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- Volokh: Do Fourth Amendment Protections Change When Property Is Moved?
- M.D.Pa.: Def was neither shipper nor recipient of USPS parcel, so he had no standing in it
- WI: Obtaining def’s DNA by ruse wasn’t an illegal search
- WaPo: Apple, Google and Venmo fight new U.S. plan to monitor payment apps
- CA4: Tracking order using cell site simulator with PC was reasonable
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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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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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"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: December 8, 2017
GIZMODO: Don’t Buy Anyone an Echo
GIZMODO: Don’t Buy Anyone an Echo by Adam Clark Estes: The newfound privacy conundrum presented by installing a device that can literally listen to everything you’re saying represents a chilling new development in the age of internet-connected things. By buying … Continue reading
MN: Search of guest’s purse under SW was reasonable on totality because it wasn’t on her when police entered and it could have been associated with premises
Search of a guest’s purse during execution of a search warrant was reasonable here under the totality of the circumstances. The target of the search was a woman, and a purse is commonly associated with women. When it was found, … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: Govt doesn’t get to reopen to address an issue it was told about at hearing and should have seen coming
The government filed a motion to reopen the suppression hearing after the court raised whether there was collective knowledge and the government didn’t respond. It should have seen this coming. “The Court cannot find good cause to reopen the evidentiary … Continue reading
VI: Evidence suppressed in another case couldn’t be used here as 404(b) evidence
Evidence suppressed in another case against defendant for a Fourth Amendment violation not admissible in this case as 404(b) evidence. People v. Walters, 2017 V.I. LEXIS 165 (Dec. 4, 2017). Defendant argued his arrest was unlawful but not that his … Continue reading
OH10: Def who drove away from home before SW was executed could not be searched away from the house
Defendant left his house before the search warrant arrived. Under Bailey, he could not be stopped and searched away from the house. State v. Muldrow, 2017-Ohio-8839, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 5272 (10th Dist. Dec. 5, 2017). There was reasonable suspicion … Continue reading
TN: Proving 4A IAC normally requires a witness
“‘If a petitioner alleges that trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to … file a motion to suppress … the petitioner is generally obliged to present the witness or the other evidence at the post-conviction hearing in … Continue reading
Rare.us: Horrific new bodycam footage shows what happens when a police K9 gets out of an officer’s control
Rare.us: Horrific new bodycam footage shows what happens when a police K9 gets out of an officer’s control by Patrick McMahon:
AlterNet: Wisconsin Governor Walker’s Plan to Drug Test Food Stamp Applicants Would Be Wasteful, Ineffective and Perhaps Unconstitutional
AlterNet: Wisconsin Governor Walker’s Plan to Drug Test Food Stamp Applicants Would Be Wasteful, Ineffective and Perhaps Unconstitutional by Widney Brown It’s yet another attempt to stigmatize and criminalize people living in poverty.
CA5: Greyhound bus interdiction at Conroe TX was not a checkpoint stop; defendant disclaimed bag and bus driver’s consent applied to it
A Greyhound bus interdiction at Conroe, Texas was not a checkpoint stop. Two plainclothes officers got on the bus and walked down the aisle. Defendant was feigning sleeping. He ultimately consented to a search of a bag over his head … Continue reading
MA: Search of vehicle outside territorial jurisdiction of officers was void; inevitable discovery rejected
The informant hearsay satisfied Aguilar-Spinneli and thus showed probable cause. The search incident of defendant’s person was thus justified. The search of a car in an adjoining town was unreasonable because there was no statutory authorization for it under state … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Sealed indictment attached to affidavit for SW helped show PC for issuance
The affidavit for the search warrant attached defendant’s sealed indictment. Together they showed probable cause. Defendant doesn’t get a Franks hearing because of the omission that he was in the military. United States v. Owens, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 199143 … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Any reasonable person on supervised release would know a computer search condition extended to a cell phone
Defendant was on supervised release, and he had a computer search condition. The court concludes that any reasonable person would understand a cell phone would be a “computer” for the search condition. In any event, it had already been searched … Continue reading