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Recent Posts
- S.D.W.Va.: Issuance of a criminal citation is not a seizure
- E.D.Mo.: Evidence of the search comes in because it “completes the story”
- E.D.Wis.: Ptf’s claim judge’s signature on SW was forged fails for not even alleging there was a search
- W.D.Mich.: Search and seizure Brady, even if there was one, wouldn’t change the outcome
- W.D.Mich.: State law violation in search irrelevant in federal prosecution
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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 (27,400+ on WordPress as of 7/23/24) -
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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)
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Monthly Archives: March 2020
Quarantines and the Fourth Amendment
Is a government quarantine order for a person or group of people a violation of the Fourth Amendment as a reasonable seizure? Despite being an ardent civil libertarian, I must conclude the Constitution means: No. Protection from infectious diseases … Continue reading
NYTimes: Justice Department Watchdog Cites More Flaws in FBI’s Handling of Surveillance Warrants
NYTimes: Justice Department Watchdog Cites More Flaws in FBI’s Handling of Surveillance Warrants by Reuters (“The FBI has failed to properly maintain supporting documentation when seeking surveillance warrants, raising questions about the factual underpinnings of the warrant applications and violating … Continue reading
CA2: Barring cross-examination on execution of SW on cell phone wasn’t shown to be prejudicial
The district court didn’t err in sustaining the government’s objection to cross-examination about the execution of the search warrant on defendant’s cell phone because there was no showing that the warrant wasn’t improperly executed. United States v. Vargas, 2020 U.S. … Continue reading
IL: Flight from gunshots is not RS
Defendant’s flight into his house on hearing gunshots was not reasonable suspicion to give chase or probable cause to enter the house to arrest him. Anybody would flee gunshots. People v. Craine, 2020 IL App (1st) 163403, 2020 Ill. App. … Continue reading
CA5: Statute of limitations for malicious prosecution starts at acquittal
“As should be apparent, Winfrey controls. Since Fusilier is challenging ‘an unlawful [detention] pursuant to a warrant’ that the defendants caused to be issued because of ‘misstatements,’ Fusilier’s claim best fits with a malicious prosecution analogy. Winfrey, 901 F.3d at … Continue reading
CO: Cell phone SW is particular if it gives just the phone number and expected owner’s name
A cell phone search warrant is sufficiently particular by identifying merely the phone number and the expected owner of the phone. People v. Pettigrew, 2020 COA 46, 2020 Colo. App. LEXIS 656 (Mar. 26, 2020). Defense counsel didn’t fail to … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Having def sit in the patrol car didn’t prolong the stop
“[T]he officer did not commit an unlawful seizure when he instructed Salazar-Lopez to sit in the patrol car. The move to the patrol car did not impermissibly prolong the traffic stop, and was incidental to the mission of the stop.” … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Not unreasonable under 4A that state “track and trace” warrant was served by fax in another jurisdiction; at least GFE applies
A state district court judge of apparent limited jurisdiction, not general criminal jurisdiction, had apparent authority to approve a “track and trace” order, or at least subject to the good faith exception. Suppression here would prove nothing at all. As … Continue reading
OH9: Motion for returned property may still be appropriate after conviction
“[W]e find that a motion for the return of seized property may be a viable means to request the return of property even after conviction. Therefore, the trial court erred when it denied Mr. Castagnola’s motion for the return of … Continue reading
CA8: SW for already seized cell phone came from SW for far more; apparently created confusion, but not suppression
Officers had seized defendant’s phone and applied for a search warrant for it and other things at the same time, and that led to a motion to suppress the phone search. “Suellentrop argues that the search of the phone was … Continue reading
N.D.Fla.: Unsupported habeas claim that SWs were forged inadequate
“Watson’s unsubstantiated ‘belief’ that the warrants were forged does not raise the specter of a constitutional violation, and she offers nothing else in support of this claim. Furthermore, her claim in Ground Three that counsel was constitutionally ineffective because he … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: Whistleblower CI has “strong[er] motive to supply accurate information.”
In a health care fraud case, a whistleblower confidential informant for a search warrant was entitled to more credit than a regular CI because of a likely “strong[er] motive to supply accurate information.” The search warrant for documents here was … Continue reading
MT: State’s acting on nonbinding immigration detainer is an arrest subject to 4A and state law
An immigration detainer is not a demand to a state law enforcement officer to make a civil arrest, but, if a state law enforcement officer acts on it, it is a new arrest. It is ripe for judicial review because, … Continue reading
EFF: EFF, ACLU & CDT Argue Five Months of Warrantless Covert 24/7 Video Surveillance Violates 4A
EFF: EFF, ACLU & CDT Argue Five Months of Warrantless Covert 24/7 Video Surveillance Violates Fourth Amendment by Jennifer Lynch (“Should the fact that your neighbors can see the outside of your house mean the police can use a camera … Continue reading
Law.com: Understanding the Privacy Implications of Digital Technology
Law.com: Understanding the Privacy Implications of Digital Technology by Leonard Deutchman (“In this month’s article, we will examine the Superior Court’s reasoning in Dunkins and compare it to the U.S. Supreme Court’s reasoning in Carpenter. As with so many Fourth … Continue reading
CA11: Failure to join in the codef’s motion to suppress is waiver
Failure to join in the codefendant’s motion to suppress is waiver. United States v. Russa, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 9288 (11th Cir. Mar. 25, 2020). In a 2254 COA: “Assuming that counsel was deficient in failing to raise the plain-view … Continue reading
FL2: Without a link to crime, grabbing one’s waistband and pockets not RS
No weapon had been involved in a robbery the police were investigating, and they knew defendant wasn’t the robber. When they approached and he felt his waistband and pockets, they didn’t have reasonable suspicion. Townsend v. State, 2020 Fla. App. … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Seven week delay for SW for cell phone validly seized wasn’t unreasonable
A delay of seven weeks for seeking a search warrant for a cell phone already validly seized wasn’t unreasonable. Several cases approved long delays, and this is near the outer limit, but still valid. United States v. Butler, 2020 U.S. … Continue reading
VT: Smell of mj and surrender of a small amount in recreational mj state wasn’t PC
There wasn’t probable cause under the state constitution to seize defendant’s vehicle because the tip was too vague and general even if it satisfied the state rules and properly identified the driver, his smoking, and the presence of air fresheners … Continue reading