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- CA: Avoiding the police in a high crime area isn’t RS
- CA7: Jail officials holding plaintiff under a valid court order aren’t liable for not releasing him sooner after a sentencing error
- Volokh: Do Fourth Amendment Protections Change When Property Is Moved?
- M.D.Pa.: Def was neither shipper nor recipient of USPS parcel, so he had no standing in it
- WI: Obtaining def’s DNA by ruse wasn’t an illegal search
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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,
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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)
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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 
Monthly Archives: April 2014
SCOTUSBlog: Argument analysis: Limiting a search? Sure, but how?
SCOTUSBlog: Argument analysis: Limiting a search? Sure, but how? by Lyle Denniston: Trying to imagine all of the things that an individual might keep stored on a cellphone, and trying to decide how much privacy – if any – each … Continue reading
Legal Intelligencer: State Justices Say Telephones Exempt From Wiretap Act
Legal Intelligencer: State Justices Say Telephones Exempt From Wiretap Act: Holding that telephones are expressly exempt from the devices prohibited by the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act regardless of how they’re used, the state Supreme Court has ruled … Continue reading
Reason.com: Man Rousted at Gunpoint After License Plate Scanner Misreads Plate
Reason.com: Man Rousted at Gunpoint After License Plate Scanner Misreads Plate by J.D. Tuccille: One of the downsides of all of the new gee-whiz identification technology law enforcement is adopting (usually with hefty federal subsidies) is that it never works … Continue reading
PA declines to have broader state constitutional rights under the automobile exception
Pennsylvania declines to have broader state constitutional rights under the automobile exception. (No sign it was going to before.) Commonwealth v. Gary, 2014 Pa. LEXIS 1119 (April 29, 2014) (concurrence; dissent):
CA6: Computer search condition for supervised release was justified
The District Court gave specific reasons why it was subjecting defendant to a computer search condition on supervised release, and it is both valid and reasonable. (Distinguishing United States v. Inman, 666 F.3d 1001 (6th Cir. 2012) where there were … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Custodial arrest for littering supported search incident
Police responded to a 911 call and saw defendant, who appeared to be wearing body armor, throw a food wrapper on the ground. They arrested him for littering and took him in. The search incident of the body armor was … Continue reading
Wurie and Riley: The two most important privacy cases of the decade; press is underwhelmed
WaPo: Justices wary of unlimited cellphone searches by AP: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court seemed wary Tuesday of allowing police unbridled freedom to search through cellphones of people they arrest, taking on a new issue of privacy in the face … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Estranged wife still had enough connection to the home to consent to a search after she found bombs
Estranged wife still had enough connection to the home to consent to a search after she found bombs. United States v. Weaver, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 58384 (W.D. Pa. April 28, 2014): In general, courts have found that an estranged … Continue reading
Motherboard: The Most Extreme State Drone Bill Yet Will Criminalize Aerial Photography
Motherboard: The Most Extreme State Drone Bill Yet Will Criminalize Aerial Photography by Jason Koebler: Louisiana’s Senate just passed two bills that would criminalize drone photography, with violators potentially facing jail time. Does anybody else sense a First Amendment problem … Continue reading
WaPo: Another secret FISA opinion disclosed, and a question for Stewart Baker
WaPo: Volokh Another secret FISA opinion disclosed, and a question for Stewart Baker by Randy Barnett: If this is constitutional, why can’t the NSA also collect the credit card, bank, and medical records of all Americans?
WaPo: Editorial: Supreme Court should begin laying out privacy protections for smartphones
WaPo: Editorial: Supreme Court should begin laying out privacy protections for smartphones: Americans should take steps to protect their digital privacy. But keeping sensitive information on these devices is increasingly a requirement of normal life. Citizens still have a right … Continue reading
Two pretextual stop cases; one defendant found to be a serial killer
“The Court need not discredit Parker’s theory of pretext in order to find it inconsequential: perhaps the detectives indeed stopped the car not because of a seat belt violation but because of the alleged firearm incident-but the stop remains constitutional. … Continue reading
Blacklisted.com: Police Mag: Fourth Amendment Is a “Hassle”
Blacklisted.com: Police Mag: Fourth Amendment Is a “Hassle” You have to reign in your natural hunter’s instinct and take the time to get a search warrant. There’s the affidavit of probable cause to compose, the warrant form to fill out, … Continue reading
New Law Review Article: The Forgotten Right to Be Secure
The Forgotten Right to Be Secure, Luke M. Milligan, 65 Hastings L.J. 713 (2014). Abstract: Surveillance methods in the United States operate under the general principle that “use precedes regulation.” While the general principle of “use precedes regulation” is widely … Continue reading
LATimes: Scalia set to play key role in Supreme Court smartphone case
LATimes: Scalia set to play key role in Supreme Court smartphone case by David G. Savage: WASHINGTON — Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court’s new champion of the 4th Amendment, is likely to play a crucial role Tuesday when the … Continue reading
WaPo: Volokh: Courts grapple with the mosaic theory of the Fourth Amendment
WaPo: Volokh: Courts grapple with the mosaic theory of the Fourth Amendment by Orin Kerr: This post updates readers on the current status of the mosaic theory of the Fourth Amendment. As regular readers know, that’s the novel approach to … Continue reading
New Law Review Article: District of Columbia Jones and the Mosaic Theory – In Search of a Public Right of Privacy: The Equilibrium Effect of the Mosaic Theory
District of Columbia Jones and the Mosaic Theory — In Search of a Public Right of Privacy: The Equilibrium Effect of the Mosaic Theory, Jace C. Gatewood, 92 Neb. L. Rev. 504 (2014). Abstract: The “mosaic theory” refers to a … Continue reading
KY: Search incident to arrest could precede the arrest
The CI here was getting calls from the defendant about defendant selling him drugs, so he called the police to set him up. He was wired and took marked money. The seizure of the pill bottle off defendant was with … Continue reading