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Recent Posts
- W.D.Ark.: Parole search waiver moots lack of PC argument
- AR: RS shown for boating while intoxicated stop
- W.D.Mo.: Wrong address in SW wasn’t fatal where right house was searched
- NY: Failure to show independent source for officer’s observation of def required reversal
- VA: Outline of a gun in def’s pocket was RS
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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)
ACLU on privacy
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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: April 2015
ITWorld: House committee approves bill to end NSA phone records program
ITWorld: House committee approves bill to end NSA phone records program by Grant Gross A U.S. Congress committee has overwhelmingly approved legislation designed to stop the bulk collection of U.S. phone records by the National Security Agency. The 25-2 vote … Continue reading
American Thinker: Homeland Chief: Fourth Amendment ‘Beyond My Competence’
American Thinker: Homeland Chief: Fourth Amendment ‘Beyond My Competence’ by Mark J. Fitzgibbons: Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, a man with sweeping power to invade the property rights and privacy of every American using judge-less warrants to search and … Continue reading
ND: Visitor’s purse could be searched on execution of SW for house for drugs
The affidavit for search warrant named defendant’s house but not his name. The probable cause was for drugs. Once inside, there was a woman visiting. Officers could search her purse as a part of the warrant. [The specification of name … Continue reading
CA4: Denial of consent to enter but admission of meth justified seizure of house to get a SW
Officers came to defendant’s house to do a knock-and-talk about a methamphetamine lab. “Then one of the troopers asked Appellant if he would consent to a search of the home. He refused to consent and informed the troopers they were … Continue reading
ND: Dog sniff in condominium hallway was not curtilage
Dog sniff in the common hallway of a condominium is different than Jardines’s porch. There is a much lesser reasonable expectation of privacy there, and the dog sniff was valid. (Among a split of authority.) State v. Williams, 2015 ND … Continue reading
Wyo.Law.: Digital Evidence and the Fourth Amendment: United States v. Ganias and Judicial Recognition of the ‘Right to Deletion’
Blake Anthony Klinkner, Digital Evidence and the Fourth Amendment: United States v. Ganias and Judicial Recognition of the ‘Right to Deletion’, 52 Wyo. Law. (April 2015): In United States v. Ganias, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second … Continue reading
The Atlantic: “Thank God for Cellphone Video Cameras”
The Atlantic: “Thank God for Cellphone Video Cameras” by Robinson Meyer: The vast technological change which has helped make a movement possible.
OH: Computer search warrant was so overbroad that good faith can’t save it
The affiant negligently usurped the inference drawing authority of the magistrate [not to mention the magistrate not doing his or her job either in even signing this warrant], and that affects the probable cause finding. Defendant argued particularity for the … Continue reading
ND: Probation search of cell phone permitted even though not specified in probation search statute
North Dakota statute on probation searches says: “Defendant shall submit to search of his person, vehicle, or place of residence by any probation officer at any time of the day or night, with or without a search warrant.” Even though … Continue reading
CBS News: Innocent man arrested, jailed twice because of name
CBS News: Innocent man arrested, jailed twice because of name OLIVEHURST, Calif. — Two times, Gilberto Hernandez has been arrested and thrown in jail for crimes he didn’t commit — crimes that were allegedly committed by another man, who, to … Continue reading
St. Louis Public Radio: Senate gives first approval to bill changing state’s deadly force law
St. Louis Public Radio: Senate gives first approval to bill changing state’s deadly force law by Ray Howze: The Missouri Senate is moving on a bill that would limit the use of deadly force by police. The measure, approved by … Continue reading
WaPo: Recent Fourth Amendment talks by Orin Kerr
WaPo: Recent Fourth Amendment talks by Orin Kerr: I’ve given several talks in the last few weeks about recent developments in Fourth Amendment law, and how Fourth Amendment law may be changing in response to computers and new technology. Here … Continue reading
The Constitution doesn’t stop most legislatures making a point
Texas Tribune: Senate Approves Drug Testing for Political Candidates by Matthew Watkins: Any candidate seeking elected office in Texas would be required to take a drug test when he or she files to run, under a proposal that the state … Continue reading
D.Mass.: USPS tracks persons tracking suspicious packages by their IP addresses
This mere bailee didn’t have any right to control the package that was shipped, and he thus didn’t have standing to challenge its search, at least recognizing that some bailees might with better facts. More importantly, the government tracked the … Continue reading
techdirt: NSA’s Stellar Wind Program Was Almost Completely Useless, Hidden From FISA Court By NSA And FBI
techdirt: NSA’s Stellar Wind Program Was Almost Completely Useless, Hidden From FISA Court By NSA And FBI by Tim Cushing: A huge report (747 pages) on the NSA’s Stellar Wind program has been turned over to Charlie Savage of the … Continue reading
The Hill on re-upping Patriot Act
The Hill: With clock ticking, lawmakers unveil Patriot Act bill The effort sets up a battle to win over lawmakers on both sides of the spying debate. ACLU quickly opposes NSA bill The group said the reforms don’t go far … Continue reading
CA7: WI law of hotel ejectments reasonably relied on by officers to conduct hotel room search after arrest
Defendant was arrested as a parole absconder also known to be a forger and identity thief, and there was a printer in the backseat of his car. He was in a hotel room in Wisconsin, not registered in his name. … Continue reading
PA: Re-engaging driver with questions after saying he’s free to leave is a second stop
When defendant during a traffic stop is told he is free to leave and the officer starts to go back to the patrol car, but returns to re-engage the driver, that is a second stop requiring reasonable suspicion. No reasonable … Continue reading
MA: In a MMJ state, SW for a grow operation must plead PC that target wasn’t a licensed grower
In a medical marijuana state, a search warrant for a grow operation requires the state show that the target of the search is not a licensed grower. Grant of motion to suppress affirmed. Commonwealth v. Canning, SJC-11773 (April 28, 2015): … Continue reading