Consent denial binding under Randolph does not have to occur at the threshold; it can be elsewhere. Inevitable discovery also rejected on these facts. United States v. Weston, 65 M.J. 774 (N.-M. Ct. App. 2007):
The appellant’s facts fall in the middle ground between Matlock and Randolph–neither co-tenant was present at the residence but both were asked for consent to search, resulting in competing consents. Applying the Randolph analysis here, based on shared social expectations and common understanding of co-tenant rights and relationships, and weighing and balancing the competing interests, we conclude that the consent colloquy in this case, held away from the residential front door and resulting in competing consents, is constitutionally no different than one held at the physical residential front door.
. . .
Applying the law of inevitable discovery to the facts in this case leads us to the conclusion that the Government’s evidence establishes no more than that the seized evidence “could” have been discovered if an alternative procedure had been implemented as part of the investigation. Only speculation can get the Government beyond what “could” have been done and what results “might” have been achieved. Because we must focus on the “demonstrated historical facts capable of ready verification or impeachment,” without speculation, Nix, 467 U.S. at 444 n.5, we conclude that the Government did not carry its burden of establishing inevitable discovery by a preponderance of the evidence. Accordingly, we find that the military judge abused his discretion in concluding that the seized evidence would have been inevitably discovered merely because CID had a legal basis upon which search authorization could be sought–probable cause.
Officers reasonably believed that consenter used the premises as a secondary residence and could consent. United States v. Silva, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73241 (D. Or. September 27, 2007):
The officers’ observation of Lowe led them to believe she had just showered at the 502 residence, and she did not disclaim control over the residence. Further, it appears that she may have actual control over the residence as she stated she comes over to the residence every few weeks to work. It is objectively reasonable to conclude Lowe had authority to consent to search of the residence. The officers reasonably believed that although it was not her primary residence, it was a secondary residence shared with defendant when Lowe came to Medford to work as a care giver or housekeeper. Thus, the issue is whether Lowe provided voluntary consent.
Comment: This one is really thin.
Plaintiff stated a claim for relief for ATF agents allegedly trashing his house and stealing $2000 during search because it is a question of reasonableness of search. Springer v. Horn, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73399 (N.D. Okla. October 1, 2007).*
Qualified immunity denied two officers who were accused of arresting plaintiffs for the content of their speech. “Little precedent” was not enough reason for qualified immunity. McCabe v. Macaulay, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73385 (N.D. Iowa October 1, 2007).*
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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.
