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- W.D.Ark.: Parole search waiver moots lack of PC argument
- AR: RS shown for boating while intoxicated stop
- W.D.Mo.: Wrong address in SW wasn’t fatal where right house was searched
- NY: Failure to show independent source for officer’s observation of def required reversal
- VA: Outline of a gun in def’s pocket was RS
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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)
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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: September 2014
Courthouse News Service: US Defends Legality of NSA Spying That It Won’t Explain Further
Courthouse News Service: US Defends Legality of NSA Spying That It Won’t Explain Further by Arvin Temkar: OAKLAND, Calif. (CN) – Even if there were evidence that a domestic spying program was unconstitutional, interference by the courts could cause “exceptionally … Continue reading
On Point: Auditing America’s Police Force
On Point: Auditing America’s Police Force: Police shootings, cop culture, body cameras. And the big debate over how to protect the public and the police.
CA11: Arguable PC for arrest gives qualified immunity
Arguable probable cause for a warrantless arrest and then a valid search warrant gives qualified immunity to the officers involved. Ultimately the DA decided not to prosecute the plaintiffs, and it was a close case for prosecution. Roddy v. City … Continue reading
LATimes: Governor vetoes bill that would have limited police use of drones
LATimes: Governor vetoes bill that would have limited police use of drones by Phil Willon & Melanie Mason: Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown on Sunday vetoed a bill that would have required law enforcement agencies to obtain warrants to use drones … Continue reading
WaPo: Supreme Court fails frequently, professor writes
WaPo: Supreme Court fails frequently, professor writes by Robert Barnes: After nearly four decades as a lawyer and 30 years teaching would-be lawyers, and after writing a leading textbook on constitutional law and helping establish a law school, and after … Continue reading
W.D.Wash.: No evidentiary hearing on motion to suppress without a prima facie showing of some illegality
The defense does not get an evidentiary hearing on a motion to suppress without at least a preliminary showing that some illegality occurred in the search and seizure at issue. Here, defendant can’t show that except by speculation or that … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: 911 call about possible OD permitted police walk through to look for cause
Police and the fire department responded to a 911 call involving the unexplained death of a 25 year old woman. Once inside, they called the coroner, and then walked through to check for possible causes, finding in plain view cash, … Continue reading
WaPo: A few thoughts on Heien v. North Carolina
WaPo: A few thoughts on Heien v. North Carolina by Orin Kerr: The first argued case in the new Supreme Court term will be Heien v. North Carolina, a Fourth Amendment case about whether a reasonable mistake of law can … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: “Courts have been clear that police need not corroborate information given by known informants.”
“Courts have been clear that police need not corroborate information given by known informants. Like the CI in Harris, the CI in this case was known to provide reliable information that led to arrests. Thus, police corroboration was unnecessary. But … Continue reading
CO: Cell phone was searched first without a warrant then with; remanded for determination whether independent source rule applies
Defendant’s cell phone was searched without a warrant, and Riley applies. Whether the later search warrant for the cell phone was valid via the independent source rule has inadequate findings, so the case is remanded for further findings. People v. … Continue reading
W.D.Wis.: Legal advice given before the right to counsel attaches can’t be IAC
Legal advice rendered before the right to counsel attaches with the initiation of adversarial proceedings cannot be the basis for an IAC claim. Ryan v. United States, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 135932 (W.D. Wis. September 19, 2014): Petitioner’s withdrawal of … Continue reading
D.N.D.: Failure to record conversation with USMJ that address needed correction not ground to suppress
Officers discovered that the address in the search warrant was incorrect before the warrant issued, and the USMJ corrected it on the warrant. The failure to record that conversation while a Rule 41 violation and not a Fourth Amendment violation … Continue reading
NYTImes: Today’s Police Put on a Gun and a Camera
NYTImes: Today’s Police Put on a Gun and a Camera by Kirk Johnson: PULLMAN, Wash. — Amateur videos of police officers doing their jobs have become part of the fabric of urban democracy, with embarrassing or violent images spreading via … Continue reading
OH9: Officers walking up on both sides of a parked vehicle wasn’t a “stop”
Two officers walked up on an already parked vehicle, one on each side. The officer testified that he’d be “pretty upset” if the defendant drove off, but he was actually free to leave. Therefore, it was not a stop, and … Continue reading
Slate: Australia on the Verge of Permitting Alarmingly Broad Internet Surveillance
Slate: Australia on the Verge of Permitting Alarmingly Broad Internet Surveillance by Emily Tamkin: On Thursday, the Australian Senate passed a bill that would increase the powers of domestic spy agency ASIO, giving it the ability to monitor all of … Continue reading
NYTimes: Facebook Lawsuit Over Search Warrants Can Proceed, a Court in Manhattan Rules
NYTimes: Facebook Lawsuit Over Search Warrants Can Proceed, a Court in Manhattan Rules by James C. McKinley: An appeals court ruled on Thursday that a lawsuit filed by Facebook against the Manhattan district attorney’s office can proceed, paving the way … Continue reading
WSJ Law Blog: FBI Director ‘Concerned’ About New Smartphone Encryption
WSJ Law Blog: FBI Director ‘Concerned’ About New Smartphone Encryption by Jacob Gershman: FBI Director James Comey on Thursday said he’s bothered by moves by Apple Inc. and Google Inc. to market privacy innovations on smartphones that put some data … Continue reading
CA2: Admission of removability obviates exclusionary rule claim
While egregious violations of the Fourth Amendment may be excludable in removal proceedings, a concession of removability that is an act of free will is an independent source for removal. Vanegas-Ramirez v. Holder, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 18351 (2d Cir. … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: A smart electric meter that transmits information about electric usage is not a search and seizure
A smart electric meter that transmits information about electric usage every 15 minutes is not a search and seizure. Naperville Smart Meter Awareness v. City of Naperville, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 134861 (N.D. Ill. September 25, 2014)*: