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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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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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Daily Archives: September 12, 2019
S.D.N.Y.: Army CID did not violate Posse Comitatus Act by watching CP investigation at West Point
A West Point cadet was the target of a child pornography investigation. HSI investigated it, and the Army CID didn’t violate the Posse Comitatus Act in being there but not doing anything. Hester v. United States, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
PCMag: ICE Buys Smartphone Hacking Tech From Cellebrite
PCMag: ICE Buys Smartphone Hacking Tech From Cellebrite by Michael Kan (“Cellebrite is best known for helping governments access data on locked cell phones. In June, ICE awarded it a contract worth up to $35 million, according to a federal … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Controlled buys that led to SW come in through 404(b) or res gestae
Under 404(b), the officers will be permitted to testify at trial to controlled buys that led to the search warrant. United States v. Martinez, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 154066 (D. N.M. Sept. 10, 2019). Defendants were stopped for speeding, and … Continue reading
C.D.Ill.: RS based in part on officer’s knowledge of diversionary insuring after purchase of car
The stop was for a traffic offense with probable cause. After a few questions, reasonable suspicion developed; United States v. Cole, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 154134 (C.D. Ill. Sept. 10, 2019); and it’s detailed and based in part on the … Continue reading
MA: Hearings on criminal complaints don’t have to be open, but the record has to be later
The Massachusetts court previously held that hearings on the issuance of criminal complaints are not presumptively public. A particular hearing was requested after the fact. The court holds that the issuing court must electronically record all such hearings and consider, … Continue reading
MA: Trial court erred in ordering cell phone purged of potential evidence as a condition of returning it after it was suppressed
Defendant succeeded in suppressing his cell phone, and the trial court erred in ordering defendant’s phone erased of the evidence suppressed before returning it. It was his property. Commonwealth v. Salmons, 2019 Mass. App. LEXIS 119 (Sept. 11, 2019):
WaPo: DEA, IRS reviewed cache of emails amid ongoing criminal probe into Baltimore lawyers
WaPo: DEA, IRS reviewed cache of emails amid ongoing criminal probe into Baltimore lawyers by Tim Prudente:
WaPo: California could become the largest state to ban facial recognition in body cameras
WaPo: California could become the largest state to ban facial recognition in body cameras by Reis Thebault:
TX remands blood draw from unconscious motorist under Mitchell v. Wisconsin
“Appellee was charged with felony driving while intoxicated after the State took a blood sample from him without a warrant and while he was unconscious. The trial court granted his motion to suppress his blood test results, and the court … Continue reading
IL: Mere presence in a high crime area isn’t RS; action required, too
Mere presence in a Chicago high crime neighborhood is not reasonable suspicion. Otherwise, every resident of the neighborhood would be stopped. It requires some suspicious action as well. People v. Salgado, 2019 IL App (1st) 171377, 2019 Ill. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
The Federalist: DOJ Lawsuit Demands Names Of All People Who Use This App For Their Gun
The Federalist: DOJ Lawsuit Demands Names Of All People Who Use This App For Their Gun by Kyle Sammin:
CA7: Former police officer stated 4A malicious prosecution claim for false and misleading information in arrest and SW
Plaintiff stated a Fourth Amendment (not called malicious prosecution) for false statements and omissions in support of his arrest and search warrant where the alleged probable cause was thin to begin with. He was tried three times, reversed twice, and … Continue reading