Archives
-
Recent Posts
- MA: Cell phone call logs don’t require a search warrant
- D.Kan.: Drug dog touching car door handle with nose isn’t unreasonable search
- D.N.M.: DEA’s failure to make a detailed inventory in violation of policy doesn’t require exclusion of evidence
- WaPo: These cities bar facial recognition tech. Police still found ways to access it.
- C.D.Cal.: SW materials in case with weighty public interest ordered unsealed
-
-
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: December 2014
The Atlantic: How To Deal With the Police
The Atlantic: How To Deal With the Police by Terrance Ross: A workshop is teaching students how to handle confrontations with law enforcement, but some fear the class only reinforces negative stereotypes of cops.
NYTimes: Supreme Court Justices Admit Inconsistency, and Embrace It
NYTimes: Supreme Court Justices Admit Inconsistency, and Embrace It by Adam Liptak: WASHINGTON — There is an art to admitting mistakes on the Supreme Court. Justice Antonin Scalia demonstrated the proper technique in a dissent last week. There are three … Continue reading
TN: Entry into backyard under pretext of using back door to knock-and-talk violated curtilage
The backyard and back porch of defendant’s house was clearly curtilage, and it violated the Fourth Amendment to do a knock-and-talk at the backdoor. It was 200′ from the road and nothing back there could be seen from the front. … Continue reading
RT: Secret report cited in NSA surveillance lawsuit, govt silent on its existence
RT: Secret report cited in NSA surveillance lawsuit, govt silent on its existence: Civil rights and federal attorneys sparred at a hearing over a case involving domestic dragnet surveillance by the federal government. The plaintiffs argued the searches are illegal, … Continue reading
DE: Failure to corroborate the CI’s tale was fatal to showing of probable cause; corroborating obvious no help
Failure to corroborate the CI’s tale was fatal to the attempted showing of probable cause. Verifying the obvious isn’t much help. McKinney v. State, 2014 Del. LEXIS 601 (December 18, 2014):
CA5: Independent source doctrine saved SW from findings during protective sweep
The government satisfied its burden on the independent source doctrine without a remand being necessary. The entry was a protective sweep for weapons and the search warrant affidavit didn’t contain anything from that entry. Also, the district court’s order found … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: Two border crossings at San Ysidro in 12 hrs added to reasonable suspicion
Reasonable suspicion for a stop 70 miles from the border was supported by the fact the car had crossed into the U.S. at San Ysidro twice in 12 hours. United States v. Garcia-Grimshaw, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 173631 (S.D. Cal. … Continue reading
Reason.com: Sotomayor Is Right: SCOTUS Gave Too Much Leeway to the Police in Heien v. North Carolina
Reason.com: Sotomayor Is Right: SCOTUS Gave Too Much Leeway to the Police in Heien v. North Carolina by Damon Root: Last week the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in favor of the police in a Fourth Amendment case in which … Continue reading
Bloomberg: In Rare State Move, Wyoming May Add Individual Right to Privacy to Constitution
Bloomberg: In Rare State Move, Wyoming May Add Individual Right to Privacy to Constitution by Tripp Baltz: Dec. 18 — Other states may want to follow Wyoming lawmakers, who in early 2015 will consider a proposed constitutional amendment (15LSO-0066) that … Continue reading
NYLJ: Does ‘Riley’ Portend the Demise of the Third Party Doctrine?
NYLJ: Does ‘Riley’ Portend the Demise of the Third Party Doctrine? by Peter A. Crusco: In his Cyber Crime column, Peter A. Crusco, executive assistant district attorney, investigations division, Office of the Queens County District Attorney, addresses ‘Riley’ and its … Continue reading
USA Today: Police stop pursuing nearly 79,000 fugitives
USA Today: Police stop pursuing nearly 79,000 fugitives by Brad Heath: Accused rapists, murderers are allowed to escape, and the victims aren’t told.
IN: No-knock issue moot by Hudson v. Michigan
Officers obtained a search warrant for firearms, but they also suspected they’d find drugs. There was probable cause for the firearms search and the rest was plain view. Even if the no-knock provision in the warrant was invalid, Hudson bars … Continue reading
NC: When a trained police “dog [is] just being a dog,” as if that’s possible
A burglar alarm went off at defendant’s house and the police arrived, finding a broken window. The first officer didn’t enter, and he called for a dog and handler and backup. The defendant’s mother arrived, and she let the police … Continue reading
NC: Anonymous informant hearsay and officer’s conclusions not PC
The CI in this case provided information that defendant had a grow operation, and the police did little to corroborate any of that. Accordingly, the CI was treated as an anonymous informant, and his information was unsubstantiated. Sure the defendant … Continue reading
LA3: Invited in CI videoing drug transaction is not Fourth Amendment violation
There is no constitutional impediment to a wired CI coming into the defendant’s house to video record a drug transaction. He was invited in. State v. Montgomery, 2014 La. App. LEXIS 2974 (La. App. 3 Cir. December 17, 2014). The … Continue reading
Local police and private license plate reader data goes into a private database to locate you nationwide
Remember your local police license plate readers? The private National Vehicle Location Service (NVLS) gathers that information from them and private sources, and then law enforcement can get it from everywhere in the country to prove where your car was. … Continue reading
MO holds overstaying hotel rental period waiver of REP
Defendant paid for a room at a hotel through 11/7. On 11/8 he was still there and hadn’t paid. Hotel security went to the room, unlocked it, and the inside latch was locked. The door opened only two inches. Defendant … Continue reading
LA5 botches GFE by equating it with a defense need to prove “bad faith”
The probable cause for the search warrant was a controlled buy, but the defendant claimed the CI wasn’t shown to be otherwise credible. [That’s not required in a controlled buy.] The good faith exception applies because the defendant didn’t allege … Continue reading
The Hill: Bill filed in Senate to boost drone privacy
The Hill: Bill filed in Senate to boost drone privacy by Keith Lang: The outgoing chairman of the Senate committee that oversees transportation issues has filed a bill to protect U.S. residents’ privacy if nonmilitary drone use is drastically increased … Continue reading
NY Times: In New York, Public’s Video Helps Police, for a Change
NY Times: In New York, Public’s Video Helps Police, for a Change by Benjamin Meuller: It has become a familiar scene for New York police officers: the glow of tiny cellphone screens illuminating a nighttime struggle between them and people … Continue reading