A motel room occupant noted a strange smell coming from another room, and he called the police. They determined that it was the smell of a meth lab, and that was exigent circumstances to enter. The defendant was unconscious inside from inhaling the chemicals. State v. Meeks, 2007 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 542 (July 10, 2007):
In accordance with the reasoning of Castile, we conclude that a warrantless search of the Defendants’ hotel room was proper. Our review of the record convinces us that the Defendants’ actions did indeed present an immediate threat to public safety. An occupant of the hotel called the authorities complaining of a smell that she suspected was associated with the manufacture of methamphetamine, possibly coming from the room next door. Officer Caldwell arrived on the scene, spoke with the complainant, and detected the odor coming from Room 110. Officer Peterson described the smell as “[s]trong[,]” and Corporal Gray noted a “very strong” odor emanating from the room. When the door was opened, a “chemical cloud” came out of the room. “Air suits” were required before Officer Caldwell and Coroporal Gray could reenter the room to remove the unconscious Defendant Meeks from the room. According to Officer Caldwell, the situation was “[v]ery, very dangerous[,]” and this laboratory was “more dangerous” than usual. The occupants of the adjoining rooms were evacuated following entry into Room 110. Officer Caldwell described the dangers to the occupants: “They faced inhaling toxic chemicals. They risked the danger of an explosion and fire. It could be fatal.” A “haz-mat” team was called to the scene. Both of the Defendants were taken to the hospital, and Defendant Meeks was hospitalized for several days following this incident. Furthermore, the officers involved were experienced with cases involving the manufacturing of methamphetamine. Therefore, we conclude that probable cause to search was present and accompanied by exigent circumstances–the dangers associated with the active production of methamphetamine in a hotel room.
Citizen informant’s tip to police led to stop and defendant’s conduct was suspicious during the stop. United States v. Santon, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49569 (D. Neb. July 10, 2007).*
Stop for a traffic offense had the added suspicion of a DEA wiretap talking about transporting cocaine. The defendant’s admission he was an illegal alien all added up to probable cause for a search. United States v. Tovar-Aldaco, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49727 (E.D. Mo. July 10, 2007).*
Dunaway claim of unlawful arrest leading to confession was barred by Stone v. Powell. Ramdeo v. Phillips, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49483 (E.D. N.Y. July 6, 2007).*
Subpoena to provide handwriting examplars is not a seizure. In re Grand Jury Subpoena, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96459 (M.D. Fla. February 8, 2006).*
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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, Let it Bleed (album, 1969)
"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]
“Children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom.” – John le Carré, The Night Manager (1993), line by Richard Roper
"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)
The book was dedicated in the first (1982) and sixth (2025) editions to Justin William Hall (1975-2025). He was three when this project started in 1978.
