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- W.D.N.Y.: Def had no standing in a place he wasn’t allowed to be on parole
- CA11: QI for FBI SWAT raiding wrong house at 3:30 am
- NYLJ: Analysis: Turnabout: Cell Site Location Information for the Defense
- CA11: QI in suicide by cop case
- CA11: Officer’s experience and opinions about CP collectors and retention of information is entitled to weight in PC determination
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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)
--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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"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: December 15, 2019
Reason: It’s Bill of Rights Day. Do Americans Still Care?
Reason: It’s Bill of Rights Day. Do Americans Still Care? by J.D. Tuccille (“The greatest threat to protections for our freedom may be people’s fear that people who disagree with them are exercising their rights.”)
Ars Technica: Feds reap data from 1,500 phones in largest reported reverse-location warrant
Ars Technica: Feds reap data from 1,500 phones in largest reported reverse-location warrant by Kate Cox (“The search warrants demanded nine hours’ worth of location history from Google.”):
D.Neb.: Def was being tailed on a DEA tip; a traffic stop ripened to RS
Defendant’s car was being followed on a tip from the DEA that he was transporting drugs. When the officer pulled him over for a traffic offense, the officer noticed air freshener sprinkled on the floor of a clean and new … Continue reading
Cal.1: Refusing entry to home for police to investigate gunshots outside wasn’t exigency
Gunshots were fired outside a defendant’s home. The police showed up, and he refused entry. They couldn’t use the excuse that somebody inside might need aid. People v. Rubio, 2019 Cal. App. LEXIS 1245 (1st Dist. Dec. 13, 2019):
E.D.Tex.: Officer who knew def’s LPN was expired didn’t have to look again before calling it in the next time he saw the car
The officer knew a week earlier that defendant’s LPN was expired. He saw defendant and called it in without looking, and it came back expired. That was still probable cause and justification for a stop, and looking again wasn’t required. … Continue reading
Two on plain view
The officer approached a parked car that a known felon was in, and he saw a gun. “Once Buchanan saw the firearm located on the floor in the rear passenger area where a known felon had just been sitting, he … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Broad SW for cell phone photos was reasonable because of how they’re stored
A broad search warrant for photographs on a cell phone was reasonable because that’s the only way the photos can be searched. In addition, the good faith exception applies. United States v. Hawkins, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 214030 (E.D. Mich. … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Reasonable fear def was burning stolen mail was sufficient for officers to approach burn pit
Officers had probable cause for defendant, a part time postal worker, for stealing mail, and they surveilled his house and property. They saw a fire in burn pit, and they were concerned it was stolen mail, so they entered. They … Continue reading
D.Mont.: Informant hearsay here was adequately corroborated to be found reliable
The informant hearsay here was sufficiently corroborated. “The affidavit provides sufficient grounds to assess the veracity and basis of knowledge of CS1’s information. Most of CS1’s information is based on personal observations of Goodman. Those observations, including Goodman’s involvement with … Continue reading
WY: Def’s contradictions of travel compared to car rental agreement and lies about criminal history was RS
Defendant was stopped for following too close in a rental car. It was reasonable for the trooper to suspect defendant rented the car to transport drugs because there were obvious contradictions between the car rental agreement and his travel plans, … Continue reading