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- 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
- WaPo: Apple, Google and Venmo fight new U.S. plan to monitor payment apps
- CA4: Tracking order using cell site simulator with PC was reasonable
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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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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the 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)
Website design by Wally Waller, Little Rock 
Daily Archives: June 25, 2014
Salon: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son
Salon: A SWAT team blew a hole in my 2-year-old son by Alecia Phonesavanh: That’s right: Officers threw a flashbang grenade in my son’s crib — and left a hole in his chest. It gets worse.
EFF: Smith v. Maryland Turns 35, But Its Health Is Declining
EFF: Smith v. Maryland Turns 35, But Its Health Is Declining The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1979 decision of Smith v. Maryland turned 35 years old last week. Since it was decided, Smith has stood for the idea that people have … Continue reading
LAT: LAPD’s two drones under lock-and-key by feds until rules in place
LAT: LAPD’s two drones under lock-and-key by feds until rules in place by Joseph Serna: The move to hand them over to the Department of Homeland Security was a response to public perception and strict federal laws on how law … Continue reading
Western Journalism: Shocking: Tales Of This SWAT Team Raid Might Give You Nightmares
Western Journalism: Shocking: Tales Of This SWAT Team Raid Might Give You Nightmares by B. Christopher Agee: Although the Fourth Amendment ostensibly guarantees Americans the right to security within their own homes, a Florida couple reportedly learned firsthand that federal … Continue reading
News stories about Riley thus far (updated)
NYT: Major Ruling Shields Privacy of Cellphones NYT: The Supreme Court Justices Have Cellphones, Too NYT: Cellphone Ruling Could Alter Police Methods, Experts Say WaPo: Supreme Court says police must get warrants for most cellphone searches WaPo: Volokh: The Significance … Continue reading
SCOTUS: A search warrant is required for a cell phone; generally no search incident
Riley v. California: A search warrant is generally required for search of a cell phone. The search incident justifications do not apply to the wealth of personal information that likely will be there. Riley v. California, 2014 U.S. LEXIS 4497, … Continue reading
NMI: Search of cigarette pack reasonable in SI to look for weapon
Defendant was on a moped with another, and they were stopped at a sobriety checkpoint. The registration was years out of date, and they were directed aside for a more intense review. Defendant’s cigarette pack aroused suspicion because of the … Continue reading
CA7: Supervised release search condition without reasonable suspicion unreasonable here
Because defendant wasn’t a sex offender or involved with contraband, a supervised released search condition of searches without reasonable suspicion was unreasonable. United States v. Farmer, 755 F.3d 849 (7th Cir. 2014): “[W]e are … at a loss to see … Continue reading
sayanythingblog: Expert: John Doe raids raise ‘troubling’ Fourth Amendment questions
sayanythingblog: Expert: John Doe raids raise ‘troubling’ Fourth Amendment questions by M.D. Kittle: MADISON, Wis. – Troubling. That’s how one Fourth Amendment expert describes the manner in which search warrants were executed in a politically charged John Doe investigation into … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: “Cell phones and firearms are generally considered the ‘tools of the trade’ of drug traffickers”
“Cell phones and firearms are generally considered the ‘tools of the trade’ of drug traffickers, which the involved detectives fully understood and conveyed to the magistrate judge. … United States v. Jones, Cr. 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 54575 (E.D. Pa. … Continue reading
No-fly list violates constitutional rights
WaPo: AP: Judge: No-fly list violates constitutional rights: PORTLAND, Ore. — The U.S. government offers no adequate method for people to challenge their placement on its no-fly list, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a case involving 13 Muslims who … Continue reading