Archives
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Recent Posts
- W.D.N.C.: No REP in a police interview room
- TX2: No SW needed to get IMEI number of an abandoned cell phone to trace the owner
- W.D.Pa.: Affidavit for SW doesn’t have to say CI was reliable when the facts and circumstances alleged showed it
- S.D.N.Y.: GJ subpoena for cell phone passcode quashed.
- S.D.N.Y.: There’s a privacy interest in a cell phone passcode, but its disclosure here under a ruse does not lead to suppression
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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
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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)
ACLU on privacy
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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 
Daily Archives: July 19, 2017
Lexology: Administrative Law Judge Winnows OFCCP’s Data Request [to Google]
Lexology: Administrative Law Judge Winnows OFCCP’s Data Request by William Hays Weissman:
PA: No REP in a gun hidden in ceiling tile at work that fell out
Officers came to the barber shop where defendant worked because of a call about a threat with a weapon. Defendant was in the bathroom, and one officer went to the door. Another went into the adjoining bathroom. Defendant put a … Continue reading
MN: Apt mgr’s ability to enter for maintenance purposes is not apparent authority to consent to a police search
An apartment manager’s ability to enter by law and by the lease for maintenance purposes does not give the manager or staff the ability to consent to a police entry. Here, a water leak brought maintenance who saw drug use … Continue reading
OH5: Citizen’s suspicious person call alone doesn’t support a stop
Other than a citizen’s telephone call, the officer admitted there was nothing about defendant that made him look suspicious or that he was up to no good. The stop and frisk was suppressed. State v. Hall, 2017-Ohio-5805; 2017 Ohio App. … Continue reading
TN: A BOLO may be RS
“‘“[A]n alert or BOLO report may provide the reasonable suspicion necessary to justify an investigatory stop.”’ Davila v. United States, 713 F.3d 248, 258 (5th Cir. 2013) (quoting United States v. Rodriguez, 564 F.3d 735, 742 (5th Cir. 2009)); see … Continue reading
techdirt: DOJ Tells Court There No Need To Establish A Warrant Requirement For Stingray Devices
techdirt: DOJ Tells Court There No Need To Establish A Warrant Requirement For Stingray Devices by Tim Cushing:
D.P.R.: Protective sweep of garage and upstairs was valid; plain view sustained, but search of closed bag suppressed
“[T]he court finds that extending the protective sweep to the garage and the second floor was within the bounds set forth by the Supreme Court in Buie and the First Circuit in United States v. Winston, 444 F.3d 115, 120 … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: Video doesn’t support stop; suppressed
The video belies the entire basis for the stop for speeding or swerving, and the court notes that the government previously dismissed three cases from the same officer for credibility issues. The court finds no basis for the stop and … Continue reading
If a hit on an LPN scanner is PC for a stop, so is one on a body camera: Naked Security: Police bodycams get tech that can identify “faces and people”
Naked Security: Police bodycams get tech that can identify “faces and people” by Lisa Vaas: Body cameras aimed at Police and other “public safety users” are getting outfitted with new abilities to identify things like stolen bicycles, missing children and … Continue reading
CA7: Controlled heroin buy led to drug warrant led to CP warrant
A drug raid on a convicted sex offender’s place found him with a half-naked 16 year old under the bed. She lied about her name and age, so the officers used their search warrant authorizing a search of cell phones … Continue reading
The Hill: GOP lawmaker blasts Sessions over asset forfeiture
The Hill: GOP lawmaker blasts Sessions over asset forfeiture by John Bowden: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Tuesday blasted Attorney General Jeff Sessions for announcing that the Justice Department would be increasing asset forfeiture around the country. In a statement … Continue reading
Law360: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo Needn’t Give Email Info To Gov’t
Law360: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo Needn’t Give Email Info To Gov’t by Shayna Posses: