Archives
-
Recent Posts
- 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
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2017); ABA Journal Blawg 100 (2015-16) (discontinued 2018)
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
-
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)
ACLU on privacy
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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)
Website design by Wally Waller, Little Rock 
Monthly Archives: October 2014
CA5: Threatened suicide is exigency
A threatened suicide is an exigent circumstance for an entry, following other circuits. Rice v. Reliastar Life Ins. Co., 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 20581 (5th Cir. October 27, 2014): The Rice Plaintiffs argue that the exigent circumstances exception to the … Continue reading
D.V.I.: Post-flight x-ray of bags was unreasonable
CBP x-rayed bags of passengers flying between St. John’s and St. Thomas VI during Carnival between 7 am and 5 pm. A gun was found in defendant’s carry-on bag. It was not a flight involving Customs, as flights from and … Continue reading
CA7: Suspicionless supervised release search condition not justified here
A suspicionless supervised release search condition was not properly justified by the district court, and it’s reversed. United States v. Hinds, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 20651 (7th Cir. October 27, 2014): The search and seizure condition, special condition five, can … Continue reading
Atlantic: California Can’t Police Its Own Cops Stealing Nude Photos of Women
Atlantic: California Can’t Police Its Own Cops Stealing Nude Photos of Women by Conor Friedersdorf: Local authorities are investigating a highway-patrol scandal, but their perverse incentives mean federal authorities need to step in. The story the court documents tell is … Continue reading
WaPo: Lanier addresses concerns over police stops; says new way needed to fight drugs
WaPo: Lanier addresses concerns over police stops; says new way needed to fight drugs by Peter Hermann: Addressing complaints that officers unfairly detain people, D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said Monday she understands that traffic stops and other routine … Continue reading
NYTimes: Report Reveals Wider Tracking of Mail in U.S.
NYTimes: Report Reveals Wider Tracking of Mail in U.S. by Ron Nixon: WASHINGTON — In a rare public accounting of its mass surveillance program, the United States Postal Service reported that it approved nearly 50,000 requests last year from law … Continue reading
PA: Search of an aspirin bottle on entering a courthouse was reasonable; cocaine found
Defendant entered a county courthouse and emptied his pockets for the metal detector. He left an aspirin bottle in the tray which the officer shook. He concluded it contained something other than aspirin. Defendant wasn’t detained but the bottle was. … Continue reading
TN: Merely being on a cul-de-sac at 3:30 am where you don’t belong isn’t RS
A resident on a cul-de-sac called the police because a car that seemingly didn’t belong was driving around a few times. The police were called and stopped the car. Defendant was arrested for DUI. The stop lacked an objective basis … Continue reading
Techdirt: Feds Want To Keep A Big Part Of Their Argument Against Lawsuit Over Internet Spying A Total Secret
Techdirt: Feds Want To Keep A Big Part Of Their Argument Against Lawsuit Over Internet Spying A Total Secret by Mike Masnick: from the because-nsa dept The big Jewel v. NSA case is still moving forward. This is the pre-Snowden … Continue reading
The Hill: New phones will help criminals, says Asst. AG
The Hill: New phones will help criminals, says Asst. AG by Cory Bennett: New technology from Apple, Google will be used “to evade law enforcement.” Isn’t that what privacy used to be for?
D.Minn.: No REP in the magnetic strip on a counterfeit credit card
Defendant challenged the government reading the magnetic strips on the back of allegedly counterfeit credit cards; not the seizure of the cards in the first place. The court finds that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the magnetic … Continue reading
NYTimes Editorial: No Progress on Marijuana Arrests
NYTimes Editorial: No Progress on Marijuana Arrests: The de Blasio administration needs to really do something about the targeting of young black and Latino men.
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Armored vehicle helps collect civil judgment in small town from 75 year old man
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Armored vehicle helps collect civil judgment in small town by Bruce Vielmetti: When officials in the tiny Town of Stettin in Marathon County went to collect a civil judgment from 75-year-old Roger Hoeppner this month, they sent 24 … Continue reading
NYTimes: Law Lets I.R.S. Seize Accounts on Suspicion, No Crime Required
NYTimes: Law Lets I.R.S. Seize Accounts on Suspicion, No Crime Required by Shaila Dewan: For almost 40 years, Carole Hinders has dished out Mexican specialties at her modest cash-only restaurant. For just as long, she deposited the earnings at a … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Nexus shown to search cell phone in a child abuse investigation
In a child abuse investigation on an Indian reservation, the government showed probable cause to believe that information relevant to the investigation would be found on defendant’s cell phone. A search warrant for Verizon for text messages and telephone calls … Continue reading
EFF: Automated Mass Surveillance is Unconstitutional, EFF Explains in Jewel v. NSA
EFF: Automated Mass Surveillance is Unconstitutional, EFF Explains in Jewel v. NSA by Cindy Cohn and Andrew Crocker and Jamie Lee Williams Today EFF filed our latest brief in Jewel v. NSA, our longstanding case on behalf of AT&T customers … Continue reading