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- CADC: When searching a cell phone and officers find it belonged to someone else, a new SW isn’t required; SWs are directed at things, places, and people and owner doesn’t matter for PC
- Seattle Times: US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana in a historic shift, AP sources
- D.N.M.: Even if def’s DNA was not obtained by consent, inevitable discovery applies
- E.D.Mo.: PV warrant permitted entry to place where def reasonably suspected to reside
- Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas sets higher bar for police seizure after accusations of for-profit policing
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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)
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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)
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Daily Archives: April 21, 2016
NY2: SW for house and yard didn’t include shed behind the house
Where the search warrant was for the residence and yard, a shed on the yard could not be searched. Thus, defense counsel was ineffective for not challenging the search. Reversed. People v. Velez, 2016 NY Slip Op 03027, 2016 N.Y. … Continue reading
NV: Neither a warrant nor probable cause is required to get CLSI information
Neither a warrant nor probable cause is required to get CLSI information. Taylor v. State, 132 Nev. Adv. Rep. 27, No. 16-12414 (April 21, 2016):
Just Security: The FBI’s Warrantless Surveillance Back Door Just Opened a Little Wider
Just Security: The FBI’s Warrantless Surveillance Back Door Just Opened a Little Wider by Elizabeth Goitein: On Tuesday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a redacted version of an opinion by Judge Thomas F. Hogan of … Continue reading
VICE: The Future of Border Securing Technology Is Here and It’s Terrifying
VICE: The Future of Border Securing Technology Is Here and It’s Terrifying by Meredith Hoffman: At the Tenth Annual Border Security Expo in San Antonio, Texas, officials from the Department of Homeland Security browsed booths with 3D holographic images, portable … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Unusual traffic patterns at def’s house was probable cause of drug dealing
The unusual traffic patterns at defendant’s house led to probable cause to believe that the car leaving had drugs acquired inside. United States v. Hernandez-Ortiz, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49658 (D. Neb. March 8, 2016),* adopted 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
Forbes: Opinion: Nebraska Just Abolished Civil Forfeiture, Now Requires A Criminal Conviction To Take Property
Forbes: Opinion: Nebraska Just Abolished Civil Forfeiture, Now Requires A Criminal Conviction To Take Property by Nick Sivilla: Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts signed a bill on Tuesday that eliminates civil forfeiture, which allows law enforcement to seize and keep property … Continue reading
NPR: Lawful Hacking: Should, Or Can, The FBI Learn To Overcome Encryption Itself?
NPR: Lawful Hacking: Should, Or Can, The FBI Learn To Overcome Encryption Itself? by Alina Selyukh: A major theme that emerged from this latest hearing (though it’s been discussed by some cybersecurity experts before) was the ability or the need … Continue reading
WaPo: Supreme Court hears arguments in drunken-driving cases
WaPo: Supreme Court hears arguments in drunken-driving cases by Robert Barnes: All states to some extent say that motorists suspected of drunken driving can lose their licenses by refusing to submit to an alcohol test. But North Dakota, Minnesota and … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: It’s generally not good to include “all” before the documents to be seized in a SW; PC must be shown for what “all” modifies in SW, and here it was
It’s generally not good to include “all” before the documents to be seized in a search warrant, but it is valid if it can be shown to relate back to something for which there is a showing of probable cause. … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Def knew police were “on his tail” that he possessed CP, and that authorized warrantless seizure
The record supports the conclusion that defendant, a probationer, knew that the police were “on his tail” that he possessed child pornography and expressed concern about finding child pornography on his electronics. Thus, the police acted reasonably in seizing a … Continue reading