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Recent Posts
- S.D.Ohio: Defense of denial of possession in drug case meant no assertion of standing to challenge the search, so no IAC
- N.D.Okla.: Anticipatory tracking warrant for money counter is without authority and nexus is speculative even if not
- CA9: Supervised release condition of financial disclosure permitted under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) and didn’t violate 4A
- N.D.Ohio: Refusing discovery on 4A grounds in forfeiture case results in no standing
- thedrive.com: Police Are Tagging Fleeing Cars With GPS Darts to Avoid Dangerous Pursuits
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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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"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: August 2017
arstechnica: ICE: We don’t use stingrays to locate undocumented immigrants
arstechnica: ICE: We don’t use stingrays to locate undocumented immigrants by Cyrus Farivar: The acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency charged with deportations, has confirmed in a new letter that it does not use cell-site … Continue reading
Infosecurity: DoJ Subject to Strict Oversight in Anti-Trump Site Investigation
Infosecurity: DoJ Subject to Strict Oversight in Anti-Trump Site Investigation by Phil Muncaster:
Weekly Standard: Protecting Privacy; How the Fourth Amendment can keep up with high-tech surveillance.
Weekly Standard: Protecting Privacy; How the Fourth Amendment can keep up with high-tech surveillance by Matthew Feeney:
N.D.Cal.: Use of a Stingray to track a phone is a search requiring a warrant, except in exigent circumstances
Use of a Stingray is a “search” and requires a warrant. The court notes the differing approaches of the courts, but this court has already weighed in in favor of the citizen. “Accordingly, the court determines that a warrant was … Continue reading
Electronics 360: Smart Devices Versus Privacy
Electronics 360: Smart Devices Versus Privacy by Tony Pallone:
AK: Trooper’s call to PO about what he’d seen justified PO having trooper do probation search
The Alaska State Trooper called defendant’s probation officer and “told the probation officer that Bradford had needle marks on his arm, that Bradford had confessed to recent use of heroin, and that he was driving without a license. Therefore, the … Continue reading
DE: Def doesn’t have to be named as a suspect for a SW to be valid because it’s a search for things which could be evidence
“It is Defendant’s burden to prove the warrant is unsupported by probable cause. Defendant has not met this burden. The search warrant was issued solely for the vehicle. Whether Defendant was a suspect at the time of the application for … Continue reading
The ‘Smart’ Fourth Amendment, 102 Cornell L. Rev. 547 (2017)
The ‘Smart’ Fourth Amendment, 102 Cornell L. Rev. 547 (2017) by Andrew Guthrie Ferguson. Abstract:
C.D.Cal.: Under collective knowledge doctrine, the officer making the stop doesn’t need to know the PC
There was probable cause from collective knowledge for defendant’s stop and the search of his vehicle for a hidden compartment with drugs, even though the stopping officer didn’t know what it was. United States v. Isshpunani, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
We already know the Executive Branch doesn’t respect the Fourth Amendment, but …
A serial violator of the Fourth Amendment is called a “great American patriot” by a President who recently encouraged police to use excessive force. And the SCOTUS hates the exclusionary rule, and Congress won’t update any privacy laws. Who will … Continue reading
Oxford Univ. Press: How private are your prescription records?
Oxford Univ. Press: How private are your prescription records? by Leslie Francis and John Francis:
ME: Officer’s crossing city limits in pursuit, even if a violation of statute, didn’t violate 4A
Even if the officer violated state law on his territorial jurisdiction, following defendant across the city limits into another town to make a traffic stop didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment and there is no reason to apply the exclusionary rule. … Continue reading
Law.com: What the DreamHost/DOJ Battle Says About Search Warrants in the Digital Age
Law.com: What the DreamHost/DOJ Battle Says About Search Warrants in the Digital Age by Rhys Dipshan:
OH10: Extraterritorial arrest didn’t violate state statute
Defendant’s extraterritorial arrest within the state did not violate state law. Remanded and the state constitutional question can be raised again. State v. Roby, 2017-Ohio-7331, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 3622 (10th Dist. Aug. 24, 2017). “In this case, Mincey does … Continue reading
Forbes: What The Fight Between DreamHost And The DOJ Means For Technology And Freedom
Forbes: What The Fight Between DreamHost And The DOJ Means For Technology And Freedom by Frank Miniter:
NY Times: DreamHost Ordered to Release Some Trump Protest Website Data to U.S.
NY Times: DreamHost Ordered to Release Some Trump Protest Website Data to U.S. by Tiffany Hsu A Superior Court judge in Washington on Thursday ordered the web hosting company DreamHost to turn over data associated with a Trump protest website to … Continue reading
The Hill: Verizon reports spike in government requests for cell ‘tower dumps’
The Hill: Verizon reports spike in government requests for cell ‘tower dumps’ by Katie Bo Williams Government requests for the mass disclosure of every caller who connected to a particular cellphone tower have spiked during the first half of 2017, … Continue reading
CA10: Criminal history questions during a traffic stop reveal no more than the computer check would and aren’t unreasonable
It wasn’t unreasonable for the officer to ask criminal history questions during a traffic stop because the computer check would reveal the same information. Travel plan questions didn’t extend the stop, and defendant’s gun was seen when he got out … Continue reading
PA: Random suspicionless stops of boats on inland waters for safety inspection is unreasonable
Surveying apparently all the cases and statutes, Pennsylvania decides that random suspicionless stops of boats violate both the Fourth Amendment and the state constitution. The court distinguishes stops on the open seas upheld in United States v. Villa monte-Marquez. “Thus, … Continue reading