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Recent Posts
- NE: LEO’s statutory jurisdictional authority is not an unreasonable search and seizure question
- MA: Cell phone call logs don’t require a search warrant
- D.Kan.: Drug dog touching car door handle with nose isn’t unreasonable search
- 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.
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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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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
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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: January 2024
E.D.N.C.: This iCloud SW not overbroad
The warrant for defendant’s iCloud account was not overbroad. Defendant essentially admitted that the information sought would be found there. United States v. Duncan, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11090 (E.D.N.C. Jan. 22, 2024).* Defendant was in a rental vehicle, but … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Use of cell phone cash app to facilitate PPP fraud justified SW for phone
Use of a cell phone cash app to facilitate spending PPP loan fraud justified warrant for phone. United States v. Foster, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11369 (N.D. Ga. Jan. 22, 2024). Codefendant’s case: United States v. Baptiste, 2024 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
WA: Merely holding on to DL doesn’t make stop a detention; “context matters”
“Officer Ayers’s language would have assured a reasonable person that the officer was not making a show of authority: the officer assured Mr. Taylor he was not a suspect, but wanted to ‘get [his] name just so we have that … Continue reading
CA4: Another search, surveillance cameras, likely presence of weapons and other persons justified protective sweep
Another search the day before, surveillance cameras, and the likely presence of weapons and others justified this protective sweep. “The officers knew, for example, they were about to arrest a substantial drug supplier, and he had a known connection to … Continue reading
CA9: Wholesale inventory searches of private safe deposit boxes in SW for business was unreasonable
US Private Vaults case reversed. The search of USPV’s 700 safe deposit boxes for inventory was unreasonable. The FBI obtained a warrant for USPV’s business because of its business practices, and this search of the safe deposit boxes of customers … Continue reading
VA: Automobile exception doesn’t require “ready mobility” and this car was totaled in a wreck
Defendant’s car was totaled in a wreck, and it couldn’t be driven. Nevertheless, the automobile exception applied to it. After Carney, “ready mobility” is no longer required because of the lesser expectation of privacy in a car compared to a … Continue reading
Cal.: Partial overbreadth can lead to suppression in egregious cases with flagrant constitutional violations, but this isn’t one
While partial overbreadth can lead to suppression of everything seized in an egregious case with flagrant misconduct, this isn’t one: “And as in Bradford and Kraft, we conclude that the facts here do not warrant this extreme remedy.” “According to … Continue reading
W.D.Ark.: Manhandling a diabetic who passed out while driving gets no QI; law well established
Plaintiff, a diabetic, had a car wreck while in a low blood sugar episode. From the court’s opinion, it’s clear the officers had no idea what they were doing when they handcuffed and Tased her for no apparent reason, then … Continue reading
DE: The PC for cell phone was limited to search history; SW otherwise overbroad
Defendant was accused of sexual contact with a four-year-old girl he was caring for. Her mother kicked him out of the house and sought a forensic exam of the child. A couple of days later, she found his cell phone … Continue reading
Cal.5: Defective notice of Facebook warrant under CalECPA doesn’t require suppression
Defendant’s Facebook account was accessed by a search warrant issued under CalECPA. The notice provision was not complied with by the state, but the court declines to suppress here. The standard for suppression in CalECPA is the same as for … Continue reading
E.D.Ark.: State parole search waiver applies to hotel room used for drug dealing
The parole search waiver under state law provides for searching one’s domicile. Here there was probable cause to believe defendant was using a hotel room for drug dealing, and he was there for more than a de minimus time. Thus, … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Boilerplate in affidavit doesn’t matter if the critical facts show PC
Boilerplate information in the affidavit for warrant doesn’t matter as long as the critical facts show probable cause, and here they did. There were five facts supporting probable cause. United States v. Morton, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7580 (W.D. Ky. … Continue reading
N.D.Tex.: Suppression in forfeiture is Supp.Rule G(8)(a) not Rule 41
The government sought forfeiture of the owner’s cash after it was seized at DFW after a dog sniff on his bag. The owner responded with a motion to suppress under Rule 41, but that doesn’t apply in forfeiture cases. Supplemental … Continue reading
SD: Failure to put SW materials in record means trial court presumed correct
There were two search warrants for location data and defendant’s cell phone. Without the search warrant materials in the appellate record, there’s nothing to review and the trial court is assumed to be correct. State v. Horse, 2024 S.D. 4, … Continue reading
D.D.C.: 1/6 geofence warrant was for phones within the crime scene and was reasonable
The 1/6 Capitol geofence warrant was issued with probable cause and was specific, limited to those within the Capitol or on the restricted grounds, not just near it. United States v. Easterday, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8978 (D.D.C. Jan. 18, … Continue reading
CA3: Cuffing and taking def in on RS for a show-up was not a de facto arrest
Removing defendant on reasonable suspicion from a high crime area to the police station for a show-up and further identification was not unreasonable. It did not become a de facto arrest. United States v. Carter, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 1155 … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Arrest of County Commissioner for speaking at public meeting shown 1A retaliation and without PC
Plaintiff is a County Commissioner arrested by police at a Commission meeting for being disruptive. The arrest was shown to be First Amendment retaliation and without Fourth Amendment probable cause. Plaintiff was never ruled “out of order” by the chair; … Continue reading