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Recent Posts
- LA4: Merely having a concealed firearm isn’t RS for a frisk
- OR: Merely driving off the road wasn’t RS, but adding the driver’s demeanor at the time was
- OH6: Trial court’s failure to explain RS under Rodriguez required remand
- CA6: Asking def before a patdown during arrest what he had on him wasn’t barred by Miranda
- NY Queens: PC shown for SW blood drawn at hospital after car wreck
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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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"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: September 17, 2014
RawStory: LAPD insists it won’t use new unmanned drones until rules for their use are set
Reuters: LAPD insists it won’t use new unmanned drones until rules for their use are set (Reuters): The Los Angeles Police Commission, an independent board that oversees the LAPD, responded on Monday by saying the drones had been placed in … Continue reading
The Hill: Lawmakers unveil bill to de-militarize cops
The Hill: Lawmakers unveil bill to de-militarize cops by Mike Lillis: The bipartisan bill would scale back a program sending surplus military equipment to police.
LawFare: Updated Version of In Re Directives: A Quick Summary
LawFare: Updated Version of In Re Directives: A Quick Summary by Alex Ely: Readers likely recall that last week, documents from the In Re Directives litigation, regarding foreign intelligence surveillance directives issued to Yahoo!, were declassified. Chief among them: a … Continue reading
FL2: Common authority to consent did not extend to guest’s backpack
The owner of the place searched had the authority to consent to a search of the bedroom where defendant was sleeping. Defendant was just a short term guest and was asleep when the police came in. The common authority applied … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa.: Pre-Jardines dog sniff permitted in circuit, so Davis GFE applies
Dog sniff outside a door was permitted by circuit case law, so Jardines doesn’t apply, Davis good faith does. United States v. Burston, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 121732 (N.D. Iowa September 2, 2014): Judge Scoles found that “[b]ecause the area … Continue reading
Cal.2: Pre-Riley cell phone search incident expressly authorized by case law so Davis GFE applies
The pre-Riley search of defendant’s cell phone was expressly permitted by California case law at the time of the search, so the good faith exception applies. People v. Macabeo, 2014 Cal. App. LEXIS 793 (2d Dist. September 3, 2014). Based … Continue reading
D.Me.: New issue in reply brief after motion hearing is waived
Raising a new issue on a motion to suppress in the reply brief is a waiver because the government didn’t get to address it at the hearing. United States v. Young, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 122221 (D. Me. September 1, … Continue reading
CA3: Neither SI, exigency, nor protective sweep permitted re-entry to locate gun
A protective sweep had already occurred and defendant had been removed from his house in handcuffs and the house secured. A gun was suspected as unaccounted for, so they went back to look for it, and this was unreasonable. The … Continue reading
VI: DNA request 15 months later wasn’t stale, but it was speculative and denied
There was no probable cause for obtaining a buccal swab for DNA 15 months after defendant’s arrest to attempt to link him to a gun. The best that the officers could say was that there may be trace evidence that … Continue reading
KS former restrictive SI statute applied rather than Gant
Kansas had a search statute [in effect from 2006-11] that was more restrictive on the police than Gant, and the trial court and court of appeals erred in not applying that statute. State v. Julian, 2014 Kan. LEXIS 500 (September … Continue reading
MT: Talking control of DL is a seizure when they are carried to the patrol car
The officer’s taking control of defendant’s and the passenger’s driver’s license was a seizure of them when he took the DLs back to the patrol car to run them. They were not free to leave. State v. Strom, 2014 MT … Continue reading