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Recent Posts
- AR: RS def rented a hotel room was sufficient for search waiver; PC not required
- LA5: No standing to challenge search of shooting victim’s cell phone in def’s possession
- N.D.Okla.: Cell phones possessed by tribal police not subject to return under Rule 41(g)
- E.D.Ark.: Landlord and tenant refused rental property inspection and SW was validly issued and protected privacy interests
- D.D.C.: Judge shopping after denial of SW inappropriate; could have appealed to DJ
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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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--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)
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Monthly Archives: June 2018
NYTimes: Apple to Close iPhone Security Hole That Law Enforcement Uses to Crack Devices
NYTimes: Apple to Close iPhone Security Hole That Law Enforcement Uses to Crack Devices by Jack Nicas: Apple has long positioned the iPhone as a secure device that only its owner can open. That has led to battles with law … Continue reading
New Yorker: Why Do We Care So Much About Privacy?
New Yorker: Why Do We Care So Much About Privacy? by Louis Menand (magazine title: “Nowhere to Hide”): Big Tech wants to exploit our personal data, and the government wants to keep tabs on us. But “privacy” isn’t what’s really … Continue reading
MO: Reading SW to def at execution is not “custodial interrogation”
Police entered defendant’s house with a search warrant. Defendant was handcuffed and the contents of the search warrant were read to her. Her responses were not custodial interrogation when she admitted where drugs were in the house. State v. Craig, … Continue reading
SC: Of course def didn’t intend to leave his cell phone at the scene of a burglary, but he did, and that’s still abandonment
Defendant lost his cell phone at the scene of a burglary. The court grants the fundamental premise that a cell phone has the “privacies of life,” but his unintentional abandonment of the phone doesn’t preclude the government from searching it … Continue reading
CT: Seeing sawed off shotgun through van window justified opening it up to seize it
The officers here saw a sawed off shotgun through the windows of defendant’s van, and it was not unreasonable to use the key fob to open the door to seize it. State v. Ortiz, 2018 Conn. App. LEXIS 235 (June … Continue reading
NE: A pre-Birchfield warrantless blood draw would not be excluded under GFE
A blood draw that predated Birchfield was valid under the good faith exception. “Because the good faith exception applies, the district court erred in reversing Hatfield’s conviction.” State v. Hatfield, 300 Neb. 152 (June 8, 2018). Two controlled buys by … Continue reading
S.D.Ill.: SW affidavit doesn’t have to be labeled one to be one
A search warrant affidavit doesn’t have to be headed “affidavit” to be one, and the attachments are considered sworn to if referred to in the body. The affidavit’s typo of having the 16th as the date of the offense when … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Omission of exculpatory information is far less likely to be a Franks issue
Omission of exculpatory information is far less likely to be a Franks issue because (1) it doesn’t often matter and (2) it would lead to endless forays into what is exculpatory. Defendant fails to make a Franks preliminary showing. United … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Declining to interact with an officer is not RS
Defendant’s declining to interact with the officer and trying to avoid him is not reasonable suspicion because people have a right to do that. United States v. Brown, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 97602 (N.D. Ga. May 10, 2018). Defendant abandoned … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: QI not applied because it does protect those who knowingly violate constitutional rights
Law.com: “Deciding that qualified immunity has evolved to the point where it can protect police officers who intentionally flout constitutional rights, a federal judge in Brooklyn declined to grant it to four police officers who broke into a man’s house … Continue reading
NACDL: Riling Up the Border Search Doctrine: Litigating Searches of Digital Content at Our Ports of Entry
NACDL, The Champion: Riling Up the Border Search Doctrine: Litigating Searches of Digital Content at Our Ports of Entry by Aisha J. Dennis, The Champion 40-46 (Mar. 2018)
W.D.Pa.: Claim of “gross ineffective assistance of counsel” doesn’t overcome rights waiver in plea agreement
Defendant’s allegation of “gross ineffective assistance of counsel” for not properly litigating his motion to suppress doesn’t overcome the collateral rights waiver in the plea agreement. United States v. Kofalt, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96560 (W.D. Pa. June 8, 2018):
N.D.Ohio: Suit over ptf’s strip search barred by Heck because that’s the basis of his conviction
Plaintiff’s pro se lawsuit over his strip search necessarily is an attempt to impugn the integrity of his criminal conviction for drug trafficking, so it is barred by Heck v. Humphrey. Johnson v. Waters, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96255 (N.D. … Continue reading
The New Yorker: Why Do We Care So Much About Privacy?
The New Yorker: Why Do We Care So Much About Privacy? by Louis Menand: Big Tech wants to exploit our personal data, and the government wants to keep tabs on us. But “privacy” isn’t what’s really at stake. Long thoughtful … Continue reading
NYTimes: In Newark, Police Cameras, and the Internet, Watch You
NYTimes: In Newark, Police Cameras, and the Internet, Watch You by By Rick Rojas: Surveillance cameras monitored by the police have become a ubiquitous presence in many cities. In Newark, anyone with internet access is allowed to watch. And a … Continue reading
NJ: “Hot pursuit” into a home to seek an iPhone via the find phone application was unreasonable
“Hot pursuit” into a home to seek an iPhone via the find phone application was unreasonable. Here, however, there was a private search by defendant’s brother, and the exclusionary rule doesn’t apply. State ex rel. J.A., 2018 N.J. LEXIS 713 … Continue reading
OH2: Trial court can’t add an issue to a suppression hearing without notice to parties
“[T]he State contends that the trial court improperly expanded the scope of Day’s motion to suppress to include the issue of whether the manner/location of Day’s arrest was lawful and then based its decision on that issue. We have held … Continue reading
Terry v. Ohio decided 50 years ago today
Today, Sunday, June 10th, is the 50th Anniversary of Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). Ohio’s Eighth District Court of Appeals opinion is also noteworthy, drawing on common law and whatever recent authority there was, considering the court of … Continue reading
Philly.com: The solution to stopping stop-and-frisk problems in Philly: Abolish it | Opinion
Philly.com: The solution to stopping stop-and-frisk problems in Philly: Abolish it | Opinion