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- Volokh: Do Fourth Amendment Protections Change When Property Is Moved?
- M.D.Pa.: Def was neither shipper nor recipient of USPS parcel, so he had no standing in it
- WI: Obtaining def’s DNA by ruse wasn’t an illegal search
- WaPo: Apple, Google and Venmo fight new U.S. plan to monitor payment apps
- CA4: Tracking order using cell site simulator with PC was reasonable
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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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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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"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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Monthly Archives: December 2016
N.D.Cal.: Conversations outside courthouse were entitled to REP [on reconsideration]
Surreptitious recordings outside the San Mateo courthouse of persons talking amongst themselves were entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy because they talked such that others could not overhear them except with planted recording devices. The court will conduct a … Continue reading
CA9: Def turned over cell phone by consent, but, even if not, it was searched with a warrant
Defendant handed over his telephone when it was requested [or demanded] by the police. The Fourth Amendment wasn’t violated because turning over the phone was by consent. Even if turning over the phone was nonconsensual, the cell phone was searched … Continue reading
NYLJ.com: Electronic GPS Tracking and the Fourth Amendment
NYLJ.com: Electronic GPS Tracking and the Fourth Amendment by Martin Flumenbaum & Brad S. Karp: In their Second Circuit Review column, Martin Flumenbaum and Brad S. Karp examine two decisions which appear to reflect the court’s growing interest in the … Continue reading
SW for Amazon Echo: USA Today: Alexa: Who dunnit?
USA Today: Alexa: Who dunnit? by Elizabeth Weise:
Leading candidate for case name of the year
United States v. Zachary Stanley Knows His Gun, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160429 (D.Mont. Nov. 2, 2016)
Treatise 30% off through 1/5 — semi annual supplements start 7/1
Instead of $473, it’s $331. Also, in a new program by Lexis, supplements to this book will be issued twice a year starting in June or July which also means the Lexis version of the book will be far more … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: Reasonable inference cell phone was used to set up meeting for sex with minor to get SW for phone
It was reasonable to infer that defendant’s cell phone was involved in defendant’s effort to set up a rendezvous for setting sex with a minor, so the search warrant for the phone was issued on probable cause. Even so, the … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Tossing gun in flight is abandonment even if the initial stop would have been unreasonable
Defendant’s tossing a gun in flight from the police is abandonment no matter how unreasonable the initial stop might have been. United States v. Jones, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 173592 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 14, 2016):
W.D.Mo.: Officers could rely on hotel manager’s apparent authority to consent to opening work locker
Defendant had a limited reasonable expectation of privacy in his hotel work locker and its contents, and officers got the manager to open it. It was reasonable for the officers to believe that the hotel manager had apparent authority over … Continue reading
D.V.I.: Telephonic warrant requirements were complied with and GFE didn’t apply
The telephonic search warrant here failed the requirements of Rule 41, including the verbatim reading of the warrant to the issuing judge, and didn’t mention that they also wanted to search a car that was omitted from the warrant. The … Continue reading
DE: CI reported arrest warrant for def so he was arrested; no warrant, however, so search incident was invalid
A CI told the police that defendant had a warrant for his arrest. Without checking, the police arrested. There was no warrant, and the search incident to arrest is void. State v. Rodriguez, 2016 Del. Super. LEXIS 642 (Dec. 21, … Continue reading
CA3: An apparent burglar has no REP or standing to challenge entry
“Martin testified that Lewis did not have a key to her home and did not have permission to be at her residence at the time of arrest. Because she did not leave Lewis in her home when she left, she … Continue reading
CA8: Visitor at apt complex can’t claim standing in parking lot as alleged curtilage
Defendant didn’t have standing to claim that police entry into an apartment building’s parking lot was entry onto the curtilage because he didn’t live there. [It’s not curtilage anyway.] A cousin did, and he was an occasional visitor. Officers shining … Continue reading
WA following McNeely holds that there is no per se exigency and refusal to take a breath test is admissible on question of guilt
Applying McNeely: “The district courts correctly rejected the State’s argument that alcohol dissipation constitutes exigency per se—exigency must be determined under the totality of circumstances, case by case. We hold that the implied consent statute does not authorize a warrantless … Continue reading
IL: Exclusionary rule does not apply to liquor license disciplinary proceeding arising from admin search
Petitioner had a liquor license in Chicago, and an inspection occurred under authority of state law and city ordinance. The permitted premises was the first floor, but he owned accessible property in the floors above. Upstairs, the officers found a … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Product of wiretap alone can produce PC for search of home, but here there was more
After a wiretap, police got search warrant for eight locations. Only defendant’s is at issue here, and he sought de novo review of the probable cause determination which he does not get. The affidavit for the search warrant showed probable … Continue reading
D.Haw.: Alleged illegal search by “marshals of the Kingdom of Atooi” was private search
A crate of marijuana was searched by “marshals of the Kingdom of Atooi,” a Polynesian kingdom within Hawai’i not otherwise described. Their search was not at insistence or with the acquiescence of the state or federal government, and it could … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Def’s refusal to show his hands wasn’t a seizure when he didn’t comply with it
Direction to defendant to show hands was not responded to, so there was no submission to authority and thus no seizure. United States v. Jones, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 171988 (W.D.N.Y. Dec. 13, 2016), rejecting, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 108477 … Continue reading
SC: Entry into backyard for knock-and-talk was really a search violating curtilage
Officers entered defendant’s backyard, the curtilage, to conduct what they called a “knock-and-talk,” but it was really a search by their own admission, and they violated the Fourth Amendment. The trial court was correct in finding the backyard curtilage and … Continue reading