Archives
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Recent Posts
- CA7: Jail officials holding plaintiff under a valid court order aren’t liable for not releasing him sooner after a sentencing error
- 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
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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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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)
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Daily Archives: September 1, 2019
IL: PC was shown for the SW for def’s house; he was not just the last person to see her alive, he had her car and credit cards
Probable cause was shown for a search warrant for defendant’s house. “The complaint in Gacy did not cite to a specific crime; like this case, it was concerned with a missing person. Gacy, 103 Ill. 2d at 19-20. Since the … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Yahoo!’s TOS results in no REP in CP transmitted through it
The Terms of Service of Yahoo! email provide defendant no reasonable expectation of privacy in child pornography that was transmitted by its service. In addition, Yahoo!’s search was a private search. United States v. Wolfenbarger, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148822 … Continue reading
DE: State failed to show exigency for “hot pusuit,” or even pursuit
The state failed to show exigency for hot pursuit. Defendant fled to a dwelling where he was a frequent guest. There was no indication of a risk of destruction of evidence. State v. Foreman, 2019 Del. Super. LEXIS 416 (Aug. … Continue reading
Reason: A DEA Agent Got a Drug Dealer to Buy a Truck So the Agent Could Seize it Through Asset Forfeiture
Reason: A DEA Agent Got a Drug Dealer to Buy a Truck So the Agent Could Seize it Through Asset Forfeiture by C.J. Ciaramella: Former DEA special agent Chad Scott has been convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice, and falsifying … Continue reading
TX1: Warrantless DUI arrest then blood draw without exigency suppressed
After an accident where defendant was alleged to have killed a motorcyclist, defendant waited for the police at a gas station. They took him to the scene and then arrested him. This was followed by a warrantless blood draw. The … Continue reading
TX3: State failed to show exigency for dispensing with BAC SW
The trial court did not err by granting defendant’s motion to suppress blood evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The State failed to prove that the warrantless blood draw was justified by exigent circumstances: the collision did not … Continue reading
D.Mont.: USMs have power to arrest state fugitives, so search incident valid
USM’s fugitive task force has the power to arrest state offenders by federal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 564, and the AG can delegate them whenever to assist in arresting state fugitives. 34 U.S.C. §§ 41503-04. Therefore, they were authorized to … Continue reading
MN: CSLI obtained by state statute was valid because of PC showing; it also complied with Carpenter
Defendant’s CSLI was obtained under a state statute that had a probable cause requirement, and the state showed it. There were two statutes involved, and the wrong one was cited, but the state nonetheless met the standards of both. The … Continue reading
C.D.Ill.: Six month delay in searching cell phone wasn’t unreasonable considering how busy the officer was, which the government proved
It took nearly six months to search defendant’s cell phone after he consented to it because of other important matters the officer was working on. “The Mitchell court acknowledged that officer workload considerations could justify a delay in seeking a … Continue reading
CA1: Common sense reading of SW and attachment contemplated off-site search
Defendant’s motion to suppress a FISA was properly denied because his Fourth Amendment facial challenge failed given his concession that the emergency provision could be constitutionally applied in some circumstances. Even if the provision had to be narrowly construed, he … Continue reading