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- WaPo: They confided in ChatGPT. Their secrets ended up in court.
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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com
Search and Seizure (6th ed. 2025)
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-26,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 600,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 50,000 posts since 2003 (29,000 on WordPress as of 12/31/25) -
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Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (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)
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“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, Let it Bleed (album, 1969) -
"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] -
“Children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom.”
– John le Carré, The Night Manager (1993), line by Richard Roper -
"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) -
The book was dedicated in the first (1982) and sixth (2025) editions to Justin William Hall (1975-2025). He was three when this project started in 1978.
Website design by Wally Waller, Colorado Springs. 
Monthly Archives: September 2016
M.D.Fla.: Def’s lie about his criminal history apparently justified RS for drug dog
Defendant’s stop was briefly extended for a drug dog, but about the only thing that remotely justifies it is the fact defendant’s criminal history came back considerably worse than defendant admitted to the officer when first asked. United States v. … Continue reading
VA: Mobility for automobile exception doesn’t depend on fact def would be arrested as soon as he got on the motorcycle
The mobility basis for the automobile exception has nothing to do with whether the officer watching would have been able to apprehend defendant if he suddenly appeared and tried to drive the motorcycle off. “Moreover, ‘[a] vehicle’s inherent mobility—not the … Continue reading
GA: When evidence at suppression hearing is uncontroverted, whole suppression issue is reviewed de novo
“When the evidence at a suppression hearing is uncontroverted and the credibility of witnesses is not in question, we conduct a de novo review of the trial court’s application of the law to the undisputed facts.” The state did not … Continue reading
IA: LEO had PC to arrest for parole violation when PO related violations and requested arrest
A police officer encountered defendant at a trailer park and found out he was on parole. Defendant gave his PO’s name, and the officer called. The PO said that defendant has missed meetings and failed a drug test and they … Continue reading
CA9: Defense entitled to discovery on whether San Clemente immigration checkpoint also now a general crime control checkpoint
Defendant sought discovery to show that the San Clemente immigration checkpoint on I-5, sustained 40 years ago in Martinez-Fuerte, had also become a general crime control checkpoint, and the district court denied it. The Court of Appeals held that Rule … Continue reading
WA: Objective reasonable facts justified frisk of def when his companion was arrested
“This case requires us to decide under what circumstances officers making a lawful arrest may seize a companion of the arrestee in the absence of reasonable suspicion to independently justify a Terry stop of the companion. We hold that where … Continue reading
WaPo: The Watch: Your drug raid roundup: Family of 7 terrified by mistaken SWAT raid; Kentucky man who shot cop is out on bond; court tosses lawsuit over flashbang injury to bystander
WaPo: The Watch: Your drug raid roundup: Family of 7 terrified by mistaken SWAT raid; Kentucky man who shot cop is out on bond; court tosses lawsuit over flashbang injury to bystander by Radley Balko: The drug war marches on … Continue reading
VA: Grubbs and its “sure course” analysis isn’t the only way to prove an anticipatory warrant; PC and nexus also enough.
Grubbs and its “sure course” analysis isn’t the only way to prove an anticipatory warrant. Probable cause and nexus are also enough. Taylor v. Commonwealth, 2016 Va. App. LEXIS 238 (Sept. 13, 2016):
CA8: Officer taking custody after citizen’s arrest did not violate clearly established law
An officer received a report of a disorderly misdemeanor in progress and arrived to see part of it. While the facts were conflicting, there was still probable cause for the arrest. The law of citizen’s arrest is not so obvious … Continue reading
SFist: Oakland Police Say They Accidentally Deleted 25 Percent Of Their Body-Cam Archive
SFist: Oakland Police Say They Accidentally Deleted 25 Percent Of Their Body-Cam Archive by Jack Morse: While the SFPD continues its deployment of officer-worn body-cameras, the Oakland Police Department has had them for some time. Since 2009, to be precise. … Continue reading
SCOTUSBlog: The Court after Scalia: Scalia’s absence may help preserve the exclusionary rule
SCOTUSBlog: The Court after Scalia: Scalia’s absence may help preserve the exclusionary rule by Orin Kerr:
Alt-Right blames Obama for SCOTUS amendment to Rule 41
I never bother to read World Net Daily because it is essentially wrong on everything. Last night’s emails includes this headline: WND: DEC. 1: WHEN 4TH AMENDMENT WILL BE DESTROYED by Craige McMillan Exclusive: Craige McMillan warns of reg that’ll … Continue reading
Constitution Day
I’m in Idaho for a CLE after an oral argument yesterday in Arkansas.* After 9½ hours in airports and on planes I crash at the hotel at 10 PT. I wake up to emails about Constitution Day, one from a … Continue reading
WaPo: The Watch: Lunch links: Police agencies across America are assembling massive databases about you
WaPo: The Watch: Lunch links: Police agencies across America are assembling massive databases about you by Radley Balko.
Wired: Opinion: The Feds Will Soon Be Able to Legally Hack Almost Anyone
Wired: Opinion: The Feds Will Soon Be Able to Legally Hack Almost Anyone by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Matt Blaze, and Susan Landau: Under a new set of rules, the FBI would have the authority to secretly use malware to … Continue reading
WaPo: Eleven SWAT officers treated for exposure to fentanyl and heroin in drug raid
WaPo: Eleven SWAT officers treated for exposure to fentanyl and heroin in drug raid by Lindsey Bever and J. Freedom du Lac: Eleven police officers in Hartford, Conn., were taken to a hospital for possible exposure to heroin and fentanyl … Continue reading
Ars Technica: Police union resists body cams, judge orders Boston cops to wear them
Ars Technica: Police union resists body cams, judge orders Boston cops to wear them by David Kravets: Union objected to the devices, saying they were unsafe and not in their contract.