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- E.D.Ky.: When court can’t tell the dog alerted, motion to suppress granted
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- D.Me.: Looking around house when allegedly “freezing” it was an illegal search
- OR: Police listening to attorney-client jail calls because attorney calls not properly segregated leads to dismissal of some counts and setting aside guilty plea
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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)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (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)
Website design by Wally Waller, Little Rock 
Monthly Archives: November 2014
NM: When dealing with attenuation of live witness testimony, the witness has to testify at the hearing
After affirmance and on remand of a granted motion to suppress the state raised a Ceccolini argument that live witness testimony is harder to attenuate [see Treatise § 10.12] via a motion to reconsider. The defense argued law of the … Continue reading
D.Minn.: CP via IP address linked to defendant at time is nexus
An identified IP address as being the source of child pornography tied to defendant by an administrative subpoena showing that IP address only at his address during the time in question is nexus for a search warrant. United States v. … Continue reading
WBAL: ACLU alleges police use of Stringray violates 4th Amendment
WBAL: ACLU alleges police use of Stringray violates 4th Amendment by David Collins (with video) The Baltimore Sun: Stringray used to pinpoint suspect’s location by Justin Fenton: ACLU joins Md. federal case over cellphone tracking
Bloomberg: How Police Unions Stopped Congress From ‘Militarization’ Reform
Bloomberg: How Police Unions Stopped Congress From ‘Militarization’ Reform: Why even Rand Paul isn’t talking as much about cops with army gear.
WaPo: Maker of smartphone spying app pleads guilty in federal court
WaPo: Maker of smartphone spying app pleads guilty in federal court by Matt Zapotosky: The maker of a smartphone app once marketed to help catch cheating lovers by listening in on phone calls and tracking locations was ordered Tuesday to … Continue reading
CA2: State officers lied about body cavity SW for def’s wife; suppressed as to her but not him; no standing
State officers in Vermont “outrageously” lied to defendant’s wife to get her to submit to a body cavity search for drugs after she’d been detained nearly six hours and was groggy and hanging her head from being handcuffed to a … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Abandonment during an illegal arrest is subject to suppression
In this dropsy case, the court first finds that defendant’s arrest was without probable cause. A bag of pills was found at his feet. No officer saw him drop it, but that’s the inference the government wants to draw. Abandonment … Continue reading
OH4: Difficulty in finding a judge to get a SW at 3 am was exigency for BAC without warrant
Difficulty in getting a search warrant prepared and finding a judge at 3 am was exigency for dispensing with a search warrant in a DUI case because of natural dissipation of BAC. State v. Roar, 2014-Ohio-5214, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS … Continue reading
OH3: Where there’s cause for a traffic stop, the ulterior motive to question the passenger about drugs really doesn’t matter
If there is cause for a traffic stop, the ulterior motive to question the passenger about drugs really doesn’t matter. State v. Gartrell, 2014-Ohio-5203, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS 5044 (3d Dist. November 24, 2014):
CA11: A rare reversal of application of the Heck bar to prisoner § 1983 case
The district court erred in applying the Heck bar to plaintiff’s pro se complaint. There is a possibility he can get it to trial without implicating the validity of the conviction. Pritchett v. Farr, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 21965 (11th … Continue reading
CA5: City DPW worker driving pickup in accident he caused could be drug tested
City Public Works Department supervisor was subject to drug testing under city employment manual for an on the job vehicle accident where his pickup truck grazed a tree stump and he was admittedly at fault. The test was about three … Continue reading
IN: When stop of car is because owner has suspended DL but owner is passenger, stop must end
The officer stopped the car because the owner had a suspended DL. The owner was in the back seat and said who she was and that she was suspended. At that point, there was no justification for asking the driver … Continue reading
NM: BAC blood draw by SW doesn’t require arrest already have occurred
A BAC blood draw by search warrant does not require the defendant be under arrest first. “[A] constitutionally permissible search of a person’s blood may arise either from an arrest pursuant to the Implied Consent Act or a valid search … Continue reading
GA: Loud yelling and cursing at officers conducting a search here constituted crime of obstruction
Defendant was properly convicted of misdemeanor obstruction of an officer for screaming and yelling during execution of a search warrant where the officers tried to get him to stop three times, and finally it took two to deal with him, … Continue reading
CIO: NSA privacy director defends agency’s surveillance
CIO: NSA privacy director defends agency’s surveillance by Grant Gross The U.S. National Security Agency’s surveillance programs are legal and under close scrutiny by other parts of the government, the agency’s internal privacy watchdog said Monday in an online Q&A. … Continue reading
Lawfare: A Quick Summary of Oral Argument in In Re Directives
Lawfare: A Quick Summary of Oral Argument in In Re Directives by Alex Ely: Earlier this Fall I wrote about how certain materials from the In Re Directives litigation before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (“FISCR” or “Court”) … Continue reading
Your recently purchased used car might be tracking you
Arkansas Business: Car-Mart Uses GPS To Improve ‘Efficiency’ by Marty Cook:
Salt Lake Tribune: Killings by Utah police outpacing gang, drug, child-abuse homicides
Salt Lake Tribune: Killings by Utah police outpacing gang, drug, child-abuse homicides In the past five years, more Utahns have been killed by police than by gang members. Or drug dealers. Or from child abuse. And so far this year, … Continue reading
CO: Waiting for defendant to put his backpack in car to execute search warrant for car wasn’t unreasonable
Police obtained a search warrant for defendant’s car in the murder of his ex-wife. They surveilled the car for two hours until defendant appeared and put his backpack in the car. Then they approached and seized the car. Waiting until … Continue reading