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Recent Posts
- CA5: Deficient privilege log after records search was waiver
- E.D.Ky.: When court can’t tell the dog alerted, motion to suppress granted
- OH1: A malnourished child isn’t exigency for an infant
- E.D.Pa.: Mandamus doesn’t lie to unseal SW papers
- D.Me.: Looking around house when allegedly “freezing” it was an illegal 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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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: May 2015
MI: Lifetime GPS monitoring of a sex offender is a search, and it is reasonable on a balancing of interests
Lifetime GPS monitoring of a doctor convicted of criminal sexual contact with a patient under 13 was a search under Grady, but it was reasonable. It is reasonable on balancing the government’s interest in keeping up with sex offenders and … Continue reading
ID: Where hotel room occupant consented to search, no apparent authority shown for backpack that belonged to another in the room
Officers came to a motel room to arrest a person named in an arrest warrant they suspected was inside. After 30 minutes of surveillance, they went to the door and a lady answered and said she’d rented the room. Inside … Continue reading
D.Del.: Even though this SW was a “general warrant,” it was relied on in good faith
The search warrant was overbroad and potentially a general warrant, but it was, essentially, close enough for government work and it wasn’t entirely clear a search warrant was necessary at the time to search a cell phone. The remedy is … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: No REP in boxes kept in borrowed storage shed
Defendant’s mother allowed him to store some boxes in her storage shed, and he didn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the shed. When she consented to a search of the shed, that permitted the police to search closed … Continue reading
HuffPo: Rand Paul Vows To Block Patriot Act Extension
HuffPo: Rand Paul Vows To Block Patriot Act Extension by Sam Levine: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on Saturday that he would block the Senate from passing an extension of the Patriot Act, which is set to expire at 12:01 … Continue reading
TX14: Inventory of def’s vehicle proper even though his mother was called to pick it up
Despite the fact the officer called defendant’s mother about picking up his vehicle after his DUI arrest and gave her 15 minutes to get there, the officer could inventory the vehicle while waiting in case she didn’t show rather than … Continue reading
NM declines to find plain view supported seizure of two pills in a baggie that fell out of the glove compartment while driver looking for papers
Seeing two pills in a small plastic baggie fall out of the glove compartment during a stop for expired tags when defendant was looking for his paperwork on the car was not subject to plain view. After all, pharmacy containers … Continue reading
WaPo: Five myths about body cameras
WaPo: Five myths about body cameras by Nancy La Vigne: Body cameras aren’t new, but since the spate of high-profile violent encounters between police and unarmed citizens — Michael Brown, Chris Lollie, Eric Garner, Marlene Pinnock and others — they’ve … Continue reading
NY2: NYPD officer had no REP in recovery of service weapon used in a shooting per NYPD policy
Defendant NYPD police officer had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the department issued firearm allegedly misused in the line of duty. Defendant shot a fleeing man in the buttocks in a personal dispute and denied it in the initial … Continue reading
ND: Entry on a misdemeanor warrant was not unreasonable where an occupant said defendant was inside
Entry on a misdemeanor warrant was not unreasonable where an occupant said defendant was inside, following other authorities. State v. Schmidt, 2015 ND 134, 2015 N.D. LEXIS 132 (May 27, 2015):
The Economist: Reviewing the surveillance state: America argues anew over how much snooping the NSA can do
The Economist: Reviewing the surveillance state: America argues anew over how much snooping the NSA can do: DEEP in the desert in Utah, the National Security Agency (NSA), America’s signals intelligence branch, has built a $1.5 billion centre to scoop … Continue reading
Inside Edition: Cameras capture police throwing 8-month pregnant woman to the ground, handcuffing and arresting her
Inside Edition: Cameras capture police throwing 8-month pregnant woman to the ground, handcuffing and arresting her
Center for Democracy and Technology: Can a Quantitative Approach Help Address Government Surveillance?
Center for Democracy and Technology: Can a Quantitative Approach Help Address Government Surveillance? by Jens-Henrik Jeppsen: When legislators and governments introduce new national security measures, they often do so in the immediate aftermath of traumatic events. This means new surveillance … Continue reading
Cato.org: Good Precedents against NSA Spying
Cato.org: Good Precedents against NSA Spying by Jim Harper: With debate about NSA spying continuing in the Senate, it’s worth looking at some of the historical and modern precedents for protecting our communications and communications data. A few highlights: …
TX2: Four states recognize the prohibitive collective knowledge but Texas does not
Four states recognize the prohibitive collective knowledge. Texas does not. Even though some officers may know that reasonable suspicion has dissipated, the officer making the stop did not. O’Bryan v. State, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 5406 (Tex. App. – Ft. … Continue reading
National Review: Think Your Cellphone Usage is Private? Think Again
National Review: Think Your Cellphone Usage is Private? Think Again by Naomi R. Alzate & Scott N. Wagner: In a closely-watched case out of Miami [Davis], the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals redefined the zone of privacy for cell phone … Continue reading
NPR: Questions Remain About How To Use Data From License Plate Scanners
NPR: Questions Remain About How To Use Data From License Plate Scanners by Martin Kaste: License plate scanners have become a fact of life. They’re attached to traffic lights, on police cars — even ‘repo’ staff use them. All those … Continue reading
MS: Uncorroborated informant hearsay was so clearly deficient that the good faith exception did not apply
The informant hearsay in this was a mere uncorroborated statement with no basis of knowledge that the defendant was involved in creating a bogus Facebook account for another person as identity theft. A judge went ahead and signed off on … Continue reading
NE: Passenger standing out sunroof at 1:30 am justified community caretaking stop
The community caretaking function applies to passengers, and here the passenger was standing half out of the sunroof of a car at 1:30 am. That was justification for a stop. State v. Rohde, 22 Neb. App. 926, 2015 Neb. App. … Continue reading