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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)
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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 
Monthly Archives: January 2018
techdirt: Disrupting The Fourth Amendment: Half Of Law Enforcement E-Warrants Approved In 10 Minutes Or Less
techdirt: Disrupting The Fourth Amendment: Half Of Law Enforcement E-Warrants Approved In 10 Minutes Or Less by Tim Cushing:
CA5: PO’s information from DEA plus additional facts was RS for probation search
Defendant was on probation for a state drug offense, and he was a good probationer, so his PO was working toward early termination of probation. Then the DEA calls the PO that they suspect him of being involved in drug … Continue reading
ACLU: Does a US Warrant Extend to Data Held Abroad?
ACLU: Does a US Warrant Extend to Data Held Abroad? by Jennifer Stisa Granick: When the government wants a company in the United States to turn over private data stored in another country, which country’s laws apply? The Supreme Court … Continue reading
Law.com: California High Court Takes Up Criminal Defendant’s Bid for Private Facebook Posts
Law.com: California High Court Takes Up Criminal Defendant’s Bid for Private Facebook Posts by Ross Todd: The California Supreme Court has taken up a case that could determine if, how and when Facebook must turn over private user information about … Continue reading
D.Conn.: 2255 isn’t the remedy for return of property; it’s Rule 41(g)
Defense counsel isn’t ineffective for not appealing a conviction when the only real remedy he seeks is for return of property which would be by a Rule 41(g) motion which hasn’t been filed. Dismissed without prejudice. Green v. United States, … Continue reading
CA6: Precious metals dealers are “closely regulated business” for administrative inspection of records of purchases
The Ohio Precious Metals Dealers Act (PMDA) authorized warrantless records searches to locate stolen property, and the court finds that the limitations in the statute served as constitutionally adequate warrant substitutes. They applied only to licensed precious metals dealers, and … Continue reading
New Law Review Article: Surveillance Intermediaries
Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Surveillance Intermediaries, 71 Stan. L. Rev. 99 (2018). Abstract: Apple’s high-profile 2016 fight with the FBI, in which the company challenged a court order commanding it to help unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino … Continue reading
NYLJ: Judge Urges Action to Curb ‘Overbroad’ Digital Search Warrants
NYLJ: Judge Urges Action to Curb ‘Overbroad’ Digital Search Warrants by Andrew Denney: Overbroad search warrants for digital evidence are “all too common” in New York, are often green-lighted by busy judges who are focused on processing motions and are … Continue reading
New Law Review Article: “The Myth of Fourth Amendment Circularity”
Lior Strahilevitz & Matthew Kugler, The Myth of Fourth Amendment Circularity, 84 U. Chi L. Rev. 1747 (2017): “Our findings suggest that popular privacy expectations are far more stable than most judges and commentators have been assuming.” Meaning what? To … Continue reading
LATimes: Border Patrol agents spark anger after boarding bus in Florida to ask passengers for proof of citizenship
LATimes: Border Patrol agents spark anger after boarding bus in Florida to ask passengers for proof of citizenship by Jenny Jarvie:
OH: A policy to take arrestee’s purse to jail with her doesn’t grant power to inventory it
“This case addresses whether a law-enforcement agency’s policy that an arrestee’s personal effects must accompany the arrestee to jail can, on its own, justify the warrantless retrieval of an arrestee’s personal effects from a location that is protected under the … Continue reading
Forbes: 13 Factors To Consider With Smart Home Products
Forbes: 13 Factors To Consider With Smart Home Products by Forbes Technology Council:
In jury trial this week, so posts will be late
SCOTUS: QI immunity granted where there was arguable PC on the totality for arrests and no case in point saying there wasn’t
On the totality of circumstances, it was reasonable to infer probable cause to arrest plaintiffs for unlawful entry for being in an otherwise vacant building for a party. The actions of the partygoers suggested they knew they had no right … Continue reading
D. Md.: Def’s 2255 supplemental Franks challenge has a failure of a proffer of evidence
Defendant had a Franks challenge and lost. One 2255 claim is that if defense counsel investigated more, it would have been a better Franks motion, but he fails to state what else would have been found to make it better. … Continue reading
techdirt: Report Shows US Law Enforcement Routinely Engages In Parallel Construction
techdirt: Report Shows US Law Enforcement Routinely Engages In Parallel Construction by Tim Cushing:
W.D.N.C.: Delay of search to protect def’s property rights isn’t a constitutional violation
The officers were solicitous of defendant’s property rights and, because his car battery was dead, they waited to get it open rather than pry open the trunk, which they could have done. Their respecting his property rights isn’t hardly a … Continue reading