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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,
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)
ACLU on privacy
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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: November 2019
Courthouse News Service: False Drug Test Results Blamed for Jailhouse Punishments
Courthouse News Service: False Drug Test Results Blamed for Jailhouse Punishments by Amanda Ottaway (“According to the complaint, DOCCS is currently in the process of overturning all positive results generated by the faulty tests, which it says are the result … Continue reading
NBC News: Police used Google location data to find an accused bank robber. He says that’s illegal.
NBC News: Police used Google location data to find an accused bank robber. He says that’s illegal. By Jon Schuppe (“The demand for Google data, known as a geofence warrant, is a way for law enforcement authorities to take advantage … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: SW for law office was apparently one office with one entrance
HSI obtained a search warrant for the “law office of Marivel Cantu-Madril” which was in Suite D at the address, and her husband’s law office was in Suite E. The entrance to both offices was through the front door to … Continue reading
WaPo: Police can keep Ring camera video forever and share with whomever they’d like, Amazon tells senator
WaPo: Police can keep Ring camera video forever and share with whomever they’d like, Amazon tells senator
D.N.M.: Brady material doesn’t have to be disclosed for suppression hearings
Brady material doesn’t have to be disclosed for suppression hearings. [How does this fit with the ethical obligation to not present false evidence? See Model Rules 3.3 & 3.4. Brady material might not make a difference in suppression hearing; then, … Continue reading
WaPo: ‘I got my rights to do anything I want to do’: Officer immediately fired after viral video shows him stopping black shoppers for ‘acting suspicious’ [Spending money while black]
WaPo: ‘I got my rights to do anything I want to do’: Officer immediately fired after viral video shows him stopping black shoppers for ‘acting suspicious’ by Allyson Chiu
OR: During the “unavoidable lull” in a traffic stop, state constitution prohibits asking for consent without justification
During the “unavoidable lull” in a traffic stop, the state constitution prohibits asking for consent without further justification. State v. Arreola-Botello, 365 Ore. 695, 2019 Ore. LEXIS 794 (Nov. 15, 2019), aff’g 292 Ore. App. 214, 418 P.3d 785 (2018) … Continue reading
Courthouse News: Judge Rules FBI Cannot Hide Use of Social Media Surveillance Tools
Courthouse News: Judge Rules FBI Cannot Hide Use of Social Media Surveillance Tools by Nicholas Iovino (“The FBI cannot hide whether it uses powerful surveillance tools to monitor the social-media activity of millions of Americans and noncitizens, a federal judge … Continue reading
NY4: Summary judgment on false arrest and excessive force claim without considering officers’ testimony in underlying criminal trial was error
Summary judgment against the defendants for false arrest and excessive force was improperly granted without considering the transcript of plaintiff’s criminal trial and the officers’ testimony there. Hernandez v Denny’s Corp., 2019 NY Slip Op 08302, 2019 N.Y. App. Div. … Continue reading
WA: Affidavit and SW didn’t need to specify statutes of crimes under investigation when it was apparent it was murder
The search warrant of defendant’s place for trace evidence of a dead body rather than the body itself was reasonable because the police had information that the body had been burned in a fire pit. In addition, the affidavit and … Continue reading
USA Today: Facial recognition: The fight over the use of our faces is far from over
USA Today: Facial recognition: The fight over the use of our faces is far from over by Terry Collins:
E.D.Tenn.: Facebook photo of def felon with a firearm apparently taken in a home justified a SW for his home
Defendant’s alleged threat on Facebook involving use of firearms, along with a picture of a firearm suggested it was in a home. The search warrant of defendant’s home was with probable cause. Defendant’s effort to “dissect” the affidavit paragraph by … Continue reading
CA6: Informant’s reliability is the question, and that leads to finding of reliability of his or her hearsay
The CI’s first hand information isn’t constitutionally required for informant hearsay to be deemed credible. The question is the reliability of the informant, not so much the information which usually can’t all be pinned down anyway. United States v. Crawford, … Continue reading
techdirt: Supreme Court’s Warrant Requirement For Cell Site Location Info Apparently Killed Another Domestic Surveillance Program
techdirt: Supreme Court’s Warrant Requirement For Cell Site Location Info Apparently Killed Another Domestic Surveillance Program by Tim Cushing:
Security Boulevard: Pew Survey: America Worries About Privacy (But Won’t Do Anything About It)
Security Boulevard: Pew Survey: America Worries About Privacy (But Won’t Do Anything About It) by Richi Jennings:
IL: Flagrantly unconstitutional arrest here means no attenuation for statement
Defendant’s arrest was flagrantly unconstitutional, and his statement wasn’t attenuated from it. People v. Gutierrez, 2019 IL App (3d) 180405, 2019 Ill. App. LEXIS 890 (Nov. 15, 2019).* Defendant was convicted of possession of a weapon that was in his … Continue reading
WaPo: Fingerprints and face scans are the future of smartphones. These holdouts refuse to use them.
WaPo: Fingerprints and face scans are the future of smartphones. These holdouts refuse to use them. by Heather Kelly:
Fox News: Michigan county seized retiree’s home over $8 debt – now he’s fighting back in state’s top court
Fox News: Michigan county seized retiree’s home over $8 debt – now he’s fighting back in state’s top court by Andrew O’Reilly (“While Uri Rafaeli’s case, which is currently being decided in Michigan’s Supreme Court, is extreme, it is hardly … Continue reading
NYTimes: Ohio High School Plans to Drug-Test All Students at Least Once a Year
NYTimes: Ohio High School Plans to Drug-Test All Students at Least Once a Year by Derrick Bryson Taylor (“Research has shown that more than 37 percent of school districts have adopted drug-testing policies, but whether they lead to reduced rates … Continue reading