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- Lawfare: How Google’s Location History Program Could Upend Digital Surveillance Law
- CA6 disagrees with CA7 on de minimis injuries under § 1983 force cases
- MO: No duty of care owed by police to fleeing motorist
- D.P.R.: Indictment for possession of switches to convert handguns to machine guns justified vehicle search when defendant was stopped
- N.D.Ohio: Heroin and three guns in plain view was exigency for entry with child alone inside
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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,
citations, and links -
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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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (2012)
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Section 1983 Blog -
"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: May 2019
The Hill: Does your district attorney have access to your medical records?
The Hill: Does your district attorney have access to your medical records? by David Siegel: The latest attempts to criminalize women’s health care will demand that every Alabaman woman share their medical records with their local district attorney. Sound fishy?
S.D.Tex.: Govt’s showing def’s connection to package showed standing; USPS delay while kind of long wasn’t unreasonable or abnormal
Defendant didn’t testify at the suppression hearing, but the officer’s testimony adequately showed defendant’s standing to contest the search of his package. An alias was used, and the government’s efforts to link him to the package showed his standing. The … Continue reading
MN decides that gaps in the state’s version don’t preclude the CI being a material witness so the CI must be disclosed
“If a warrant to search a home relies on information from a confidential police informant about contraband inside the home, but the warrant application includes no facts indicating whether the informant could be considered a government agent who violated the … Continue reading
ND: Arrangement to pick up his package showed control and standing
Defendant’s arrangement with another person to pick up his package showed his control over the package, and that gave him standing. State v. Gardner, 2019 ND 122, 2019 N.D. LEXIS 130 (May 16, 2019) (quoting Treatise § 3.13). “We conclude … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Michael Cohen SW materials ordered released
“The Associated Press, Cable News Network, Inc., The New York Times Company, POLITICO LLC, and WP Co., LLC, d/b/a the Washington Post (collectively, the ‘Media Coalition’) request an order unsealing ‘warrants, applications, supporting affidavits, and returns relating to all search, … Continue reading
CO: Because CO has legalized recreational MJ, use of a drug dog requires PC because a dog sniff uncovers lawful activity
Because Colorado has legalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, admission of possession of it in a car doesn’t permit a drug dog to sniff the car without probable cause to believe there is an illegal amount in the car. … Continue reading
CA6: Date of receipt of CP isn’t a limit on the scope of a SW
In a child pornography investigation, the date of the alleged obtaining the child porn doesn’t limit the scope of the search warrant. Moreover, the fact it was known to be on one device does mean that only that device can … Continue reading
Register.co.uk: We listened to more than 3 hours of US Congress testimony on facial recognition so you didn’t have to go through it
Register.co.uk: We listened to more than 3 hours of US Congress testimony on facial recognition so you didn’t have to go through it by Katyanna Quach: Long story short: Models are ineffective, racist, dumb…
Wired: Facial Recognition Has Already Reached Its Breaking Point
Wired: Facial Recognition Has Already Reached Its Breaking Point by Lily Hey Newman: As facial recognition technologies have evolved from fledgling projects into powerful software platforms, researchers and civil liberties advocates have been issuing warnings about the potential for privacy … Continue reading
New Scientist: DNA database opts a million people out from police searches
New Scientist: DNA database opts a million people out from police searches by Adam Vaughan:
Misinformation as to consequences of refusal of BAC test violates 4A
“Vigen was not informed the refusal to take a urine test was a crime punishable in the same manner as driving under the influence as required by the legislature.” He can set aside his guilty plea. State v. Vigen, 2019 … Continue reading
No 4A IAC where motion to suppress couldn’t prevail
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not filing a motion to suppress an alleged consent search where defendant admitted to counsel that he’d consented. It is not “mandatory” that defense counsel file a motion under that circumstance. State v. Martinez-Melgar, 2019 … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: No standing in a car rented under false pretenses
Defendant has no standing in a car rented under false pretenses. United States v. Anderson, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 83157 (E.D. Cal. May 17, 2019). Defendant’s arrest justified a search incident of his person. Finding bullets in his pocket justified … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Administrative burdens overcome presumption of right of access to 13 years worth of SW materials
The court denies a broad request for 13 years worth of surveillance search warrant materials. The presumption of accessibility of the materials is overcome by the extensive administrative burdens of reviewing so many files. The litigants in each case where … Continue reading
CNN: Judge orders public release of Michael Cohen search warrants
CNN: Judge orders public release of Michael Cohen search warrants by Katelyn Polantz & Kate Sullivan:
ACLU blog: Our Cars Are Now Roving Computers. Is The Fourth Amendment Ready?
ACLU blog: Our Cars Are Now Roving Computers. Is The Fourth Amendment Ready? by Nathan Freed Wessler, Jennifer Stisa Granick & Daniela del Rosario Wertheimer:
Conservative HQ: Obama-Appointed Judge Allows Democrats To Subpoena Trump Business Records [a 2019 political take on the third-party doctrine]; opinion
Conservative HQ: Obama-Appointed Judge Allows Democrats To Subpoena Trump Business Records. In a ruling that should chill the heart of every American who values his Fourth Amendment rights, Obama-appointed DC District Court Judge Amit Mehta has refused to quash a … Continue reading
Education Week (blog): Justices Decline to Review Case Involving Strip Search of 4-Year-Old at School
Education Week (blog): Justices Decline to Review Case Involving Strip Search of 4-Year-Old at School by Mark Walsh:
Observer: NJ Supreme Court Will Determine Whether Cops Can Force You to Unlock Your Mobile Device
Observer: NJ Supreme Court Will Determine Whether Cops Can Force You to Unlock Your Mobile Device by Donald Scarinci: