Archives
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Recent Posts
- CA7: Jail officials holding plaintiff under a valid court order aren’t liable for not releasing him sooner after a sentencing error
- Volokh: Do Fourth Amendment Protections Change When Property Is Moved?
- M.D.Pa.: Def was neither shipper nor recipient of USPS parcel, so he had no standing in it
- WI: Obtaining def’s DNA by ruse wasn’t an illegal search
- WaPo: Apple, Google and Venmo fight new U.S. plan to monitor payment apps
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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)
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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: December 2021
NM: Tow and inventory of vehicle parked in owner’s driveway was unreasonable
The tow and inventory of the car defendant was driving, his grandmother’s, without a valid license was an abuse of the officer’s discretion. Here, the vehicle was parked in the grandmother’s driveway when the stop occurred. The officer’s practice of … Continue reading
Law360: Baltimore PD Reach Deal To End Aerial Surveillance Challenge
Law360: Baltimore PD Reach Deal To End Aerial Surveillance Challenge by Allison Grande
CA7 (en banc): Questions about travel plans during traffic stop not unreasonable
Resolving an apparent conflict between Rodriguez and pre-Rodriguez case law, the officer’s normal inquiries here about defendant’s travel plans were legitimate and produced answers that he could legitimately doubt. Defendant volunteered seven states other than where the stop occurred, and … Continue reading
CA2: SW said “electronics” and “passwords” to access them, but it did not say “computers”; those words mean computers
The search warrant used the word “electronics” and “passwords” to access them, but it did not say “computers.” “Because the warrant specifically permitted seizure of “electronics,” a category into which computers and tablets would fall under the plain text, not … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Female prison guard seeing ptf on toilet during count didn’t violate 4A
The fact a female prison guard saw the male plaintiff inmate sitting on a toilet during count didn’t violate his Fourth Amendment rights. Sublett v. Hall, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 241273 (W.D.Ky. Dec. 17, 2021).* No reasonable jury could conclude … Continue reading
KY: Seeking consent to search car by threatening to use drug dog unreasonably extended stop
Defendant was stopped for a traffic offense, but the officer readily abandoned it by seeking consent and “repeatedly threatened the use of a dog sniff” if he didn’t. Commonwealth v. Conner, 2021 Ky. LEXIS 419 (Dec. 16, 2021):
D.Del.: 4A child seizure claim requires the child be a party
A Fourth Amendment child seizure claim requires the child be a party, even if the parents assert the child’s rights. Spahr v. Collins, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 241127 (D.Del. Dec. 17, 2021). Defendant in his 2255 cannot show defense counsel … Continue reading
CA4: When POs knocked for a probation visit, sounds from inside gave RS for probation search
“Wimer contends that the probation officers who visited his home lacked reasonable suspicion to search his person. We find that, based on the totality of the circumstances, the officers had reasonable suspicion to search him. At the outset of the … Continue reading
CA1: Visitor’s backpack could be searched during a drug raid with SW
Appellant was a visitor with a backpack on the premises when a search warrant was executed, and the backpack was searched. The search was valid. “That Congo was not identified in the warrant as a co-conspirator is simply not relevant … Continue reading
NY Queens: Cell phone SW with no time restriction overbroad
The search warrant for defendant’s cell phone sought everything on it when a limited time period was at issue. The law is settled in New York. “Here, the search warrant issued allows for an essentially unrestrained search of defendant’s cell … Continue reading
Cal.3: Smell of burnt MJ from car not PC in California
The smell of burnt marijuana coming from a car in California isn’t probable cause. Blakes v. Superior Court, 2021 Cal. App. LEXIS 1057 (3d Dist. Nov. 24, 2021) (published Dec. 16, 2021). Officers had probable cause for the automobile exception … Continue reading
CA8 again grants QI to stopping innocent persons at gunpoint
The Eighth Circuit again holds that stopping innocent persons at gunpoint with almost any reason at all almost always results in qualified immunity for the officer. Irvin v. Richardson, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 37110 (8th Cir. Dec. 16, 2021):
W.D.La.: In a § 1983 suit over a SW, informer privilege prevents disclosure here
In a § 1983 suit over a search warrant, the defendants plead informer privilege to prevent disclosure of the CI that led to the search. Denied. Informant privilege stronger in civil cases than criminal. There was also significant other information … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Order for palmprints from indicted def requires RS
The government sought palmprints from this indicted defendant to compare to palmprints on boxes that were recovered in an investigation. The court concludes under Davis v. Mississippi (1969) and Hayes v. Florida (1985) that the standard is reasonable suspicion to … Continue reading
D.D.C.: New 4A issues in reply brief are normally waived
After a motion to suppress was filed and briefed and the government responded, new issues in the reply brief are usually treated as waived. Here, however, the court will let him proceed on those issues and he can file a … Continue reading
CA5: There was PC for defendant’s arrest; a typo in when the SW was served doesn’t make a § 1983 claim
Plaintiff “Xie worked as a professor and researcher at MDA for several years.” MDA believed he computer manipulated a document submitted to the state for expense reimbursement and opened an investigation. That led to search warrants for his electronics. There … Continue reading
D.D.C.: CI’s single controlled buy off def was PC
A single controlled buy from defendant’s home is probable cause without additional corroboration. Moreover, the CI had worked for MPD for a decade. United States v. Hill, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 238824 (D.D.C. Dec. 14, 2021). The fire department responded … Continue reading
D.Idaho: Fact of app on cell phone that deletes photos when viewed doesn’t undermine PC for them
The court issued a search warrant for defendant’s cell phone for photographs of nude minors. The fact he had an account that allegedly deleted pictures when they were viewed doesn’t undermine the probable cause. United States v. Young, 2021 U.S. … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: Officers can’t claim exigency for def’s response to false assertion they had a SW
Officers can’t falsely claim they have a search warrant and then use the target’s response to claim exigency for a warrantless entry into a home. United States v. Lark, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 238720 (S.D.W.Va. Dec. 14, 2021):