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Recent Posts
- 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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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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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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Monthly Archives: April 2014
N.D.Ga.: On the totality, nexus was reasonably inferred by the issuing USMJ
Nexus to defendant’s property for a search warrant was shown by GPS data and physical surveillance putting co-conspirators at his house before and after drug deals and wiretaps referring to “the office” which officers finally, and reasonably, interpreted to be … Continue reading
NYT Editorial: Smartphones and the 4th Amendment [commenting on Wurie and Riley]
NYT Editorial: Smartphones and the 4th Amendment: More than 90 percent of American adults own a mobile phone, and more than half of the devices are smartphones. But “smartphone” is a misnomer. They are personal computers that happen to include … Continue reading
Reuters: U.S. judge rules search warrants extend to overseas email accounts — Updated with link
Reuters via CNBC: U.S. judge rules search warrants extend to overseas email accounts by Joseph Ax: NEW YORK, April 25 (Reuters) – Internet service providers must turn over customer emails and other digital content sought by U.S. government search warrants … Continue reading
WaPo: ‘The Watch’ Blog: The latest in Peoria’s Twitter parody case
‘The Watch’ Blog: The latest in Peoria’s Twitter parody case by Radley Balko: “Why did local judges and police sign and execute warrants for a crime that doesn’t exist?” Yesterday, Illinois State’s Attorney Jerry Brady announced that he would not … Continue reading
eff.org: Campus Activism Against NSA Spying is Growing Fast [Oh? Not so fast]
eff.org: Campus Activism Against NSA Spying is Growing Fast by April Glaser: EFF has been on the road, traveling to cities and towns across the country to bring our message of digital rights and reform to community and student groups. … Continue reading
KS: Once emergency ended, entry should have too
An entry under the emergency doctrine where an unresponsive person needed no aid improperly evolved into a criminal investigation. Suppressed. Kansas cases should align with Brigham City, but the search here was still excessive. State v. Neighbors, 2014 Kan. LEXIS … Continue reading
IL: That police “dropsy” testimony is common doesn’t mean that all of it is fabricated
That police “dropsy” testimony is common doesn’t mean that all of it is fabricated. People v. Moore, 2014 IL App (1st) 110793-B, 2014 Ill. App. LEXIS 262 (April 25, 2014): [*P12] Defendant further contends police officers frequently fabricate stories (referred … Continue reading
TX14: Texas city officer’s PC gathered outside city not suppressed
Probable cause gathered by a Texas city officer outside of his city (thus jurisdiction) is not subject to suppression under the state suppression statute, Tex. Code Crim. P. Art. 38.23. Halili v. State, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 4456 (Tex. App. … Continue reading
WaPo: Surveillance court rejected Verizon challenge to NSA calls program
WaPo: Surveillance court rejected Verizon challenge to NSA calls program by Ellen Nakashima: Verizon in January filed a legal challenge to the constitutionality of the National Security Agency’s program that collects billions of Americans’ call-detail records, but a surveillance court … Continue reading
Journal-Advocate (CO): Protections for e-data clear Senate committee
Journal-Advocate (CO): Protections for e-data clear Senate committee by Marianne Goodland: A resolution to add “electronic data” to the Colorado constitution’s equivalent of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution got unanimous support this week from a Senate committee. The … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Court doesn’t believe officer smelled marijuana; car search of computer and cell phone suppressed
The district judge disbelieves that the officer smelled marijuana, and suppresses the search of defendant’s car. The officer felt something was up but couldn’t articulate it. Inevitable discovery by inventory fails because there was no true inventory–no inventory was produced. … Continue reading
OH8: Walking briskly away from the police in a high crime area isn’t reasonable suspicion
This anonymous tip providing nothing compared to the car stopped, which didn’t match the description. “Absent criminal, or at least suspicious, behavior on the part of the suspect, the mere presence of the suspect in a high crime area or … Continue reading
New Law Review Article: Policing By the Numbers: Big Data and the Fourth Amendment
New Law Review Article: Elizabeth Joh, Policing By the Numbers: Big Data and the Fourth Amendment, 89 Wash. L. Rev. 35 (2014): The age of “big data” has come to policing. In Chicago, police officers are paying particular attention to … Continue reading
TechDirt: Unnamed Phone Company Challenges NSA’s Bulk Records Collection; FISC Says It’s Perfectly Legal
TechDirt: Unnamed Phone Company Challenges NSA’s Bulk Records Collection; FISC Says It’s Perfectly Legal: Late on Friday, the FISA Court unclassified a few documents, including a ruling on an until now secret attempt by a telco to challenge the latest … Continue reading
SCOTUSblog: Argument preview: Police and cellphone privacy
SCOTUSblog: Argument preview: Police and cellphone privacy by Lyle Denniston: Next Tuesday morning, the Supreme Court will hold back-to-back, one-hour hearings on cases testing the authority of police to search the contents of cellphones they take from people they have … Continue reading
CA3: Due process clause not the Fourth Amendment governs claims for a coerced false confession and years of false imprisonment
The due process clause not the Fourth Amendment governs claims for a coerced false confession and years of false imprisonment. Halsey v. Pfeiffer, 750 F.3d 273 (3d Cir. 2014): Section 1983 provides a civil remedy for the “deprivation of any … Continue reading
NY Daily News: TN jailers find gun in vagina in book-in search
NY Daily News: Cops find loaded gun in Tennessee woman’s vagina: report by Philip Caufield: Dallas Archer, of Kingsport, was being booked for driving without a license when cops found a loaded min-revolver concealed in her private parts. So, just … Continue reading
WaPo: Low-level federal judges balking at law enforcement requests for electronic evidence
WaPo: Low-level federal judges balking at law enforcement requests for electronic evidence by Ann E. Marimow and Craig Timberg: Judges at the lowest levels of the federal judiciary are balking at sweeping requests by law enforcement officials for cellphone and … Continue reading