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- thedrive.com: Police Are Tagging Fleeing Cars With GPS Darts to Avoid Dangerous Pursuits
- CO: School search of serial offender under firearms “safety plan” was reasonable
- NYU L. Rev.: If Wheels Could Talk: Fourth Amendment Protections Against Police Access to Automobile Data
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- VA Lawyers Weekly: Officials denied immunity for strip searching jail nurse
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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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--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
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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 -
"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
VA Lawyers Weekly: Officials denied immunity for strip searching jail nurse
Virginia Lawyers Weekly: Officials denied immunity for strip searching jail nurse by Nick Hurston (Mar. 24, 2024) (“Prison officials who strip searched a jail nurse were not entitled to qualified immunity because mistaking her for an inmate was unreasonable and … Continue reading
“I think justice is a fight. It’s a fight because there are no givens, and nothing is ever guaranteed. Above all else, justice is a dangerous game.” Hubert Delarue, lawyer for Alain Marécaux, The Outreau Case: A French Nightmare (Netflix 2024, … Continue reading
OH2: Stopping def before he got home for drug raid was reasonable
Stopping defendant a few blocks from his home when police were there executing a drug search warrant was for officer safety and reasonable. State v. Harrell, 2024-Ohio-981, 2024 Ohio App. LEXIS 918 (2d Dist. Mar. 15, 2024). [I remember a … Continue reading
fourthamendment.com is 21 today
February 24, 2003.
E.D.Wis.: Under Payton, revo warrant justified USM entry into place where def was staying
The US Marshals had an arrest warrant for defendant on an FTA for a revocation hearing. Theydeveloped probable cause through searching Facebook posts that defendant was likely staying at the home of another. Their entry was lawful under Payton and … Continue reading
MI: Cell phone SW completely fails particularity; no GFE
This cell phone search warrant completely failed the particularity requirement, and the good faith exception did not apply. Cell phone searches are intrusive, and warrants must be particular. People v. Carson, 2024 Mich. App. LEXIS 1235 (Feb. 15, 2024):
CA4: Broad social media SWs in sex trafficking case explained
This is a MS-13 sex trafficking appeal. Facebook warrants were issued for communications that were sent via private message. There was a substantial basis for the issuance of the warrants: “The warrant affidavits in this case were well-sourced. They incorporated … Continue reading
LAT: Opinion: ‘Know why I pulled you over?’ Fortunately, California police can’t ask you that anymore
LATimes: Opinion: ‘Know why I pulled you over?’ Fortunately, California police can’t ask you that anymore by Michael Bochkur Dratver (“As of January, California police officers are required to provide motorists and pedestrians with the reason for stopping them before … Continue reading
MSNBC: Opinion: A hospitalized baby, a terrified mother: A botched police raid in Ohio is the tip of the iceberg
MSNBC: Opinion: A hospitalized baby, a terrified mother: A botched police raid in Ohio is the tip of the iceberg by Radley Balko (“Until judges start taking seriously their responsibility to protect the Fourth Amendment, expect to see more innocent … Continue reading
CA6: Arrest on a PV warrant permits search incident
A parole violation warrant permits a search incident to the arrest. United States v. Henderson, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 362 (6th Cir. Jan. 4, 2024) (applying Michigan law) (and after all, the defendant’s going to jail). Stopping with the front … Continue reading
“We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government. The aggressive breaches of privacy by the Government increase by geometric proportions.”
Osborn v. United States, 385 U.S. 323, 87 S.Ct. 429, 439, 17 L.Ed.2d 394) (1966) (Douglas dissenting), Hoffa v. United States, 385 U.S. 293, 87 S.Ct. 408, 17 L.Ed.2d 374 (1966) (concurring in part with Clark), Lewis v. United States, … Continue reading
ProPublica: Body Cameras Were Sold as a Tool of Police Reform. Ten Years Later, Most of the Footage Is Kept From Public View.
ProPublica: Body Cameras Were Sold as a Tool of Police Reform. Ten Years Later, Most of the Footage Is Kept From Public View. by Umar Farooq (“There were 101 people killed at the hands of police in June 2022. More … Continue reading
Today is Bill of Rights Day
December 15, 1791
WaPo: Pharmacies share medical data with police without a warrant, inquiry finds
WaPo: Pharmacies share medical data with police without a warrant, inquiry finds by Drew Harwell (“The revelation could shape the debate over Americans’ health privacy as states move to criminalize abortion and drugs related to reproductive health.”)
Reason: DEA’s Domestic Surveillance ‘Mission Creep’
Reason: DEA’s Domestic Surveillance ‘Mission Creep’ by Patrick Eddington (“It appears that DEA agents have been employed on non-drug-related investigations for far longer than they were originally authorized.”)
Another AI pleading with made up caselaw
Pranshu Verma and Will Oremus, These lawyers used ChatGPT to save time. They got fired and fined. (Wash. Post Nov. 16, 2023) (“Artificial intelligence is changing how law is practiced, but not always for the better”). That’s the lead but … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Failure to show nexus still saved by GFE because there’s always an inference
The affidavit for warrant here completely failed to link defendant’s residence to drugs. One fact was that he left there, met up with a confederate, and went to a drug deal. That wasn’t enough. Still, the good faith exception saves … Continue reading
“Breaking Bad” ended a decade ago today
Last of 62 episodes September 29, 2013.
N.D.Ohio: Erroneous DL suspension record still led to a valid search
An erroneous DL suspension record still led to a valid search. (Evans; Herring) United States v. Boxx, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 172377 (N.D. Ohio Sep. 27, 2023). Appellant’s request that the court of appeals reject Franks and state supreme court … Continue reading
IL: Frisk unjustified without showing risk def was armed
Defendant’s frisk was unjustified. There was no reasonable suspicion he was armed. People v. Lozano, 2023 Ill. LEXIS 463 (Sep. 21, 2023).* Defendant used his cell phone to arrange drug deals, and a search warrant was sought for the phone. … Continue reading