Archives
-
Recent Posts
- techdirt: The Problems Of The NCMEC CyberTipline Apply To All Stakeholders
- W.D.Ark.: Parole search waiver moots lack of PC argument
- AR: RS shown for boating while intoxicated stop
- W.D.Mo.: Wrong address in SW wasn’t fatal where right house was searched
- NY: Failure to show independent source for officer’s observation of def required reversal
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2017); ABA Journal Blawg 100 (2015-16) (discontinued 2018)
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
-
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
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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 
Monthly Archives: November 2017
D.Me.: Sex offender on parole/probation subject to suspicionless search of computer
Defendant was a sex offender on probation after prison, and he had a search condition. The police and probation had information that he had child pornography on his computer. A probation search of an SD card revealed the child pornography. … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Def was evicted once arrested and couldn’t go back to apt; landlord’s gathering stuff was a private search, and papers were made available to police
After defendant’s arrest, the landlord evicted him and gathered up his stuff. The police got the paperwork from the apartment from the landlord, and some of it was incriminating. Because the police didn’t instigate the landlord evicting him other than … Continue reading
FourthAmendment.com named to ABA Journal’s Web 100 top law blogs for third year
ABAJ: Welcome to the 2017 ABA Journal Web 100 by Andrew Lefkowitz, Sarah Mui and Stephen Rynkiewicz. For the last ten years, it was called the ABA Journal’s Blawg 100. The name was changed this year to include podcasts, twitter … Continue reading
The Hill: Clock ticking down on NSA surveillance powers
The Hill: Clock ticking down on NSA surveillance powers by Katie Bo Williams:
NYTimes: ICE’s Courthouse Arrests Undercut Democracy
NYTimes: ICE’s Courthouse Arrests Undercut Democracy by César Cuauhtémoc and García Hernández:
Michigan Daily: Libertarians protest roadside drug-testing program
Stunning, the chutzpa of the Michigan State Police: Michigan Daily: Libertarians protest roadside drug-testing program by Leah Graham:
NYTimes: How a Radio Shack Robbery Could Spur a New Era in Digital Privacy
NYTimes: How a Radio Shack Robbery Could Spur a New Era in Digital Privacy by Adam Liptak It could also seal the fate of our lack of right to privacy in information unless Congress acts. Considering all the FISA posturing … Continue reading
WaPo (Opinion): The Supreme Court’s privacy precedent is outdated
WaPo (Opinion): The Supreme Court’s privacy precedent is outdated by Stephen H. Sachs: (Stephen H. Sachs was Maryland attorney general from 1979 to 1987.)
D.Md.: Because of state decrim, a trash pull that merely shows def was a user isn’t PC of trafficking
In a marijuana decriminalization state, merely finding evidence of marijuana usage, not trafficking, wasn’t probable cause for a search warrant even under Gates or the good faith exception. United States v. Lyles, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 193030 (D. Md. Nov. … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Def’s quibbling in a Franks challenge is insufficient: “I’m just a ‘drug dealer’ not a ‘drug trafficker.’”
Defendant is quibbling rather than making a bona fide Franks argument that he was arraigned 11 times not 10 on other drug cases and that he was a “drug trafficker” when he insists he is just a “drug dealer.” One … Continue reading
D.Neb.: 24 minutes for a stop wasn’t unreasonable under Rodriguez where officer didn’t do anything other than wait for a response on his criminal history check request
Whether a stop was too long for Rodriguez can be fact-bound. Here, while it was all 24 minutes for the criminal history check with the delay in getting information back, the officer wasn’t talking to or questioning the defendant. “The … Continue reading
CA5: COA granted on whether District Court should have held a hearing on IAC claim, but pet’r didn’t brief it. Affirmed.
“Our court granted Pryor a COA on one issue: whether the district court abused its discretion in denying Rule 60(b) relief from the denial of his § 2255 motion, by refusing to consider pages missing from his affidavit in opposition … Continue reading
Vice News: How cops hack into your phone without a warrant
Vice News: How cops hack into your phone without a warrant by y Isabella McKinley Corbo [re: Carpenter]: Right now, a murky web of federal and state statutes determine how easily cops can access data on Americans’ cell phones. While … Continue reading
AP (via ABC): Does cellphone-sweeping ‘StingRay’ technology go too far?
AP (via ABc): Does cellphone-sweeping ‘StingRay’ technology go too far? by Colleen Long:
PA: POs have authority to search visitors in parolee’s house at time of parole visit with RS
“[P]arole agents have the authority to conduct a protective Terry frisk of non-parolees within the course of executing their statutorily imposed duties, so long as reasonable suspicion supports the agents’ conduct.” Here, POs entered the parolee’s house for a visit … Continue reading
CA6: Litigating and losing a search issue in state court estops a federal claim over same issue
Collateral estoppel applied where defendant lost on his search issue in state court so he could not litigate it in federal court. Also, he claimed a Franks violation that the officers misled the issuing magistrate, but that was not factually … Continue reading
CA3: Citation or summons is not an “arrest” in common usage or in the single arrest situations in application of the U.S.S.G.
A citation or summons is not an “arrest” in common usage or in the single arrest situations in application of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. United States v. Ley, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 23637 (3d Cir. Nov. 22, 2017). Defendant didn’t … Continue reading