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- NY Queens: PC shown for SW blood drawn at hospital after car wreck
- CA7: Hotel room vacated by tenant could be searched by hotel management
- W.D.N.Y.: SW for devices used for video surveillance included cell phones because apps can be used to view cameras from cell phones
- CA3: PC for ptf’s arrest for punching a police horse
- D.N.M.: Three Franks challenges, one successful
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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,
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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)
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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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Daily Archives: September 14, 2017
OH: Def has no standing in place of another that he was arrested in, so Steagald provides him no relief
Defendant could not show he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the premises of a third person, although he was the person being looked for. The court discusses Steagald and the Ninth Circuit’s en banc Underwood (1983, Treatise §§ … Continue reading
KY: Search incident of a cell phone between Riley cert grant and decision was unreasonable; no binding authority in state, so no GFE
Defendant’s cell phone was subjected to a search incident for it’s data between the cert grant in Riley and the decision. Riley was a new rule and retroactive. There was no binding authority in Kentucky at the time, so the … Continue reading
ACLU and EFF sue over border searches of smartphones
WaPo: Agents are increasingly searching smartphones at the border. This lawsuit wants to limit that. Fortune: ACLU, EFF Sue to Stop Phone, Laptop Searches at the Border NYTimes: Forced Searches of Phones and Laptops at US Border Are Illegal, Lawsuit … Continue reading
Recorder: This California Bill Would Restrict Immigration Enforcement in State Courts
Recorder: This California Bill Would Restrict Immigration Enforcement in State Courts by Cheryl Miller: A Los Angeles lawmaker says he’ll pursue a bill in January that would bar federal immigration agents from arresting or questioning undocumented immigrants in state courthouses unless … Continue reading
Atlantic: Can Cops Force You to Unlock Your Phone With Your Face?
Atlantic: Can Cops Force You to Unlock Your Phone With Your Face? by Kevah Waddell: Apple’s new Face ID technology raises questions about constitutional protections for personal devices.
The Hill: Sessions, Coats push for permanent renewal of controversial surveillance law
The Hill: Sessions, Coats push for permanent renewal of controversial surveillance law by Katie Bo Williams The nation’s top law enforcement leader and top spy on Monday urged Senate and House leadership to permanently renew a widely used but controversial U.S. … Continue reading
OR: Global plea agreement to dispose of 40 charges from a crime spree wasn’t IAC where no motions to suppress were shown plausible and plea clearly favored defendant
After becoming addicted to opiods for treatment from a injury, defendant went on a crime spree committing over 40 offenses. His attorney worked out a favorable global resolution of the case. Once in the pen, with buyer’s remorse, defendant decided … Continue reading
CA6: Habeas claim was truly 4A based and barred by Stone v. Powell
2254 petitioner’s habeas claim was based solely on the Fourth Amendment and wasn’t at all a due process claim as he says. Thus, it’s bared by Stone v. Powell, and the COA is denied. Hoffman v. Harris, 2017 U.S. App. … Continue reading
Recorder: DOJ: Google Won’t Fight New Warrants for Overseas Data
Recorder: DOJ: Google Won’t Fight New Warrants for Overseas Data by Ben Hancock The development marks a reversal of the company’s legal strategy on the issue of law enforcement access to data stored abroad.
CA9: “What is probable cause?” “What do you want it to be?”
Under the totality of circumstances, there was probable cause to search defendant’s truck under the automobile exception. Judge Kozinski dissents, finding nothing remotely approaching probable cause and finding this a dangerous case for the citizenry. United States v. Faagai, 2017 … Continue reading
The Hill: Motel 6: We aren’t sending customer lists to ICE anymore
The Hill: Motel 6: We aren’t sending customer lists to ICE anymore\ by John Bowden Motel 6 announced it will stop sending customer lists to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Wednesday after its corporate office was made aware of the … Continue reading
Well, something’s wrong, but the answer is*:
All the posts since 8/29 disappeared since 9 am. I made ten today. Just gone. Update: Remember we were down two days? A new version of WordPress, and on new server with better security. The information is available on the … Continue reading
CA2: Inconclusive x-ray by SW for body-packing drugs didn’t dissipate the PC for the SW
Defendant was arrested with probable cause, which he concedes, and officers got a search warrant for x-rays to see if he had drugs hidden in his body (“body packing”). After the x-ray was inconclusive, defendant was detained longer. The probable … Continue reading
IN: Even if frisk was unreasonable, defs’ assault on officers wasn’t excludable
Defendants committed battery on police officer, a new crime, even if the frisk of the person was illegal, it’s the new crime is not excludable. K.C. v. State, 2017 Ind. App. LEXIS 387 (Sept. 8, 2017). The timeline belied exigency … Continue reading