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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,
citations, and links -
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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the 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)
Website design by Wally Waller, Little Rock 
Category Archives: Police misconduct
WaPo: The increasing isolation of America’s police
WaPo: The increasing isolation of America’s police by Radley Balko: Politico has put up a fascinating profile of Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, which is the country’s largest police union. More than anything, the profile … Continue reading
Photography Is Not A Crime (PINAC) — Police behaving badly
Photography Is Not A Crime (PINAC) has been cited here before, but a link on the internet took me there again today, and I perused it for a while, finding many interesting citizen-made videos of cops going overboard. One from … Continue reading
boingboing: Court says DEA is allowed to secretly fill your truck with weed, get into firefights with Zetas
boingboing: Court says DEA is allowed to secretly fill your truck with weed, get into firefights with Zetas by Cory Doctorow: Craig Patty asked his employee Lawrence Chapa to help take one of his two trucks to the garage, not … Continue reading
Politico: The Man Who Foresaw Baltimore: Nearly 40 years ago, the Kerner Commission warned us of all this. We didn’t listen.
Politico: The Man Who Foresaw Baltimore: Nearly 40 years ago, the Kerner Commission warned us of all this. We didn’t listen. by Bruce Western:
WaPo: TSA employees accused in scanner scam to ‘grope’ male passengers
WaPo: TSA employees accused in scanner scam to ‘grope’ male passengers by Lindsey Bever: Two Transportation Security Administration screeners have been fired following accusations that they manipulated the security system at Denver International Airport so that one of them, a … Continue reading
WaPo: Cop accused of brutally torturing black suspects costs Chicago $5.5 million
WaPo: Cop accused of brutally torturing black suspects costs Chicago $5.5 million by Michael E. Miller: Whenever Chicago Police commander Jon Burge needed a confession, he would walk into the interrogation room and set down a little black box, his … Continue reading
Serpico: Politico Magazine: When Cops Cry Wolf
Politico Magazine: When Cops Cry Wolf by Frank Serpico: Police have been setting up suspects with false testimony for decades. Is anyone going to believe them now when they tell the truth? I call it “testi-lying.” It has been a … Continue reading
UPI: NYPD caught editing Wikipedia pages related to police brutality
UPI: NYPD caught editing Wikipedia pages related to police brutality by Thor Benson: A new report from Capital New York claims thousands of edits to Wikipedia articles related to police brutality can be traced to the NYPD headquarters….The report claims … Continue reading
NYTimes: Holder Weighs Dismantling the Ferguson Police Dept.
NYTimes: Holder Weighs Dismantling the Ferguson Police Dept. by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Richard Perez-Peña: WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. vowed a firm response on Friday to what he called “appalling” racial misconduct by law enforcement officials … Continue reading
WaPo: Justice review finds racial bias among Ferguson police
WaPo: Justice review finds racial bias among Ferguson police by Sari Horwitz: The Justice Department will issue findings this week that accuse the police department in Ferguson, Mo., of racial bias and routinely violating the constitutional rights of citizens, including … Continue reading
The Guardian: The disappeared: Chicago police detain Americans at abuse-laden ‘black site’
The Guardian: The disappeared: Chicago police detain Americans at abuse-laden ‘black site’ by Spencer Ackerman: The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say … Continue reading
The Atlantic: Asking America’s Police Officers to Explain Abusive Cops
The Atlantic: Asking America’s Police Officers to Explain Abusive Cops by Conor Friedersdorf: Revisiting the story of a man arrested at his job for “trespassing”—and the cops who paid no price for wrongly detaining him dozens of times. The radio … Continue reading
WaPo: Police accountability measures flood state legislatures after Ferguson, Staten Island
WaPo: Police accountability measures flood state legislatures after Ferguson, Staten Island by Reid Wilson: More than a dozen states are considering new legislation aimed at increasing police accountability in the wake of incidents in Ferguson, Mo.; Staten Island, N.Y.; and … Continue reading
US News: New Mexico Man Given Forced Colonoscopy by Cops Wins $1.6 Million Settlement
US News: New Mexico Man Given Forced Colonoscopy by Cops Wins $1.6 Million Settlement by Steven Nelson Police and doctors allegedly committed ‘medical anal rape, numerous times over a 12-hour period.’
Guardian: Justice Department settles case after DEA set up fake Facebook page in woman’s name
Guardian: Justice Department settles case after DEA set up fake Facebook page in woman’s name Deal comes after federal drug agents used information from New York woman’s cellphone to set up a fake Facebook page in her name
Pal-Item (IN): Court: ISP trooper lied about meth case
Pal-Item: Court: ISP trooper lied about meth case by Pam Tharp: LIBERTY, Ind. – Criminal charges filed against a Liberty man for allegedly cooking meth were dropped last week because an Indiana State Police trooper allegedly lied to obtain a … Continue reading
Rolling Stone: America’s Dirtiest Cops: Cash, Cocaine and Corruption on the Texas Border
Rolling Stone: America’s Dirtiest Cops: Cash, Cocaine and Corruption on the Texas Border by Josh Eells. How an elite anti-narcotics task force became the most brazen drug thieves on the Texas border
The New Yorker: Who Should Investigate Police Abuse?
The New Yorker: Who Should Investigate Police Abuse? by Jeffrey Toobin: To date, one serious proposal for reform has emerged. On December 8th, Eric Schneiderman, the Attorney General of New York, proposed that Governor Andrew Cuomo name him, Schneiderman, as … Continue reading
The Atlantic: What Are the Limits of Police Subterfuge?
The Atlantic: What Are the Limits of Police Subterfuge? by Bruce Schneier: A warrantless FBI search in Las Vegas sets a troubling precedent.