Archives
-
Recent Posts
- CA5: Deficient privilege log after records search was waiver
- E.D.Ky.: When court can’t tell the dog alerted, motion to suppress granted
- OH1: A malnourished child isn’t exigency for an infant
- E.D.Pa.: Mandamus doesn’t lie to unseal SW papers
- D.Me.: Looking around house when allegedly “freezing” it was an illegal search
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2017); ABA Journal Blawg 100 (2015-16) (discontinued 2018)
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
-
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
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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: July 2021
S.D.N.Y.: Late return of SW materials in discovery wasn’t at all prejudicial
The return of the search warrant materials was late, but defendant shows no prejudice, and he had them in discovery. United States v. Lesane, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 137777 (S.D.N.Y. July 23, 2021). Defendant’s discovery claim that the government must … Continue reading
Star Tribune: Opinion: We must face up to the dangers of surveillance technology
Star Tribune: Opinion: We must face up to the dangers of surveillance technology (“Every day that goes by without effective oversight makes it that much harder to rein the technology back in.”)
Slate: The One Area Where Supreme Court Jurisprudence Is Actually Improving Thanks to Originalism
Slate: The One Area Where Supreme Court Jurisprudence Is Actually Improving Thanks to Originalism by David Gans (“For decades, the Supreme Court has repeatedly deferred to the police when judging the validity of searches and seizures by the government. For that … Continue reading
DC: Petr’s debit card records are basic third-party records under Miller and aren’t protected under Carpenter
Debit card financial records are basic third party records, like the bank records in Miller, and Carpenter offers no protection to the petitioner despite his claim of privacy interest in the information. And, if it did, the good faith exception … Continue reading
CO: Use of flashbang in raid because def was probably armed was non-hearsay at trial
A warrant-executing officer explaining at trial why they used a flashbang device in the raid said it was because the CI told them defendant often carried a gun. No limiting instruction was sought. This was not hearsay because it wasn’t … Continue reading
CA6: DEA can get state SWs and assist in state investigations, then go federal
DEA officers can get search warrants in federal investigations from state judges for state law violations aiding state officers. That doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment or Rule 41. And, there is also the good faith exception. United States v. Williams, … Continue reading
NY2: Collective knowledge requires proof of the knowledge
The state relied on the fellow officer rule. “Although there were references to eavesdropping warrants that had been obtained for the defendant’s and her codefendant’s phones, the People inexplicably failed to offer any evidence at the hearing to establish that … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Def’s response to a SDT showed records existed for later SW; not stale
Defendant’s receipt of and response to a subpoena for fraud records in an older fraud case established timeliness and lack of staleness when the government decided to proceed by search warrant instead. Staleness is a question of probable cause. United … Continue reading
CA8: SW for CP didn’t include “cell phone” in “electronic devices,” but GFE covers it
The search warrant here was for electronic devices that could hold child pornography, and it failed to specifically mention defendant’s cell phone. The good faith exception, however, overcame this omission of particularity. United States v. Pospisil, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Inevitable discovery explained in a Rodriguez violation
The government established that inevitable discovery applied here despite a Rodriguez violation. United States v. Henderson, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 134131 (S.D.Ga. July 19, 2021). The court explains:
CA7: Officers complied with law in getting CSLI by exigency; Carpenter came two months after trial
Defendant was the subject of exigency based efforts to get his CSLI because he was actively being pursued as involved in a 2013 burglary investigation scoring 25 firearms. The CSLI request complied with the law at the time. Carpenter was … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: That PC is debatable isn’t a lack of PC
There was a substantial basis for the state judge to issue this search warrant. A USMJ came to a different conclusion. That it is debatable doesn’t show a lack of probable cause. United States v. Mitchell, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Def’s arrest under a warrant for murder produced a gun; deterrence no value here
Defendant’s arrest under a warrant for murder also produced a gun, for which he was indicted in federal court. This is not an appropriate case for suppression because there’s no deterrence value. United States v. Gray, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
OH12: Search of wallet in patdown unreasonable
Defendant’s patdown produced a wallet, and search of the ID inside exceeded its proper scope. State v. Maffey, 2021-Ohio-2460, 2021 Ohio App. LEXIS 2423 (12th Dist. July 19, 2021) This excessive force case for use of force during an arrest … Continue reading
D.C.: Illegal patdown without RS caused def’s flight; discard of gun in flight excluded
The patdown of defendant was manifestly unreasonable, and defendant’s flight was thereafter. The exclusionary rule should be applied to this. Johnson v. United States, 2021 D.C. App. LEXIS 187 (July 15, 2021):
D.P.R.: Passing reference to a 4A violation in motion to suppress doesn’t preserve it
Passing reference to a Fourth Amendment violation isn’t enough to preserve the issue. United States v. Polaco-Hance, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 132937 (D.P.R. July 16, 2021). There was probable cause for the search of defendant’s car under the warrant. A … Continue reading
W.D.Tenn.: SW for person is not limited like a protective sweep
A search warrant for a person is not limited as a protective sweep. It was not unreasonable to look under box springs. United States v. Johnson, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 132835 (W.D.Tenn. July 16, 2021). The protective sweep in the … Continue reading
D.D.C.: When cell phone is part of crime, a broader SW is permitted
The warrant for defendant’s cell phone showed plenty of probable cause. Because the probable cause was based on use of the phone as an instrumentality of the offense of attempted child exploitation and possession of child pornography, a broader warrant … Continue reading
CA5: Motion for return of property erroneously dismissed; pet’r may have no other remedy
The district court erred in dismissing appellant’s petition for return of documents under Rule 41(g) seized under a warrant with alleged attorney-client privileged materials. If no charges are brought, there will be no motion to suppress. Harbor Healthcare Sys., L.P. … Continue reading
CA8: The facts before the officers showed exigency to enter the house on a domestic call
The officers had a reasonable basis for entering defendant’s house without a warrant. “The officers were dispatched to the scene of a domestic disturbance. The first responding officer observed a child in an upstairs window acting excitedly and gesturing at … Continue reading