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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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--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: July 2018
WaPo Opinion: Facial recognition threatens our fundamental rights
WWaPo Opinion: Facial recognition threatens our fundamental rights by Clare Garvie:
SCOTUSblog: Judge Kavanaugh on the Fourth Amendment
SCOTUSblog: Judge Kavanaugh on the Fourth Amendment by Orin S. Kerr: Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s views of the Fourth Amendment have drawn significant interest following his recent nomination to the Supreme Court. This post takes a close look at Kavanaugh’s key … Continue reading
CNN: FBI releases Carter Page surveillance warrant documents
CNN: FBI releases Carter Page surveillance warrant documents by Jeremy Herb and David Shortell. The 412 page application, warrant, and other papers is here. The applications included Page’s denials made to the FBI before it was sought. NYT: Without Evidence, … Continue reading
D.D.C.: SW for Manafort’s home sustained; SW for state of mind evidence permitted under Andresen
The search warrant for defendant’s home for “[a]ny and all financial records,” “[e]vidence indicating Manafort’s state of mind as it relates to the crimes under Investigation,” and “[c]omputers or storage media used as a means to commit the Subject Offenses” … Continue reading
TN: Failure to leave copy of SW mere technical error
Defendant had her blood drawn by search warrant, and the officer failed to leave a copy of the warrant with her. The trial court granted her motion to suppress, and the court of criminal appeals affirmed. Reversed: The mere nonprejudicial … Continue reading
CA9: Def shows issuing magistrate on arrest warrant wasn’t neutral and detached, but he still loses to GFE
The Ninth Circuit recognizes judicial abandonment under the neutral and detached magistrate requirement, but defendant here still loses. The officers arresting him on the warrant weren’t there when the judicial officer failed to read the papers, and they had no … Continue reading
CA3: Violation of Vienna Convention on arrest doesn’t lead to dismissal
“Dismissal of the indictment and suppression of evidence are not appropriate remedial measures for a violation of Article 36 [of the Vienna Convention] in this case.” Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, 548 U.S. 331, 350 (2006). United States v. Castillo, 2018 U.S. … Continue reading
CA9: On remand for a hearing on inevitable discovery, the district court found it applied three ways
On remand from United States v. Harris, 642 Fed. Appx. 713 (9th Cir. 2016), the district court had a hearing on application of inevitable discovery. “At the supplemental hearing, the district court made three findings in determining that the inevitable … Continue reading
The Hill: Special master in Cohen case rejects more than a third of legal team’s privileged items
The Hill: Special master in Cohen case rejects more than a third of legal team’s privileged items by Aris Folley: According to court documents filed Thursday, Special master Barbara Jones found that 1,452 out of the 4,085 items designated privileged … Continue reading
Recode: Your phone is not secretly spying on your conversations. It doesn’t need to.
Recode: Your phone is not secretly spying on your conversations. It doesn’t need to. By Eric Johnson Northeastern University researchers Dave Choffnes and Christo Wilson (mostly) debunk the internet’s favorite conspiracy theory on the latest Too Embarrassed to Ask.
MS: No REP in calls from police station
Defendant’s calls from the police station after he was arrested admitted the marijuana in this case was his. The calls were admitted at trial, defense counsel challenging authentication. Defendant pro se argued a Fourth Amendment violation, but that is defaulted … Continue reading
D.Conn.: Posting things to Facebook is a waiver of any REP, even in a “friends” setting
By posting to Facebook, even with a friends only setting, defendant waived his reasonable expectation of privacy in his postings. On the merits of the search warrant for Facebook, probable cause was shown. United States v. Westley, 2018 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
S.D.Ind.: CSLI search two years before Carpenter was valid under GFE
The Seventh Circuit held in dicta in 2014 that CSLI didn’t need a warrant. United States v. Thousand, 558 Fed. Appx. 666, 670 (7th Cir. 2014). The search here was two years before Carpenter. Davis good faith applies, and the … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Warrantless search of cell phone six years after border crossing violated 4A
Defendant crossed the border in July 2012, and his phone was seized and somewhat analyzed. On the eve of trial in July 2018, the government did a full search without a warrant. Defendant moves to suppress, and it’s granted. The … Continue reading
PA: Trial court’s deciding to suppress based on an argument not made by def was error
Trial court’s deciding to suppress based on an argument not made by defendant was error. Commonwealth v. Jones, 2018 PA Super 208, 2018 Pa. Super. LEXIS 815 (July 17, 2018). Defendant argues in post-conviction proceedings against the trial court’s ruling … Continue reading
CA9: Nominal damages for 20 min detention supported by evidence
“A jury could reasonably find that the Kovacics suffered no actual damages from an unreasonable search of the home. See George v. City of Long Beach, 973 F.2d 706, 708-09 (9th Cir. 1992). Although Jared Kovacic was detained for 20 … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Govt bore burden of proof on inevitable discovery and failed; weak hearsay not credited
The issue of inevitable discovery was treated as an aside by the government, although it bore the burden of proof on it. It seeks the use of hearsay on inevitable discovery that was hard to credit considering the posture of … Continue reading