubling questions about the prevalence of false … Continue reading
techdirt: Cop Shuts Off Dashcam During Drug Dog Sniff. Appeals Court: This Is Fine.
techdirt: Cop Shuts Off Dashcam During Drug Dog Sniff. Appeals Court: This Is Fine. by Tim Cushing
The Marshall Project: A ‘Routine’ Stop Almost Ended My Career Before It Started
The Marshall Project: A ‘Routine’ Stop Almost Ended My Career Before It Started by Johnathan S. Perkins: Sometimes there’s danger in speaking out against perceived police misconduct.
The New American: Utah Nurse Waives Lawsuit, Settles for $500,000 in Patient Privacy Case Written by Bob Adelmann
The New American: Utah Nurse Waives Lawsuit, Settles for $500,000 in Patient Privacy Case by Bob Adelmann:
ABC News: Utah officer fired for handcuffing, dragging screaming nurse out of hospital
ABC News: Utah officer fired for handcuffing, dragging screaming nurse out of hospital by Karma Allen: The Salt Lake City police officer featured in a widely viewed video aggressively handcuffing a hospital The Salt Lake City police officer featured in … Continue reading
WaPo: Georgia sheriff, deputies indicted after body searches of 900 high school students
WaPo: Georgia sheriff, deputies indicted after body searches of 900 high school students by Kyle Swenson: The sound system squawked at 8 a.m., just as the school day was revving up at Worth County High School. The campus was now … Continue reading
CA7: When inmate dies in custody before PC determination, 4A governs the inquiry
When an inmate has been booked into a jail and no judicial probable cause determination has been made, the Fourth Amendment governs the denial of medical care issue. Estate of Perry v. Wenzel, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 18010 (7th Cir. … Continue reading
Natl.L.Rev.: The Utah Blood Draw Story: Drawing Unwarranted Conclusions
Natl.L.Rev.: The Utah Blood Draw Story: Drawing Unwarranted Conclusions by David J. Edquist & Aaron M. Smith:
Politico: Sessions offers rare warning on dangers of police misconduct
Politico: Sessions offers rare warning on dangers of police misconduct by Josh Gerstein:
NPR: U.S. Citizen Who Was Held By ICE For 3 Years Denied Compensation By Appeals Court
NPR: U.S. Citizen Who Was Held By ICE For 3 Years Denied Compensation By Appeals Court by Camila Domonoske: In a ‘botched’ investigation, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement kept Davino Watson, a U.S. citizen, imprisoned as a deportable alien for nearly … Continue reading
WaPo: U.S. police chiefs blast Trump for endorsing ‘police brutality’
WaPo: U.S. police chiefs blast Trump for endorsing ‘police brutality’ by Cleve R. Wootson Jr. & Mark Berman:
WaPo: Trump’s speech encouraging police to be ‘rough,’ annotated
WaPo: Trump’s speech encouraging police to be ‘rough,’ annotated by Philip Bump:
NYTimes: A Warrant to Search Your Vagina
NYTimes: A Warrant to Search Your Vagina by Andrea J. Ritchie:
NPR (via KUAR): Baltimore Police Caught Planting Drugs In Body-Cam Footage, Public Defender Says
NPR (via KUAR): Baltimore Police Caught Planting Drugs In Body-Cam Footage, Public Defender Says by Bill Chappell:
Chicago Reporter: Police misconduct payouts continue to break the bank in Chicago
Chicago Reporter: Police misconduct payouts continue to break the bank in Chicago by Jonah Newman: In its final report last April, the task force criticized the city’s police oversight bodies for failing to analyze these lawsuits for trends or patterns, … Continue reading
The Pueble Chieftan: Pueblo police officer accused of reenacting car search for body camera
I’ve heard of searches being reenacted for the benefit of other police officers for cover, to make the search look lawful. This may be the first I’ve heard of with a body camera. I should have seen this coming because … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Evidence that officer condoned CI planting evidence survives MSJ
Plaintiff had enough evidence of CI misconduct in planting evidence and police turning a blind eye toward it to survive summary judgment. Santiago v. Lafferty, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49177 (D. Mass. March 31, 2017):
LA Times: If sheriff’s deputies are involved in misconduct, prosecutors have to know
LA Times: If sheriff’s deputies are involved in misconduct, prosecutors have to know (Editorial) There are about 300 Los Angeles County deputy sheriffs and higher-ranking officials whose personnel files include evidence that they lied, took bribes, used excessive force or … Continue reading