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- AR: RS def rented a hotel room was sufficient for search waiver; PC not required
- LA5: No standing to challenge search of shooting victim’s cell phone in def’s possession
- N.D.Okla.: Cell phones possessed by tribal police not subject to return under Rule 41(g)
- E.D.Ark.: Landlord and tenant refused rental property inspection and SW was validly issued and protected privacy interests
- D.D.C.: Judge shopping after denial of SW inappropriate; could have appealed to DJ
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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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--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: Third Party Doctrine
The Federalist Society: Justice Gorsuch, Carpenter, & the Fourth Amendment
The Federalist Society: Justice Gorsuch, Carpenter, & the Fourth Amendment [POLICYbrief] by Ashley Baker:
W.D.La.: USPS website usage records are third-party records, and def had no REP in them
The government had digital evidence that defendant tracked a package on the USPS. His motion to suppress this third-party evidence is denied. First, anybody could track a package on the USPS website if they had the tracking number, and, second, … Continue reading
MN law that requires identifying information on renters is third party information and voluntary disclosure doesn’t offend Patel
Defendant rented a motel room in Minnesota, and state law requires the hotelier to gather certain basic identifying information about the renter. The police came and inquired of the hotel. They ran defendant’s information and learned that he’d been convicted … Continue reading
ABA Criminal Justice: Carpenter v. United States: Building a Property Based Fourth Amendment Approach to Digital Data
ABA: Carpenter v. United States: Building a Property Based Fourth Amendment Approach to Digital Data by Melody J. Brannon, 33 Criminal Justice No. 4 at 20 (Winter 2019):
The Champion: Building on Carpenter: Six New Fourth Amendment Challenges Every Defense Lawyer Should Consider
The Champion: Building on Carpenter: Six New Fourth Amendment Challenges Every Defense Lawyer Should Consider by Michael Price and Bill Wolf (NACDL, Dec. 2018) at 20-25: The implications of the Supreme Court’s decision in Carpenter v. United States are just … Continue reading
New law review article: Fourth Amendment Reasonableness After Carpenter
This brief essay is great insight into arguing the next steps of Carpenter, reasonableness, property rights, and whether the reasonable expectation of privacy test will be changed. We recommend you read all you can about Carpenter because the right reasonableness … Continue reading
WaPo: Motel 6 agrees to pay up to $7.6 million to settle claim it helped ICE target Latino guests
WaPo: Motel 6 agrees to pay up to $7.6 million to settle claim it helped ICE target Latino guests by Lindsey Bever: After a nationwide class-action lawsuit against Motel 6, the chain agreed to pay as much as $7.6 million … Continue reading
D.R.I.: IP addresses def used weren’t like detailed tracking information from CSLI requiring a SW
Defendant’s use of IP addresses his computer signed in through isn’t enough like CSLI in Carpenter to require a search warrant. United States v. Monroe, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 186998 (D. R.I. Nov. 1, 2018):
NY Times: Most White Americans’ DNA Can Be Identified Through Genealogy Databases
NY Times: Most White Americans’ DNA Can Be Identified Through Genealogy Databases by Heather Murphy: And, of course, it can be subpoenaed by the government.
CA5: IP information “falls comfortably within the scope of the third-party doctrine” after Carpenter; no comparison to CSLI
Whatever the status of the third-party doctrine after Carpenter, nothing would change as to subpoenaing IP address information in a child pornography case. “The information at issue here falls comfortably within the scope of the third-party doctrine.” United States v. … Continue reading
WaPo: A serial rapist eluded police for years. Then they searched a genealogy site.
WaPo: A serial rapist eluded police for years. Then they searched a genealogy site. by Eli Rosenberg:
N.D.Ala.: No REP in bank records under still settled law
“Petitioner argues that the IRS’s summonses to Bank of America and Regions Bank violate his Fourth Amendment rights. … The Eleventh Circuit recently considered and rejected a Fourth Amendment challenge to an IRS summons directed towards a bank because the … Continue reading
Law360: Airbnb Suit Challenges New NYC Rental Data Collection Law
Law360: Airbnb Suit Challenges New NYC Rental Data Collection Law by Pete Brush Airbnb Inc. sued New York City on Friday claiming a new law requiring online rental companies to share data about their clientele violates the U.S. Constitution, but … Continue reading
CA7: City’s use of “smart meter” is a search, but it is reasonable because it’s not for criminal purposes and law enforcement never knows
The use of a smart meter to collect energy consumption in homes is a search under the Fourth Amendment under Kyllo. It is, however, a reasonable search because it is purely for the use of the power company and city … Continue reading
Washington Post: Subpoena for app called ‘Discord’ could unmask identities of Charlottesville white supremacists
Washington Post: Subpoena for app called ‘Discord’ could unmask identities of Charlottesville white supremacists By Meagan Flynn: Discord, which was started in 2015 as a secure chat app for videogamers, also happened to be conducive for white supremacists, white nationalists, … Continue reading
Talk Business: SmartDrive focuses on fleet safety using video to improve risky driver behavior
Talk Business: SmartDrive focuses on fleet safety using video to improve risky driver behavior by Jeff Della Rosa:
Legal Intelligencer: As Genealogy Databases Aid in Crime-Solving, Are Courts Ready to Tackle DNA Privacy?
Legal Intelligencer: As Genealogy Databases Aid in Crime-Solving, Are Courts Ready to Tackle DNA Privacy? by Max Mitchell: The trail of murders and assaults spanning California went unsolved for decades, until investigators turned to a tool more popular with genealogy … Continue reading
The Hill: Lawmakers should accept reality that digital communication can never be ‘too secure’
The Hill: Lawmakers should accept reality that digital communication can never be ‘too secure’ by Chris Howell:
SCOTUS rejects warrantless cellphone location tracking in Carpenter v. United States
SCOTUS rejects warrantless cellphone location tracking in Carpenter v. United States, 2018 U.S. LEXIS 3844 (U.S. June 22, 2018) (5-4). Gorsuch “dissents,” but it reads like a concurrence, which parallels his questions at oral argument, and he agrees with Justice … Continue reading