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- 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
- DC: Accepting a law license is consent to trust account subpoenas
- AR: RS def rented a hotel room was sufficient for search waiver; PC not required
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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)
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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 
Daily Archives: March 1, 2016
Colorado Public Radio: Police Body Camera Recommendations Head To Lawmakers
Colorado Public Radio: Police Body Camera Recommendations Head To Lawmakers by Rachel Estabrook: A group studying how police should use body cameras has released its recommendations to Colorado legislators, including guidance on when the devices should be turned on and … Continue reading
Daily Signal: Inside the Push to Make It Harder for Government to ‘Steal’ Property, Cash in America’s Heartland
Daily Signal: Inside the Push to Make It Harder for Government to ‘Steal’ Property, Cash in America’s Heartland by Melissa Quinn: But in a year when Loveless, R-Oklahoma City, is up for re-election to the state legislature—a time when most … Continue reading
The Hill: Privacy groups wary of compromise encryption bill
The Hill: Privacy groups wary of compromise encryption bill by Cory Bennett: Privacy advocates are already concerned about legislation to establish a national commission to explore how police can get at encrypted data without endangering Americans’ privacy.
NPR: Advertising Company Will Use Its Billboards To Track Passing Cellphones
NPR: Advertising Company Will Use Its Billboards To Track Passing Cellphones by Merrit Kennedy: The technology is sure to help advertisers better target their ads. But privacy advocates argue that it’s, well, a little creepy.
WaPo: ‘The Watch’ Blog: Lawsuit takes aim at asset forfeiture in Indiana
WaPo: ‘The Watch’ Blog: Lawsuit takes aim at asset forfeiture in Indiana by Radley Balko: The Institute for Justice, a libertarian advocacy law firm, is suing the state of Indiana over its civil asset forfeiture practices. Under state law, the … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Woman def spent last night with didn’t have apparent authority to consent to search room
Defendant stayed with his aunt. He spent the night with a woman in his bedroom. It wasn’t reasonable to conclude that the woman he spent the night with had common authority over the room to consent. United States v. Jackson, … Continue reading
ID: Video of stop belied officer’s claim of nervousness; refusal of consent not a factor in RS
“The factors known to the officer were Neal’s nervousness, attire, and the time of day, and after substantial questioning, Neal’s refusal to consent to a search of his automobile. As noted above, none of these factors alone bears more than … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Warrant not required to enter curtilage to arrest defendant on his own porch
A search warrant is not required to arrest a suspect on his front porch, clearly curtilage. United States v. Soza, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23352 (D.N.M. Feb. 24, 2016). The court agonizes and discusses all the possibilities for 60+ pages … Continue reading
IL: GJ subpoena for palm prints in cold case didn’t violate Fourth Amendment
A grand jury subpoena was used to get defendant’s palm prints while he was in prison in 2004 to see whether he was connected to a 1997 murder. The grand jury subpoena did not violate the Fourth Amendment or the … Continue reading
NE: Entry into third party’s home with arrest warrants and PC def was there complied with Steagald
Local officers recognized defendant’s truck and him as having a host of warrants for his arrest as well as an order of protection out. He was believed to be potentially violent. Police saw him parked at a third party’s house, … Continue reading
WV: State failed to show factual basis for community caretaking function stop
“In other words, there is simply no evidence from the suppression hearing that would lead us to conclude that ‘citizens [might have been] in peril’ or that the petitioner himself might have been ‘in need of some form of assistance’ … Continue reading