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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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Section 1983 Blog -
"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: Constitutionally protected area
MA: Review of old body cam recording in unrelated investigation was a separate invasion of privacy requiring SW
The use of a body camera in the home responding to a domestic disturbance was reasonable. However, reviewing the body cam recording for the purposes of a later and unrelated investigation without a search warrant was unreasonable. The second look … Continue reading
MA: Apt building hallway near apt was neither a constitutionally protected area nor curtilage
The hallway near defendant’s apartment in a multi-unit apartment building was not a constitutionally protected area nor within the apartment’s curtilage. Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not moving to suppress his arrest and search in the common area. Commonwealth v. … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Trash search entered constitutionally protected area, and there’s no trash search exception to curtilage
The officers entered a constitutionally protected area of defendant’s property for a trash seizure. The court also declines to adopt a “trash exception” to curtilage that trash expected to be picked up later is not protected. United States v. Gregory, … Continue reading
IA: Answering statement officer was coming in with a question was acquiescence
The state conceded that hot pursuit didn’t justify their entry and relied on consent. “Nor could Boley’s act of letting the officers in be construed as consent. When the officer said she would be coming in, Boley responded with a … Continue reading
FL1: Officers crossing protected lands to get to unprotected lands to make a plain view doesn’t justify exclusion
“Police entered protected property to get to unprotected property to make an observation in open fields. That prior unlawful intrusion doesn’t justify exclusion. “Florida law is relatively clear whether to suppress evidence discovered on a person’s property during an officer’s … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Knocking on hotel room door and grabbing def to pull him out, even with an arrest warrant, violated his constitutionally protected area
Defendant answered the door of his hotel room, and he was pulled into the hallway and officers entered the room. Their justification: They understood he had a sawed off shotgun. But, they lacked any real factual justification that he actually … Continue reading
FL2: Crawl space below house screened off only by lattice work is a constitutionally protected area
One has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the crawl space below a Florida residence protected only by a lattice. A pill bottle seen there was argued by the state to be abandoned, but it was in a constitutionally protected … Continue reading
TX: Dorm RA couldn’t consent to police entry to dorm room to search for drugs
An RA in a college dorm searched defendant’s room and found drugs. The police were called and they entered the room and seized the drugs. There is no dorm room exception to the Fourth Amendment. This is not the same … Continue reading
CA7 gives an interesting historical and current summary of “the Supreme Court[‘s] … reviv[al of] a ‘property-based approach to identify unconstitutional searches.”
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the basement area of an apartment building. Neither was it curtilage. The court includes an interesting historical and current summary of “the Supreme Court[‘s] … reviv[al of] a ‘property-based approach to identify … Continue reading
TX14: Dog sniff at apartment door was curtilage and violated Jardines
The use of a drug dog at defendant’s apartment door violated the Fourth Amendment. Defendant’s garage across the road is a different matter, but it doesn’t have to be decided. Officers showed PC for a search of defendant’s garage in … Continue reading
IL: Dog sniff at an apartment’s door at 3:20 am was unreasonable under Jardines
Dog sniff at an apartment’s door at 3:20 am was unreasonable under Jardines. It was a “constitutionally protected area.” People v. Burns, 2016 IL 118973, 2016 Ill. LEXIS 281 (March 24, 2016). Officers did a knock-and-talk based on apartment neighbors’ … Continue reading