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- D.N.M.: DEA’s failure to make a detailed inventory in violation of policy doesn’t require exclusion of evidence
- WaPo: These cities bar facial recognition tech. Police still found ways to access it.
- C.D.Cal.: SW materials in case with weighty public interest ordered unsealed
- DC: Accepting a law license is consent to trust account subpoenas
- AR: RS def rented a hotel room was sufficient for search waiver; PC not required
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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)
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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)
Website design by Wally Waller, Little Rock 
Monthly Archives: February 2020
WaPo: Ring and Nest helped normalize American surveillance and turned us into a nation of voyeurs
WaPo: Ring and Nest helped normalize American surveillance and turned us into a nation of voyeurs by Drew Harwell (“For all the worries about hacking, owners of Internet-connected cameras say they love watching people silently from afar — often their … Continue reading
IN: Having def manipulate his clothing and remove his shoes was a search, not a safety frisk for weapons
The search of defendant was not for officer safety where the officer told defendant to move his clothing around because, if he was armed, he would be putting his hands on the weapon. The order to remove his shoes also … Continue reading
OH2: Hearsay is admissible in a suppression hearing, and the trial court erred in sustaining the state’s objection to hearsay, but it was harmless on the totality
The state objected to hearsay to a defense question at the suppression hearing, but hearsay is admissible in suppression hearings under Rule 104(a). Here, however, it was harmless error. The lack of prejudice thus results in there being no ineffective … Continue reading
NBC News: Texas man close to exoneration after computer algorithm leads to new suspect
NBC News: Texas man close to exoneration after computer algorithm leads to new suspect by Erik Ortiz (“Lydell Grant was supposed to be in prison for murder. But an emerging form of DNA technology, which has also come under scrutiny, … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Collective knowledge doesn’t require the stopping officer even know about it
“‘[W]e impute collective knowledge among multiple law enforcement agencies, even when the evidence demonstrates that the responding officer was wholly unaware’ of the specific relevant facts. (Doc. 194, at 24 (quoting United States v. Lyons, 687 F.3d 754, 766 (6th … Continue reading
CA2: SI of backpack for a subway fare violation was unreasonable, but a search was inevitable as inventory
Defendant was arrested by NYPD for using a student fare MetroCard, and a computer search showed he was a transit recidivist. His backpack was searched. While it was an invalid search incident, he was taken to the precinct house and … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Tip of man brandishing a gun was more like Navarette than J.L.
“The undersigned finds that the instant case is more akin to Navarette, than J.L. Although the tipster in the instant case was completely anonymous, there was sufficient indicia of reliability, based on the totality of the circumstances, to support Officer … Continue reading
MI: Def’s lying about smell of MJ was PC despite state’s medical MJ law
Defendant’s lying about the smell of marijuana in his car was probable cause that he was in possession of more than the amount permitted under the state medical marijuana law. People v. Moorman, 2020 Mich. App. LEXIS 1111 (Feb. 13, … Continue reading
Reason: Volokh Conspiracy: Can a State Police Officer Search a Car Based on Probable Cause of a Federal Marijuana Crime?
Reason: Volokh Conspiracy: Can a State Police Officer Search a Car Based on Probable Cause of a Federal Marijuana Crime? by Orin Kerr:
N.D.Iowa: If a vehicle’s registration comes back to an unlicensed owner there is reasonable suspicion for the stop even if SCOTUS holds otherwise in Glover because of GFE
If a vehicle’s registration comes back to an unlicensed owner, there is reasonable suspicion for the stop even if SCOTUS holds otherwise in Kansas v. Glover. Probable cause developed after the stop. United States v. Legarrea, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
HuffPost: The NYPD May Be Secretly Using Facebook Photos In Its Facial Recognition Searches
HuffPost: The NYPD May Be Secretly Using Facebook Photos In Its Facial Recognition Searches by Mike Hayes (“In two recent cases, however, official documents from the NYPD Facial Information Section (FIS) obtained by HuffPost indicate that social media photos were … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: traffic safety checkpoint was sustained under Delaware v. Prouse
A traffic safety checkpoint was sustained under Delaware v. Prouse. “The 51 citations issued at the checkpoint support Chief Warren’s testimony that the primary purpose of the checkpoint was traffic safety. Accordingly, the record clearly reflects that the checkpoint was … Continue reading
NBC News: Cute videos, but little evidence: Police say Amazon Ring isn’t much of a crime fighter
NBC News: Cute videos, but little evidence: Police say Amazon Ring isn’t much of a crime fighter by Cyrus Farivar (“Hundreds of police departments have signed agreements with Ring to gain access to footage filmed on home surveillance cameras.”)
OH10: Judge who issued SW wasn’t barred from handling trial
The judge who signed the wiretap warrants in this case was not barred from conducting the trial. State v. Pippins, 2020-Ohio-503, 2020 Ohio App. LEXIS 467 (10th Dist. Feb. 13, 2020). Second successive 2255 habeas petition is denied, including his … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Apparently suicidal person justified entry into car to ID him
Deputy’s entry into defendant’s car was a bona fide attempt to identify a potentially suicidal person walking toward Lake Erie who’d maybe abandoned the car, wallet, and cell phone. United States v. Pritchard, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25179 (N.D. Ohio … Continue reading
WaPo: Opinion: State-federal task forces are out of control
WaPo: Opinion: State-federal task forces are out of control by Radley Balko (“Specialized police forces are often self-funded, report to no one, and can duck lawsuits by playing games with state-federal jurisdiction.”)
NYLJ: ICE Confronts the Privilege Against Courthouse Civil Arrests
NYLJ.com: Analysis: ICE Confronts the Privilege Against Courthouse Civil Arrests by Edward M. Spiro & Christopher B. Harwood (“In New York state over the last two years, ICE has increased its courthouse civil arrests of undocumented and other aliens by … Continue reading