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Recent Posts
- W.D.N.Y.: Def had no standing in a place he wasn’t allowed to be on parole
- CA11: QI for FBI SWAT raiding wrong house at 3:30 am
- NYLJ: Analysis: Turnabout: Cell Site Location Information for the Defense
- CA11: QI in suicide by cop case
- CA11: Officer’s experience and opinions about CP collectors and retention of information is entitled to weight in PC determination
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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)
--Outline of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (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: February 2017
DE: Flight from a consensual encounter in a high crime area was RS
Defendant’s stop in a high crime area was consensual. Defendant, however, was acting like he was checking for a gun on his person, and then he fled. That gave the officers reasonable suspicion. Loat v. State, 2017 Del. LEXIS 70 … Continue reading
CA4: Pre-Rodriguez stop was valid under law at time
Rodriguez was decided after the stop, and the circuit recognized de minimus delays in the stop. Moreover, the stop is not calculated merely by time: “Under Digiovanni and other pre-Rodriguez cases, that Deputy McMurray may have been able to end … Continue reading
CA5: Detention on a “mental writ” was reasonable
“Holloway is a six-foot-six, former Mississippi State University offensive lineman who was in a car accident with a deputy near Hattiesburg in Lamar County, Mississippi.” Later, he was described as “formidable.” It turned out there was a “mental writ” issued … Continue reading
CA10: GFE saves general warrant where affidavit specific and affiant served the warrant
Where officers obtained a warrant and searched two cell phones seized at the time of defendant’s arrest, the search warrant was invalid because it did not satisfy the particularity requirement since it did not identify either of the phones that … Continue reading
CA8: Def had no standing in sex trafficking victim’s cell phone
Defendant sought to challenge his previously waived search issue by seeking to withdraw his guilty plea. The phone belonged to his sex trafficking victim, so he apparently doesn’t have standing. United States v. McHenry, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 3358 (8th … Continue reading
CA6: Hodari D. doesn’t distinguish between accidentally or intentionally dropping contraband; it’s still abandonment
Officers pulled up to stop defendant on the street seeing a gun in his pocket, and he fled, dropping the gun. “Defendant also argues that Hodari D. is inapplicable because he inadvertently dropped his weapon, as opposed to ‘intentionally abandoning’ … Continue reading
OH10: Bare bones findings didn’t support finding search was valid; remanded
The trial court’s bare bones findings were insufficient to support the conclusion that the search was valid. Remanded. State v. Edwards, 2016-Ohio-4771, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS 5413 (10th Dist. June 30, 2016). Not challenging the Playpen warrant in this case … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Dashcam video doesn’t support the conclusory basis for stop; suppressed
“The dash-cam video shows that Bourn was travelling at highway speed and there was moderate traffic on the highway. There is no evidence regarding the speed of the truck or other vehicles or the distance between Bourn’s vehicle and the … Continue reading
D.Alaska: Handcuffing def to take to FBI office for interview an arrest, no matter what the policy says
Handcuffing the defendant and transporting him to the FBI office was an arrest under Kaupp v. Texas. The fact that’s policy is irrelevant. “The fact that it is FBI policy to handcuff defendants being transported in FBI vehicles is irrelevant. … Continue reading
New Law Review Article: A Modern Major Statute: Illinois Raises the Bar in Protecting Citizen Privacy from Cell Site Simulators
New Law Review Article: Jeremy Greenberg, A Modern Major Statute: Illinois Raises the Bar in Protecting Citizen Privacy from Cell Site Simulators, 1 Geo. L. Tech. Rev. 147 (2016)
IN: Inventory not sufficiently regulated to be valid; also, officer’s deviation from inventory showed pretext
The search of defendant’s truck was not sufficiently regulated by standardized police procedures and therefore was pretextual, as the vague, conflicting inventory regime of the police department was not capable of sufficiently regulating the search. Even if it was, the … Continue reading
SC: No specific facts showed PC that drugs would be found at def’s house; CoA reversed
“More to the point, the assertions in the affidavit in this case contain no specific facts showing any connection between drug-related activity and 120 River Street after February 2009. See Tench, 353 S.C. at 534, 579 S.E.2d at 316; Kinloch, … Continue reading
CAAF: Military search authorization for laptop based on PC for cell phone was without PC or GFE
Defendant was accused of using his cell phone to take naked pictures of other soldiers in the shower and latrine. Defendant’s cell phone was on his rack with his laptop. The search authorization included defendant’s laptop, but there was no … Continue reading
Today is the 14th anniversary of this blog and the 256th of the argument in Paxton’s case, the Writs of Assistance case
See prior posts starting here: February 24, 1761, Old State House in Boston, second floor. The argument here. About 20,000 posts, which is 3.9 per day. I can’t give the real number because this is the third platform, and some … Continue reading
CA5 joins CA3: Florence strip search rule on jail intake applies to juveniles
The plaintiff’s daughter, a juvenile, was in a fight at school and was taken to juvenile detention. She was strip searched and subjected to a body cavity search yet was released fairly quickly. Partial summary judgment was granted the county … Continue reading
D.Ore.: Def stopped at roadblock from Malheur National Wildlife Refuge could be searched again after he went back to talk others into leaving
Defendant arrived at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January 2016. After arrests and the killing of one, he decided to leave and encountered a roadblock where he was briefly searched. Officers asked if he would go back to the … Continue reading
D.Conn.: Shots fired call is not per se exigency; totality standard must apply
A shots fired call is not carte blanche exigency–the totality of circumstances must still be examined. Here, the court finds no exigency for the warrantless entry or protective sweep and that the exclusionary rule should be applied. The costs aren’t … Continue reading
AP (via Ark. Democrat-Gazette): Amazon resists yielding data in slaying inquiry
AP (via Ark. Democrat-Gazette): Amazon resists yielding data in slaying inquiry: Amazon is resisting an effort by Arkansas prosecutors to obtain possible recordings from a slaying suspect’s Amazon Echo device, saying authorities haven’t established that their investigation is more important … Continue reading