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Recent Posts
- W.D.Ark.: Parole search waiver moots lack of PC argument
- AR: RS shown for boating while intoxicated stop
- W.D.Mo.: Wrong address in SW wasn’t fatal where right house was searched
- NY: Failure to show independent source for officer’s observation of def required reversal
- VA: Outline of a gun in def’s pocket was RS
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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)
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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 
Monthly Archives: February 2017
The Atlantic: Papers, Please | passengers on a domestic flight ordered to produce ID to prove who they were
The Atlantic: Papers, Please by Garrett Epps:
CNN: Sources: Trump signed off on checking White House staffers’ phones
CNN: Sources: Trump signed off on checking White House staffers’ phones by Jeff Zeleny and Daniella Diaz: President Donald Trump signed off on press secretary Sean Spicer’s decision to check aides’ cell phones to make certain they weren’t communicating with … Continue reading
Law.com/The Recorder: Fighting Echo Warrant, Amazon Has Scant Law to Draw On
Law.com/The Recorder: Fighting Echo Warrant, Amazon Has Scant Law to Draw On by Ben Hancock: The showdown over access to data recorded by the Amazon ‘smart’ device is pushing the limits of traditional First Amendment and Fourth Amendment principles.
CA10 doesn’t defer to police: Travel plans were not implausible in context and did not support reasonable suspicion
Defendant’s speeding stop was valid, but the detention was unnecessarily long and without reasonable suspicion. The dog alert came too late after consent refused. The travel plans were not implausible at all in context and did not support reasonable suspicion. … Continue reading
N.M.I.: Can you overcome officer’s credibility questions by calling it a “reasonable mistake of fact”?
Even if the trial court were to credit the defendant’s version that his sudden lane change was to dodge a puddle or a dog, the officer didn’t see a puddle or dog, just the lane change and that made the … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Affiant officers in drug cases don’t have to be chemistry experts to state conclusions about drugs
The affiant officers stated conclusions about the chemistry of some of the drugs in the 24 search warrants issued in this case. The law doesn’t require they be chemistry majors, experts, or Walter White to state those conclusions when the … Continue reading
NYLJ: Indefinite Gag Orders Under the Stored Communications Act
NYLJ: Indefinite Gag Orders Under the Stored Communications Act by Peter A. Crusco:
New Book: H-Net, The Fourth Amendment in an Age of Surveillance
New Book: H-Net, The Fourth Amendment in an Age of Surveillance by David C. Gray Publisher: Cambridge University Press Publication Date: 4/30/2017
D.Colo.: Collective knowledge doctrine does not require that the officer requesting a stop actually tell the other officers the reason why
The collective knowledge doctrine does not require that the officer requesting a stop actually tell the other officers the reason why. United States v. Rubio-Sepulveda, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23866 (D. Colo. Feb. 21, 2017):
E.D.Tex.: Cell phone + drug case = PC to search cell phone
Drug dealers commonly use cell phones to ply their trade, and that was stated in the affidavit for the search warrant. The USMJ signed the warrant for cell phones, too. Accordingly, the search warrant was executed in good faith. United … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: SI valid for open container violation
Defendant was stopped by a tribal officer for speeding. He smelled of alcohol, and there were apparent minors in the car. The officer had defendant get out of the car and two open containers were seen. A search incident to … Continue reading
WaPo: The used car that came with a special option: A GPS device secretly installed by the police
WaPo: The used car that came with a special option: A GPS device secretly installed by the police by Orin Kerr:
techdirt: Judge: FBI’s NIT Warrant Invalid And IP Addresses Do Have An Expectation Of Privacy, But No Suppression Granted
techdirt: Judge: FBI’s NIT Warrant Invalid And IP Addresses Do Have An Expectation Of Privacy, But No Suppression Granted by Tim Cushing: Thanks to the FBI’s one-to-many NIT warrant, which was issued in Virginia but reached thousands of computers all … Continue reading
CO: SW for things that could transmit pictures to a computer fairly included a digital camera
The search warrant was for digital images and was for computers, storage media, and things that could transmit pictures to the computer. That fairly included defendant’s digital camera. People v. Raehal, 2017 COA 18, 2017 Colo. App. LEXIS 199 (Feb. … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Govt responds it won’t use evidence seized at trial so motion for return of property or to suppress granted
The government seized defendant’s iPad and but didn’t search it because they didn’t have a password. Finally, they decided not to attempt to use it as evidence, so the motion for return of property is granted. The government didn’t intend … Continue reading
Law.com: Eleventh Circuit Questions Calhoun’s Challenge of Injunction on Indigent Bail
Law.com Daily Report: Eleventh Circuit Questions Calhoun’s Challenge of Injunction on Indigent Bail by R. Robin McDonald: Lawyers representing the city of Calhoun appeared Thursday before a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit seeking to … Continue reading
TN: Def’s post-conviction burden is to show that the motion to suppress would have prevailed
On a post-conviction petition that defense counsel was ineffective, the defense has to put on proof to show that there is some reason to believe that the motion to suppress would have been granted if it had been pursued at … Continue reading
OR: Automobile exception applies to any lawful stop where PC of a crime develops
The automobile exception applies when a vehicle is lawfully stopped for any reason and then probable cause develops. State v. Bliss, 283 Ore. App. 833, 2017 Ore. App. LEXIS 256 (Feb. 23, 2017). Defendant requested a meeting with the police … Continue reading