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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)
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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: Administrative search
CA9: The smell of marijuana from a car in a recreational use state is still PC
The smell of marijuana from a car in Nevada where recreational use is permitted is still probable cause because state law doesn’t permit smoking in a car. United States v. Gray, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 19095 (9th Cir. June 26, … Continue reading
IL: GPS monitoring of food trucks to keep them 200′ from restaurants was reasonable
The City of Chicago requires GPS monitoring of food trucks to make sure they stay 200′ away from a regular restaurant or in food truck zones is reasonably related to the city’s interest in promoting viability of restaurants in the … Continue reading
VA: ABC officer validly terminated for not following agency S&S protocol more protective than 4A
Appellant was an ABC officer terminated for not following agency search and seizure protocols which are more protective of constitutional rights than the Fourth Amendment. The court considers the exceptions argued, including the highly regulated business exception, plain view, exigency, … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Administrative PC shown for administrative search warrant
Two prior salmonella occurrences satisfied to justify probable cause for an administrative search. The motion for contempt for not providing passwords for the computers is premature. In re Admin., Establishment Insp. of Spa & Organic Essentials of Pa., LLC, 2019 … Continue reading
CA6: Rule against warrantless housing inspection entries clearly established
Defendant police officers were properly granted summary judgment on plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment claims regarding the validity of the warrants because probable cause supported two of the warrants and the third warrant was not so lacking in indicia of probable cause … Continue reading
WaPo: A mom refused to take her unvaccinated toddler to the hospital for a fever. Armed police officers tore down the door.
WaPo: A mom refused to take her unvaccinated toddler to the hospital for a fever. Armed police officers tore down the door. by Antonia Noori Farzan:
IA: Product of valid administrative subpoena could be turned over to prosecutors for other action
Defendant was a former nursing home nurse, and she was under investigation by the state for allegedly getting some government benefits she wasn’t entitled to. The state Department of Investigations and Appeals issued subpoenas for bank records. They didn’t find … Continue reading
CA11: Strip club survives summary judgment on unreasonable search claim when it was raided by 36 officers including SWAT team
A strip club was subjected to a raid with 36 officers, including the SWAT team. People were manhandled during the raid. The plaintiff club stated a claim sufficient to overcome summary judgment that the raid and search was unreasonable. WBY, … Continue reading
NY2: Jail call here was more prejudicial than relevant and should have been excluded
Admission of defendant’s jail call here was more prejudicial than relevant because it omitted context. The jury was at a loss as to what arrest was being talked about. People v. Robinson, 2019 NY Slip Op 01799, 2019 N.Y. App. … Continue reading
MT: Admin search of def’s licensed commercial kennel on her residential property was reasonable
Defendant had a licensed commercial kennel on residential property. The local government’s inspection complied with Burger v. New York because the search was within the scope of the regulatory scheme. State v. Warren, 2019 MT 49, 2019 Mont. LEXIS 67 … Continue reading
D.Neb.: ATF administrative inspection can occur even though they had PC; SW not required
Just because ATF had reasonable cause doesn’t mean that they needed a search warrant to conduct an administrative inspection of a gun dealer’s records. United States v. Melton, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 221663 (D. Neb. Dec. 28, 2018):
CA10: BLM can’t force oil and gas operator to put BLM’s lock and key on property for annual inspections
Plaintiff has oil and gas leases on private lands of a third party in Southwest Colorado. The Bureau of Land Management sought “lock and key” authority to have access to the property to conduct annual inspections. Plaintiff brought a Fourth … Continue reading
CA11: Work-related injuries don’t necessarily translate into OSHA violations; records request quashed as overbroad
Existence of work-related injuries or illnesses do not translate directly into reasonable suspicion that an OSHA violation occurred. The district court was correct in quashing the inspection warrant for lack of a proper showing, without prejudice to OSHA establishing the … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Controlled buy is PC to arrest
A controlled buy was probable cause to arrest. United States v. Jackson, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 158445 (M.D. Pa. Sep. 18, 2018).* Plaintiffs’ claim that an administrative code violation search was a pretext for a criminal search fails on the … Continue reading
CA5: Texas medical board’s forthwith subpoena was shown not to be pretextual for criminal investigative purpose
Plaintiff is a doctor running a clinic dispensing opiods, and the Texas medical board got a forthwith administrative subpoena out for him and seized records. The defendants get qualified immunity. It’s not clear that doctors are a closely regulated industry … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: When officer takes your license to run it, you’re seized
“Officer Myers’ instruction to ‘hang tight’ while he ran Defendant’s driver’s license [and had it in hand], would lead a reasonable person in Defendant’s shoes not to feel free to leave. Thus, the consensual encounter became a seizure under the … Continue reading
OR: Property tax reassessment claim dismissed for refusal to permit inspection
Taxpayer’s property tax assessment appeal is dismissed for refusing an inspection of the property claiming a Fourth Amendment violation. He claimed the records of the assessor are incorrect, and the assessor wants to see whether that’s true. He was told … Continue reading
S.D.Ala.: That state court warrant was missing two pages when filed doesn’t matter when the whole SW produced in federal court
The search warrant was issued by a state court, and two pages were missing from the filed version. The complete version was presented in federal court, and the fact part was missing in state court is not a Fourth Amendment … Continue reading
DE holds that exclusionary rule doesn’t apply to probation revocations
The exclusionary rule does not apply to probation revocation proceedings. No federal case holds to the contrary. Thompson v. State, 2018 Del. LEXIS 346 (July 24, 2018). The city’s administrative warrants for petitioner’s dilapidated buildings were properly issued. By statute, … Continue reading