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- Reason: Will ICE Use the Alien Enemies Act To Enter Homes Without Warrants?
- Reason: The FBI Seized This Woman’s Life Savings—Without Telling Her Why
- MI: Nighttime entry onto curtilage was reasonable because officers were responding to a dangerous situation
- D.Neb.: Officer asking same question three different ways didn’t unreasonably prolong the stop
- PA: Entry of curtilage to inquire of a chop shop in operation was reasonable
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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (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 -
© 2003-25,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 500,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 47,000 posts since 2003 (30,000+ on WordPress as of 12/31/24) -
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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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (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, 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] -
“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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Category Archives: Uncategorized
The Marshall Project: Mississippi’s No-Knock Raids Have Led to Death and Injury. Dozens of Warrants Lacked Clear Justification.
The Marshall Project: Mississippi’s No-Knock Raids Have Led to Death and Injury. Dozens of Warrants Lacked Clear Justification. (“During a 2015 no-knock drug raid in Mississippi’s rural northeast corner, sheriff’s deputies shot and killed 57-year-old Ricky Keeton after he came … Continue reading
N.D.Miss.: Summers didn’t support transporting person to jail whose house was being searched
Plaintiff’s house was searched on a warrant. There was no probable cause as to him at the time. It was unreasonable under Summers to transport him in handcuffs to the jail to be questioned for five hours and then released. … Continue reading
DoJ: Knowing false arrest leads to federal civil rights conviction
DoJ: Former Nye County Captain Pleads Guilty To Federal Civil Rights Violation And Wire Fraud (Mar. 12, 2025)
Law.com: Geofencing, High Tech Surveillance and the Future of the Fourth Amendment
Law.com: Geofencing, High Tech Surveillance and the Future of the Fourth Amendment
This blog is 22 years old today
See the post from the 20th Anniversary.
“A Fourth Amendment Press Clause,” in National Security, Journalism, and Law in an Age of Information Warfare, Ethics, National Security, and the Rule of Law (2024)
Hannah Bloch-Wehba, “A Fourth Amendment Press Clause,” in Marc Ambinder, Jennifer R. Henrichsen, and Connie Rosati (eds), National Security, Journalism, and Law in an Age of Information Warfare, Ethics, National Security, and the Rule of Law (New York, 2024; online … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: CA2’s deciding search issue in direct appeal with GFE, too, did not violate “party presentation” rule
The Second Circuit upheld the search in this case and threw in an alternative ground, the good faith exception. On habeas, that did not violate the “party presentation” rule where the parties decide the issues to litigate, not the court. … Continue reading
FourthAmendment.com in Feedspot’s 100 Best Legal Blogs and Websites in 2025
Informed today.
LATimes: ‘Ghost stops’: Lieutenant claims LAPD officials were warned about troubled gang unit
LATimes: ‘Ghost stops’: Lieutenant claims LAPD officials were warned about troubled gang unit by Libor Jany (claim of retaliation for reporting on police stops where body cams were turned off or no reports ever made).
To ChatGPT: Why should lawyers not trust AI for briefs?
Lawyers may have concerns about relying on AI for legal briefs due to several reasons. While AI can be a powerful tool for legal research and drafting, there are potential pitfalls that can make it risky to trust AI entirely … Continue reading
The Marshall Project: How a 1963 Cleveland Case Shaped Stop-and-Frisk Police Tactics, and Why It Still Matters
The Marshall Project: How a 1963 Cleveland Case Shaped Stop-and-Frisk Police Tactics, and Why It Still Matters by Brittany Hailer and Rachel Dissell, data analysis by Doug Livingston. In § 21.04 of the Treatise there’s a discussion of the history … Continue reading
Today is Bill of Rights Day
Fourth Amendment, established December 15, 1791.
Reason: Kindle Version of “The Digital Fourth Amendment” Is Now Available
Reason: Kindle Version of “The Digital Fourth Amendment” Is Now Available by Orin S. Kerr (“You have to wait until January for the physical book, but you can read the electronic version now. … I’m very pleased to say that … Continue reading
Forbes: FinCEN Says Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) Reports Are Voluntary Following Court Decision
Forbes: FinCEN Says Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) Reports Are Voluntary Following Court Decision. My post on the case here
For originalists, is using the military to conduct arrests and detentions in the U.S. a “reasonable search and seizure”?
Reuters: Republican Rand Paul opposes Trump talk of using military in deportations by Bo Erickson (“A 19th century U.S. law prohibits federal troops from being used in domestic law enforcement except when authorized by Congress. [¶] Paul, at times a … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: An inventory at the scene and not at the police station is still valid
The fact an otherwise valid inventory of defendant’s satchel happened in the field and not at the police station doesn’t make it unreasonable. United States v. Soto, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 202833 (D. Ariz. Nov. 7, 2024). Small talk between … Continue reading
Podcast: Fourth Amendment Protections in a Connected World
Digital Boundaries: Fourth Amendment Protections in a Connected World — The Presumption of Innocence (Podcast) (“Modern technology is testing the limits of the Fourth Amendment and redefining the parameters of privacy. Michael Price, Litigation Director of the Fourth Amendment Center … Continue reading
Law Review: The Automated Fourth Amendment
Maneka Sinha, The Automated Fourth Amendment, 73 Emory L. J. 589 (2024). The abstract:
NACDL CLE: Artificial Justice: AI, Tech and Criminal Defense (Oct. 7-8)
NACDL CLE: Artificial Justice: AI, Tech and Criminal Defense, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC, October 7-8 from NACDL’s Fourth Amendment Center and Georgetown. The materials were distributed yesterday, and it will be excellent.
SCOTUS grants cert in excessive force case
Barnes v. Felix, 23-1239 (granted Oct. 4, 2024):