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- D.Utah: Police slow walked traffic stop without RS
- IA: Court ordered privilege review of search was at its expense
- D.Kan.: Preservation request under SCA isn’t a search or seizure
- UT: RS on a prior day was not RS for stop on day in question
- CA2: Ptf alleged invasion of privacy for 4A violation, and that’s enough
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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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--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) -
“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: October 2016
ABAJ: Oregon civil rights lawyer files First [and Fourth] Amendment suit over surveillance of his Twitter account
ABAJ: Oregon civil rights lawyer files First Amendment suit over surveillance of his Twitter account by Debra Cassens Weiss:
Center for Democracy and Technology: Supreme Court Should Speak Up on Cell Site Location Information
Center for Democracy and Technology: Supreme Court Should Speak Up on Cell Site Location Information by Natasha Duarte:
WaPo: The Volokh Conspiracy: The Fourth Amendment and email preservation letters
WaPo: The Volokh Conspiracy: The Fourth Amendment and email preservation letters by Orin Kerr:
MD: Cell phones are so commonly involved in crimes that it’s now relatively easy to get a SW for one
Defendant was charged with child pornography: “I. Does an affiant’s assertion that ‘individuals who participate in [sex or drug] crimes communicate via cellular telephones, via text messages, calls, e-mails etc.,’ without more, provide a substantial basis to issue a search … Continue reading
New law review article: Digital Duplications and the Fourth Amendment
Note, Digital Duplications and the Fourth Amendment, 129 Harv. L. Rev. 1046 (2016)
Offline when on the road maybe from the DoS system attacks
First a cert petition due 10/25 and on the road for two CLEs. Back with more tomorrow after the last CLE. My system guy said it worked in Little Rock, but it wasn’t from Atlanta. Now in DC for NACDL’s … Continue reading
NPR: It Ain’t Me, Babe: Researchers Find Flaws In Police Facial Recognition
NPR: It Ain’t Me, Babe: Researchers Find Flaws In Police Facial Recognition by Laura Sydell: Nearly half of all American adults have been entered into law enforcement facial recognition databases, according to a recent report from Georgetown University’s law school. … Continue reading
KS: A statute may grant more rights than the 4A and it should be followed
A statute may grant citizens more protection than the Fourth Amendment or the state constitution, and it must be followed. If state law is silent, then the Fourth Amendment or state constitution govern. City of Dodge City v. Webb, 2016 … Continue reading
WV: Def left jacket at friend’s house where he occasionally spent the night; no REP at the time of seizure
Defendant was an occasional overnight guest in the home of a friend. He left a jacket there in a common area, and the police seized it by the consent of the homeowner. Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in … Continue reading
S.D.Ind.: Driving on a dead end road at night was RS
“[I]t was reasonable for Deputy Kirby to stop a car that matched the description of the suspects’ vehicle which was traveling on a dead end road that is rarely used in the nighttime, to investigate further. This reasoning further supports … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Text messages provided nexus for SW for cell phone that produced CP
Defendant lived in the heated garage converted to a bedroom of a couple with two small children. One of the children said she was touched by defendant and they ordered him out of the house. Later, a search warrant was … Continue reading
KS: Where law changed between 2001 appeal and this one to def’s benefit, harmless error applied
In the second appeal from a 1996 murder, the Fourth Amendment law changed between the first appeal in 2001 and this one by the 2004 decision in Groh v. Ramirez. The court concludes that law of the case doesn’t apply, … Continue reading
MA: PC showing was close, but, essentially, ties go in support of the warrant
The trial court held that the affidavit for the search warrant did not show probable cause under Aguilar-Spinelli (still followed in Massachusetts), but the court of appeals disagrees and reverses. There were direct police observations that corroborated the informant’s story. … Continue reading
NPR: Police Facial Recognition Databases Log About Half Of Americans
NPR: Police Facial Recognition Databases Log About Half Of Americans: A new report from Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology says all it takes is a driver’s license to be included in the searchable databases. Rachel Martin talks to … Continue reading
NYTimes: Sunday Magazine: Feature: Should We See Everything a Cop Sees?
NYTimes: Sunday Magazine: Feature: Should We See Everything a Cop Sees? by Mackenzie Funk: Body cameras have been promoted as a solution to police misconduct. But the strange two-year saga of Seattle shows just how complicated total transparency can be.
TX10: State showed exigency for warrantless blood draw by necessary delay
The state showed exigency for a warrantless blood draw. Defendant was in a crash, and the trooper (the only one in the county) arrived an hour after the wreck, and defendant was already at the hospital. After investigating the scene, … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Affidavit for SW did not mention CP but SW did; seizure of CP suppressed
Defendant was a suspect in identity theft and failure to register as a sex offender. The search warrant affidavit supported those offenses, but it also included child pornography yet no facts supporting a search for child pornography. Once in the … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Police may rely on NCIC report of existence of arrest warrant to make arrest
Defense counsel was not ineffective for not challenging the entry into defendant’s hotel room to arrest him because it would have failed on the merits. Officers had an NCIC report of a warrant on defendant and they knew he was … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Coming out of drug house also known for guns was RS
Defendant’s coming out of a drug house was reasonable suspicion for a stop and frisk where it was known that drugs and guns had been seized there just a few months before. United States v. Williams, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading