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- 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
- DC: Accepting a law license is consent to trust account subpoenas
- AR: RS def rented a hotel room was sufficient for search waiver; PC not required
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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)
--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (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: Body searches
SD: Hospital blood draw was for medical purposes, not as agent of police; “small town” folks working together argument fails
Just because this DUI happened in a small town and the hospital drew blood from defendant on admission, as it usually does, that doesn’t mean that the hospital was acting as an agent of the police when doing the blood … Continue reading
WaPo: Radley Balko’s “The Watch” Blog: A new report shows the limits of police body cameras
WaPo: Radley Balko’s “The Watch” Blog: A new report shows the limits of police body cameras Cameras can be a step toward transparency, but it depends on how they’re used.
Grits for Breakfast: Blood draw vote casts light on CCA Fourth Amendment divisions
Grits for Breakfast: Blood draw vote casts light on CCA Fourth Amendment divisions:
NY4: Pulling def’s underwear out on the street was without reasonable suspicion
Forty-three months after his drug conviction, the officer’s search on the street of defendant’s genitals by pulling out his underwear and looking in was not based on reasonable suspicion he was armed. Search suppressed and case dismissed. People v. Smith, … Continue reading
DC: Warrantless anal cavity search in courthouse cellblock not shown to be reasonable
The government failed to carry its burden that the anal cavity search of defendant in a courthouse cellblock was reasonable without the use of medical personnel. They may not always be required, but they may be, and what case law … Continue reading
WSJ: U.S. Urges Bodycams for Local Police, but Nixes Them on Federal Teams
WSJ: U.S. Urges Bodycams for Local Police, but Nixes Them on Federal Teams by Devlin Barrett: The discrepancy is a headache for U.S. Marshals, who now aren’t allowed to have officers wearing body cameras on their task forces.
OR: Anal cavity search could not be justified by search incident doctrine
Anal cavity search for drugs at the stationhouse, rather than on the street, could not be justified as a search incident. It was so intrusive that a warrant was required under the state constitution. State v. Scruggs, 274 Ore. App. … Continue reading
CA9: Warrantless jail rectal search that was painful and bloody should have been suppressed
On petition for rehearing from United States v. Fowlkes, 770 F.3d 748 (9th Cir. August 25, 2014) (prior post here), the panel concludes (2-1) that drug evidence obtained from a forced jail rectal search without a warrant that was painful … Continue reading
Dallas News: [Texas] Invasive body cavity searches will now require a warrant
Dallas News: Invasive body cavity searches will now require a warrant by Brandi Grissom:
Houston Chronicle: Woman files official complaint over roadside vaginal probe
Houston Chronicle: Woman files official complaint over roadside vaginal probe by Dylan Baddour: A Houston-area woman who alleged Harris County sheriff’s deputies held her down for a cavity search in a Texaco parking lot filed a complaint with the sheriff’s … Continue reading
CT Law Tribune: Lawsuit Accuses Police of Touching Private Parts During Pat Downs
CT Law Tribune: Lawsuit Accuses Police of Touching Private Parts During Pat Downs by Amaris Elliott-Engel: When two black brothers were pulled over by a cop in the city of New London, the officer frisked them both, allegedly touching their … Continue reading
Brietbart: Texas bill: Search warrant required before body cavity search at traffic stop
Brietbart: Texas bill: Search warrant required before body cavity search at traffic stop by Lana Shadwick: A bill is set to go before the Texas State House of Representatives Monday that would protect individuals from body cavity searches by peace … Continue reading
Two of this week’s Texas McNeely opinions
Defendant’s warrantless blood draw was without exigent circumstances after he withdrew his consent. The motion to suppress should have been granted. Leal v. State, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 12286 (Tex. App. – Houston (14th Dist) November 13, 2014) (with dissent).* … Continue reading
WaPo: More drug war anal probes, this time in Tennessee
WaPo: More drug war anal probes, this time in Tennessee by Radley Balko: Last year we learned of three incidents in New Mexico in which motorists pulled over for moving violations were subjected to forced anal cavity searches, x-rays and … Continue reading