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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© 2003-18,
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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Fourth Circuit
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Sixth Circuit
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Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts, other
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
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LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
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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: Cell phones
ABAJ: FBI overestimated the number of encrypted phones while arguing for workarounds
ABAJ: FBI overestimated the number of encrypted phones while arguing for workarounds by Jason Tashea:
NYTimes: Apple to Close iPhone Security Hole That Law Enforcement Uses to Crack Devices
NYTimes: Apple to Close iPhone Security Hole That Law Enforcement Uses to Crack Devices by Jack Nicas: Apple has long positioned the iPhone as a secure device that only its owner can open. That has led to battles with law … Continue reading
SC: Of course def didn’t intend to leave his cell phone at the scene of a burglary, but he did, and that’s still abandonment
Defendant lost his cell phone at the scene of a burglary. The court grants the fundamental premise that a cell phone has the “privacies of life,” but his unintentional abandonment of the phone doesn’t preclude the government from searching it … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Declining to interact with an officer is not RS
Defendant’s declining to interact with the officer and trying to avoid him is not reasonable suspicion because people have a right to do that. United States v. Brown, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 97602 (N.D. Ga. May 10, 2018). Defendant abandoned … Continue reading
NACDL: Riling Up the Border Search Doctrine: Litigating Searches of Digital Content at Our Ports of Entry
NACDL, The Champion: Riling Up the Border Search Doctrine: Litigating Searches of Digital Content at Our Ports of Entry by Aisha J. Dennis, The Champion 40-46 (Mar. 2018)
S.D.N.Y.: Cell phone search protocol can’t be described in SW in advance
It is difficult for law enforcement officers to describe in the search warrant a protocol for searching electronic data from a cell phone, whether it be a mechanical search or an electronic search. In fact, Cellebrite didn’t work on one … Continue reading
Lawfare: Summary: Circuit Split on Device Searches at the Border in US v. Touset
Lawfare: Summary: Circuit Split on Device Searches at the Border in US v. Touset by Grayson Clary:
PA: 9 month delay between issuance of SW for content of seized cell phone and actual search wasn’t unreasonable where nothing changed
Defendant’s cell phone was seized by consent and a search warrant was obtained for it. It took nine months for the search to occur. Because nothing changed between the seizure, the warrant, and the search, the ultimate search was not … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Def’s disclaiming ownership of cell phone when seized is a lack of standing, even when he claimed it after it rang
Defendant had no standing to challenge a search of a cell phone found in his car that he said belonged to his girlfriend. “Jackson does not deny that he disclaimed ownership of the phone at the time it was seized. … Continue reading
Cal.1st: Cell phone probation search condition not unreasonable; def to rid self of gang affiliations
An electronic search condition of probation is not per se unreasonable under Riley. Here, it was reasonable to show whether defendant ridded himself of his gang affiliations which was a condition of probation. People v. Guzman, 2018 Cal. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA4: Forensic border search of cell phone “non-routine” but GFE applies
An intensive forensic search of an outbound noncitizen’s cell phone required at least reasonable suspicion and maybe a warrant under Riley. Case law, however, uniformly says not at the time this happened, so the search is valid under the good … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: A cell phone left in an abandoned car is also abandoned
A cell phone left in an abandoned car is also abandoned. United States v. Green, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75738 (E.D. Ky. May 4, 2018). The police had a search warrant for animal fighting for the dogs and papers for … Continue reading
