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Recent Posts
- AR: RS def rented a hotel room was sufficient for search waiver; PC not required
- LA5: No standing to challenge search of shooting victim’s cell phone in def’s possession
- N.D.Okla.: Cell phones possessed by tribal police not subject to return under Rule 41(g)
- E.D.Ark.: Landlord and tenant refused rental property inspection and SW was validly issued and protected privacy interests
- D.D.C.: Judge shopping after denial of SW inappropriate; could have appealed to DJ
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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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--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)
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Monthly Archives: February 2017
D.P.R.: Officer’s testimony is just too convenient to be believed
In a remarkable opinion, the court finds the officer’s testimony just too convenient and, thus, incredible and suppresses the seizure by an alleged plain view. Also, the plain view required manipulation, and that’s not plain view. United States v. Mata-Peña, … Continue reading
FL1: Arrest for invited use of school track for exercise was without PC
Defendant was arrested without probable cause for using a school track for exercise. Despite a school no trespassing sign, there were signs inviting public use of the track and every school patron, neighbor, and police officer apparently knew it except … Continue reading
TX11: Smell of MJ from car and def’s person justified search of both
The smell of marijuana coming from a car and then defendant’s person when he got out is probable cause to search both. Defendant said he smoked all the marijuana five hours before the stop. Then he was found chewing it, … Continue reading
FL2: Cloud of smoke coming from a group gives PC as to no one person without more
“Simply put, the odor of marijuana emanating from a group cannot, by itself, form the basis of a lawful detention of any particular member of that group. Nor can the fact that each member of the group engulfed in ‘billowing … Continue reading
FL2: Def has standing in a package shipped to him under an assumed name
Defendant stated enough to get a hearing on his post-conviction claim that his defense counsel didn’t properly pursue a motion to suppress a package shipped to him under an assumed name, giving him standing in the package, on the ground … Continue reading
WaPo: Can federal agents detain citizens at border checkpoints until they disclose their smartphone passcodes?
WaPo: Can federal agents detain citizens at border checkpoints until they disclose their smartphone passcodes? by Orin Kerr: The Verge has a story about the recent border-crossing experience of a U.S. citizen, Sidd Bikkannavar, who is an employee at NASA’s … Continue reading
Treatise is 25% off through 2/17 midnight PT
Treatise is 25% off through 2/17 midnight PT here.
New York Magazine: Watching Donald Trump Try to Puzzle Out What ‘Asset Forfeiture’ Means Is Deeply Discomfiting
New York Magazine: Watching Donald Trump Try to Puzzle Out What ‘Asset Forfeiture’ Means Is Deeply Discomfiting by Jesse Singal:
Alternet (via Salon): One nation, under cops: 3 reasons to believe America could become a police state under Trump
Alternet (via Salon): One nation, under cops: 3 reasons to believe America could become a police state under Trump by Alexandra Rosenmann A civil rights attorney weighs in on “Big Picture” with Thom Hartmann
IA: Def’s father’s search of his stuff was objectively as a concerned parent, not as a LEO so it’s a private search
Defendant’s stepfather was a Davenport police officer, and, off-duty, he searched defendant’s property twice and turned it over to the police. The detail of his actions show him acting as a concerned parent, not as a law enforcement officer. Therefore, … Continue reading
IA: A claim of officer safety has to be objectively justified by the record; Rodriguez followed under state constitution
Iowa adopts Rodriguez under state constitution after a lengthy comparison of its own cases and cases from around the country. A claim of officer safety has to be objectively justified by the record; merely stating it doesn’t make it so. … Continue reading
ID: Implied consent remains an exception to the warrant requirement under McNeely
Implied consent remains an exception to the warrant requirement under McNeely. State v. Ortega-Vastida, 2017 Ida. App. LEXIS 15 (Feb. 9, 2017):
CA10: Officers pulled up next to def walking along road and finally told him to stop; this was a seizure without RS
Defendant was walking down the street at night and a police car pulled up beside him and officers were talking to him as he walked. Finally they told him to stop. This was a seizure for which there was no … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Def’s evasive movements near and shortly after a shooting call was RS
Defendant’s evasive movements near and shortly after a shooting call that at least partially matched him was reasonable suspicion. “The sum of the information available to the officers when they decided to stop Porter gave them reasonable suspicion that he … Continue reading
NY4: Search of cell phone for texts led to SW; not inevitable discovery because SW sought because of illegal search
Defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights in his cell phone text messages were violated by the police searching them without a warrant. The fact they got a warrant later didn’t help them because that was the only reason to search the phone, … Continue reading
VA: Jardines not retroactive on state habeas review
Defendant’s conviction was final ten months before Jardines was decided by SCOTUS. “Therefore, because the controlling legal landscape when Oprisko’s conviction became final did not dictate that use of a drug-sniffing dog within the curtilage of private property was a … Continue reading
WI: Probation condition against possession of a computer gives the PO power to search one found
Defendant had arson and sex offender convictions, and a term of probation was no computers without approval. They found a computer with live modems at his house, and he denied that the big computer worked, but he had a laptop. … Continue reading
Baltimore Sun: Aerial surveillance by Baltimore police has promise, should be studied more, report concludes
Baltimore Sun: Aerial surveillance by Baltimore police has promise, should be studied more, report concludes by Kevin Rector:
Tenth Amendment Center: Arizona Committee Passes Bill to Prohibit Warrantless Stingray Spying
Tenth Amendment Center: Arizona Committee Passes Bill to Prohibit Warrantless Stingray Spying by Mike Maharry: PHOENIX, Ariz, (Feb. 10, 2017) – An Arizona bill that would ban the use of “stingrays” to track the location of phones and sweep up … Continue reading