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- NE: LEO’s statutory jurisdictional authority is not an unreasonable search and seizure question
- MA: Cell phone call logs don’t require a search warrant
- D.Kan.: Drug dog touching car door handle with nose isn’t unreasonable search
- D.N.M.: DEA’s failure to make a detailed inventory in violation of policy doesn’t require exclusion of evidence
- WaPo: These cities bar facial recognition tech. Police still found ways to access it.
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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)
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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: March 2018
NJ: Police break-in into apartment building common hallway violated REP
In 2010, police broke into the outer door of a two unit apartment building and looked in defendant’s open door. By then, the state courts had already held there was a reasonable expectation of privacy in the common hallway of … Continue reading
CA8: No standing to challenge a DEA administrative subpoena just used to identify his storage unit for a dog sniff
Defendant had no standing to complain that a DEA administrative subpoena was used to identify the storage unit that was his so the DEA could use a drug dog on his storage unit. Defendant’s plain error argument that a tracking … Continue reading
D.Ore.: SW for all emails for 6½ months was overbroad; it could be narrowed for word search
A search warrant to Google for all emails from the target’s accounts from October 1, 2016 to April 14, 2017 was overbroad. It was a sex trafficking investigation, but the request can be narrowed because Google can word search and … Continue reading
W.D.La.: Use of key fob to find def’s car in Walmart parking lot wasn’t unreasonable search
Using defendant’s key fob to find his car in a Walmart parking lot was not an unreasonable search because there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in which car was his, following United States v. Cowan, 674 F.3d 947 (8th … Continue reading
OH8: A pill bottle search wasn’t plain view during execution of SW for firearms
The police had a search warrant for firearms, and, during execution of the warrant, the officers looked in a pill bottle. The state’s plain view argument is unavailing because it wasn’t immediately apparent to the officers. “We further find little … Continue reading
OH8: Trash pull helped corroborate informant hearsay
The police received informant hearsay, and sought to corroborate it, and a trash pull did it. State v. Rieves, 2018-Ohio-955, 2018 Ohio App. LEXIS 1021 (8th Dist. Mar. 15, 2018). The town’s housing inspection scheme is reasonable under the Fourth … Continue reading
D.D.C.: SW for WhatsApp account doesn’t require the cell phone number to be valid
The USMJ’s ruling that a cell phone number is also required for a pen register/track and trace order on a WhatsApp account is incorrect. All the government needs is the WhatsApp account number because the cell phone number isn’t even … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Chiropractor’s co-def in insurance fraud had no standing in the clinic’s records or chiro’s phone
Defendant was a co-defendant with Schultz, a chiropractor, charged with false insurance claims. “The Court concludes that Defendant Hassan does not have standing to challenge the evidence obtained from Defendant Schulz because Defendant Hassan did not have a reasonable expectation … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Seizure of emails implicated A-C privilege and are subject to suppression
The defendant raised attorney-client privilege against the seizure of emails to lawyers and then CPAs retained by his tax lawyers. The former was determined to be waived. The latter, however, remained privileged. United States v. Adams, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
WA: State const. requires nexus between parole violation and scope of probation search
“It is well established that an individual on probation has a reduced expectation of privacy, and a community corrections officer (CCO) may conduct a warrantless search if he or she suspects the individual has violated a probation condition. The issue … Continue reading
TechCrunch: Report: Police are now asking Google for data about all mobile devices close to certain crimes
TechCrunch: Report: Police are now asking Google for data about all mobile devices close to certain crimes by Connie Loizos:
Today is the 55th anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright
Gideon v. Wainwright was decided 55 years ago today. Thank you to the Public Defenders of America.
WaPo: After his family died, he threatened to kill himself. So the police took his guns.
WaPo: After his family died, he threatened to kill himself. So the police took his guns. By Eli Saslow:
ME: Entry on curtilage for “security check” just before SW issued was inevitable discovery
Officers arrested defendant’s housemate at a motel for attempting to buy oxycontin. Somehow, not described, this led to probable cause to search her house. While other officers were obtaining a search warrant, two officers went to the house for a … Continue reading
CA9: Pro se ptf’s allegation that the officers “beat the crap out of” him was not too vague and conclusory to support an excessive force claim
“[T]he allegation that the officers ‘beat the crap out of’ plaintiff was [not] too vague and conclusory to support a legally cognizable claim. The panel held that plaintiff’s use of a colloquial, shorthand phrase made plain that he was alleging … Continue reading
NPR: Critics Concerned About Privacy Issues As Biometric Scanning Increases
NPR: Critics Concerned About Privacy Issues As Biometric Scanning Increases by Brian Naylor: The government is steadily increasing the use of facial or biometric scanning at the nation’s airports. Airlines say it can speed the boarding process, but critics say … Continue reading
The Hill: FBI supervisor warned Comey in 2014 that warrantless surveillance program was ineffective
The Hill: FBI supervisor warned Comey in 2014 that warrantless surveillance program was ineffective by John Solomon & Alison Spann: An official who supervised the FBI’s Section 215 warrantless phone surveillance program revealed by Edward Snowden in 2013 says he … Continue reading
Law 360: Rights Groups Say CLOUD Act Tramples Civil Liberties
Law 360: Rights Groups Say CLOUD Act Tramples Civil Liberties by Stephen Bishop: The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the American Civil Liberties Union and others are calling on Congress to block legislation meant to facilitate cross-border data requests … Continue reading