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- CA5: CBP dog sniffing for people was PC even if it couldn’t differentiate between the driver and alleged hidden passengers
- D.D.C.: Here, RS was thin, and frisking under jacket was unreasonable
- NE: LEO’s statutory jurisdictional authority is not an unreasonable search and seizure question
- 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
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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)
--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 
Monthly Archives: March 2015
LATimes: Sheriff Arpaio admits violating court order in profiling suit
LATimes: Sheriff Arpaio admits violating court order in profiling suit Joe Arpaio, the outspoken Arizona sheriff who often touted his get-tough approach to combating illegal immigration, has admitted that he violated a federal judge’s orders to stop detaining people simply … Continue reading
WaPo: Radley Balko: We’re asking the wrong question about police shootings
WaPo: Radley Balko: We’re asking the wrong question about police shootings: But I recently spoke on a panel at the University of South Carolina with the former police officer and now law professor Seth Stoughton. He made a point that … Continue reading
OR: Probable cause for arrest for burglary and furtive movements toward backpack made its search subject to search incident
The officer had objective evidence that the juvenile was involved in a burglary and a theft of an Xbox. When confronted he acted furtively and seemed like he was distancing himself from a backpack. That justified a search of the … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: Notice of forfeiture certified mail to jail is proper notice
Certified mail of notice of a forfeiture to the jail defendant was residing in was sufficient notice. A motion for return of property under Rule 41(g) has to be filed in the district where the property was seized, and this … Continue reading
CA8: Where driveway encircles house and car parked in back, curtilage not violated
Officers did not violate the curtilage by driving down a road looking for somebody when they came upon a house with a driveway that went around it, and the only car was parked behind it. They parked there and encountered … Continue reading
OH11: Intentionally delaying issuing ticket to give dog time to arrive where no RS is unreasonable
Intentionally delaying issuing a noise ticket to give the drug dog time to arrive made the stop unreasonable because there was no reasonable suspicion of drug activity. State v. Eggleston, 2015-Ohio-958, 2015 Ohio App. LEXIS 928 (11th Dist. March 16, … Continue reading
Gnom.es: Weaponized, Peeping Drone Ban Proposed in Congress
Gnom.es: Weaponized, Peeping Drone Ban Proposed in Congress: Legislation to forbid alarming and increasingly not-so-hypothetical uses of unmanned aircraft was introduced in Congress Tuesday. The Preserving American Privacy Act, sponsored by Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Ted Poe, R-Texas, would … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Even the most minor traffic offense justifies a stop
A motorcyclist failing to yield to a pedestrian justifies a traffic stop. “Patterson suggests that the commission of such a minor traffic offense did not justify the stop. This position is flatly contrary to established law.” Defendant was wearing a … Continue reading
NACDL Symposium: Fourth Amendment in the Digital Age
Fourth Amendment in the Digital Age, April 3d, American University College of Law, Washington DC (also streaming online) (Flyer): PANEL 1: New Developments in Surveillance Technology: How the Government Collects, Searches, Stores, and Shares Information PANEL 2: Challenges to the … Continue reading
GA: Cell phone search for evidence of “planning or premeditation to commit murder” or participation was not overbroad
Defendant was accused of being called to come and aid cousins in a fight, and a murder occurred. The police found five cell phones at the scene and seized them. A search warrant was issued for the cell phones for … Continue reading
Sputnik Int’l: FBI Moves Forward with Expansion of Hacking Powers Despite Privacy Concerns — Rule 41 change
Sputnik Int’l: FBI Moves Forward with Expansion of Hacking Powers Despite Privacy Concerns: Despite fears over privacy violations and constitutional conflicts, a change to an FBI procedural rule that would dramatically broaden their hacking powers has been quietly advanced after … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Generic motion to suppress without factual or legal argument could be denied on that basis alone
“Defendant’s written motion to suppress the results of the search and seizure is brief, generic, and devoid of factual or legal argument specifically addressing the search warrant at issue now before the Court. Because Defendant has offered no sufficiently specific … Continue reading
UPI: NYPD caught editing Wikipedia pages related to police brutality
UPI: NYPD caught editing Wikipedia pages related to police brutality by Thor Benson: A new report from Capital New York claims thousands of edits to Wikipedia articles related to police brutality can be traced to the NYPD headquarters….The report claims … Continue reading
CA10: An arrest during a larceny sting where a backpack was left near an ATM was not in violation of clearly established law; qualified immunity applies
An arrest during a larceny sting where a backpack was left near an Albuquerque ATM was not in violation of clearly established law, so qualified immunity applies. Quinn v. Young, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 3959 (10th Cir. March 13, 2015)*:
IN: Transporting to stationhouse is a seizure
Transporting a juvenile down to the station was a seizure requiring probable cause, and here it was lacking. The patdown was unreasonable. D.Y. v. State, 2015 Ind. App. LEXIS 147 (March 11, 2015). Officers had probable cause for the search … Continue reading
NPR: When Police Are Given Body Cameras, Do They Use Them?
NPR: When Police Are Given Body Cameras, Do They Use Them? But Noelle Phillips, who covers the police for the Denver Post, tells NPR’s Arun Rath that an independent monitor’s evaluation of Denver’s pilot program found that in many cases … Continue reading
Stop and Frisk: A Primer for New York Officers on the Beat
Stop and Frisk: A Primer for New York Officers on the Beat by Andrew Keshner: The NYPD is in the process of reading to its rank-and-file at roll calls two “FINEST Messages” that stress constitutional standards for police-citizen encounters-a response … Continue reading
GA: Mistaken belief def was on probation made search invalid; no GFE in GA, either; suppressed
The officer mistakenly believed that defendant was still on probation, but he wasn’t. The probation search was unlawful, and the good faith exception doesn’t apply in Georgia. State v. New, 2015 Ga. App. LEXIS 115 (March 12, 2015). The officer … Continue reading
MS: Anonymous tip for a DUI stop was insufficient without corroboration
Anonymous tip for a DUI stop was insufficient without corroboration. Cook v. State, 2015 Miss. LEXIS 130 (March 12, 2015), revg Cook v. Rankin County, 140 So. 3d 940 (Miss. App. Dec. 3, 2013) (unpublished):