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- E.D.Ky.: When court can’t tell the dog alerted, motion to suppress granted
- OH1: A malnourished child isn’t exigency for an infant
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- D.Me.: Looking around house when allegedly “freezing” it was an illegal search
- OR: Police listening to attorney-client jail calls because attorney calls not properly segregated leads to dismissal of some counts and setting aside guilty plea
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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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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)
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Monthly Archives: June 2017
W.D.Mo.: Illegal Terry frisk led to subsequent searches after arrest warrant found; no suppression under Strieff
Defendant’s Terry frisk was invalid, but the existence of a warrant for his arrest requires that the subsequent searches not be suppressed under Strieff. United States v. Sisco, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94761 (W.D. Mo. Jan. 11, 2017), adopted, 2017 … Continue reading
TX9: Texas provides no exclusionary remedy for illegal search and seizure in forfeiture cases
Texas provides no exclusionary remedy for illegal search and seizure in forfeiture cases. $102,450.00 in United States Currency v. State, 2017 Tex. App. LEXIS 5761 (Tex. App. – Beaumont June 22, 2017):
S.D.Cal.: Probation search waiver can’t be relied on when officers didn’t know about it at time of search
In a civil case relying on a probation search, “‘[a] Fourth Amendment search waiver cannot provide a justification for a search of a probationer where the officers were unaware of the waiver before they undertook the search.’ United States v. … Continue reading
D.Conn.: SW for drugs in house supported plain view of gun under mattress
There was evidence linking defendant’s alleged drug offenses to his home, so the warrant for his home was justified. A drug search is intensive, and the gun found under a mattress was in plain view. United States v. Reyes, 2017 … Continue reading
M.D.N.C.: SW for stolen tractor lawn mower didn’t support plain view in house of firearm
A search warrant for a stolen tractor lawn mower didn’t support a plain view in defendant’s house for alleged illegal firearms because they aren’t per se unlawful to possess. They could have been registered. United States v. White, 2017 U.S. … Continue reading
CA5: Video of police shooting shows it was justified, so QI shown
Parents alleged Fourth Amendment violations under § 1983 in the fatal shooting of their son by a police officer. Based upon a bystander’s video of the incident, a reasonable officer in defendant’s position could have concluded that the son posed … Continue reading
PA: Nervousness alone isn’t reasonable suspicion
Nervousness alone isn’t reasonable suspicion. Commonwealth v. Morrison, 2017 PA Super 194, 2017 Pa. Super. LEXIS 456 (June 21, 2017). Officers plainly had probable cause to search defendant’s apartment, as the affidavit for the search warrant application stated that there … Continue reading
CBS News: What is the future of privacy, surveillance and policing technologies under Trump?
CBS News: What is the future of privacy, surveillance and policing technologies under Trump? by Kathryn Watson:
CA3: Search of prison cell didn’t violate 4A
The search of plaintiff’s prison cell and confiscation of some of his stuff wasn’t a Fourth Amendment violation. Barndt v. Wenerowicz, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 10754 (3d Cir. June 19, 2017).* The officer here saw a vehicle parked outside a … Continue reading
OH3: Several months of pole camera surveillance violated no REP
Pole camera surveillance for several months from a telephone pole across from defendant’s house violated no Fourth Amendment expectation of privacy. The view of his house was no different than could be seen by any passersby. State v. Thomas, 2017-Ohio-4356, … Continue reading
CA9: LAPD’s and California’s 30 day vehicle impoundment policy violates 4A
LAPD’s and the State of California’s policy of requiring all impounded vehicles be held 30 days violates the Fourth Amendment. Plaintiff loaned her car to her brother-in-law who was arrested for a suspended license, and the car was impounded. She … Continue reading
Investor’s Business Daily: Betsy McCaughey: How Privacy Purists Are Helping Criminals [No they’re not and she doesn’t get how it all works.]
Investor’s Business Daily: Betsy McCaughey: How Privacy Purists Are Helping Criminals:
GA: No standing in phone subscriber records to a phone that’s not in his name
Defendant consented to giving his phone to the police. During his interview, he picked up the phone and was manipulating it, and the officers took it away from him until they could get a search warrant. This was reasonable [and … Continue reading
CA8: Def retreating from a threshold arrest creates exigency
Defendant came to the doorway of his camper to be arrested, but he “retreated” and turned to go back inside with the officer still holding on to him. A look for a gun, finding one, was reasonable under Santana. United … Continue reading
CA9: Hotel room was def’s “premises” and the parole search was reasonable
A hotel room rented by defendant’s girlfriend where they checked in as a couple was defendant’s “premises.” There was probable cause to believe it was defendant’s premises and under his control because his clothes were inside, and the girlfriend said … Continue reading
SCOTUS: Bivens actions must be extended by Congress, and QI applies
Bivens actions beyond what the Supreme Court has already found must be found by Congress and not the courts. Qualified immunity applies as in 1983 actions: “The qualified-immunity inquiry turns on the ‘objective legal reasonableness’ of the official’s acts, Harlow … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Possible violation of state law doesn’t mean exclusion in federal court
The CI’s identity was not kept secret, and there was probable cause for the search warrant. The affidavit was not bare bones. The possible violation of state law isn’t shown to be of constitutional magnitude for exclusion of evidence in … Continue reading
CA7: No qualified immunity for seizure of pft’s vehicles from his yard by code enforcement officers
The seizure of plaintiff’s vehicles off his property without an opportunity to defend against it was an unreasonable seizure. Defendants don’t get qualified immunity. There was no action in court for plaintiff to resort to, so Rooker-Feldman doesn’t apply. Hamilton … Continue reading
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Mapp v. Ohio decided 56 years ago today
Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961), on application of the exclusionary rule to the states decided 56 years ago today. Ironically, the exclusionary rule issue wasn’t even argued in the briefs, as noted by the dissent, id. at 676-77. … Continue reading