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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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--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, 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 sixth edition of this book is at the publisher
The manuscript is in (all 7,500 single spaced pages), and the sixth edition of this book is at the publisher. Publication in December.
The Scopes trial was 100 years ago today
LA Times: When Darrow took on Bryan 100 years ago today, science got the win. Or did it? by Randall Balmer
UT: Merely possible is not sufficient for inevitable discovery to apply
Merely possible is not sufficient for inevitable discovery to apply. State v. Abonza, 2025 UT App 101, 2025 Utah App. LEXIS 102 (July 3, 2025). Based on collective knowledge, there was probable cause for defendant’s stop. Morris v. State, 2025 … Continue reading
LawFare: Tracing the Origins of a ‘New American Surveillance State’
LawFare: Tracing the Origins of a ‘New American Surveillance State’ by Sarah Lamdan (“A review of Byron Tau, ‘Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government Is Creating a New American Surveillance State’ (Crown, 2024)”)
D.N.M.: Backyard is curtilage
Defendant’s backyard is curtilage, and the entry suppressed. United States v. Ringleb, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75030 (D.N.M. Apr. 18, 2025). The Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA) Police Department conducted an entry under the basic lease agreement that permitted “‘a … Continue reading
OT
Suppose persons accused with high sentencing exposure opt for a trial because they fear being deported to CECOT even if they are natural born citizens? I had such a call Friday.
Paul Revere’s ride was 250 years ago tonight
Per Wikipedia.
NYC Formal Opinion 2025-1: A government lawyer may refuse a superior’s order to lie in court.
NYC Bar Formal Opinion 2025-1: A government lawyer may refuse a superior’s order to lie in court. “May” not “shall.” So, what about the ethical duty to report the superior for requesting the lie?
D.Md.: Is product of SW for Md. home of Jan.6 def leading to FIPF case covered by Jan.6 pardon?
Does defendant’s January 20, 2025 pardon for being a Jan. 6th Capitol defendant cover his being charged with being a felon in possession in his home when a search warrant for the Jan. 6th case was executed at his house? … Continue reading
OT
For those of us with a love-hate relationship with the USPS, which can’t seem to come to my office but 2-3 days a week and mail between two addresses downtown takes 2-5 days, consider this: Anticipating huge tariffs, I bought … Continue reading
OH2: Officer could pursue across jurisdictional lines
The officer had territorial jurisdiction to stop and arrest defendant after he fled across jurisdictional lines. The officer was in hot pursuit. Also, a motion to dismiss isn’t the remedy. State v. Letts, 2025-Ohio-1085, 2025 Ohio App. LEXIS 1033 (2d … Continue reading
MA: Weapon found in a Terry frisk can be seized
In a Terry frisk where a weapon is reasonably suspected, the officer has the authority to seize it until he knows what’s going on. Commonwealth v. Crowder, 2025 Mass. LEXIS 130 (Mar. 25, 2025):
Courthouse News Service: Obscurity shrouds state court rulings
Courthouse News Service: Obscurity shrouds state court rulings by Bill Girdner (“Rulings and judgments in state courts are falling into obscurity. A simple filter would open that work product to public view.”)
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