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- CA6 disagrees with CA7 on de minimis injuries under § 1983 force cases
- MO: No duty of care owed by police to fleeing motorist
- D.P.R.: Indictment for possession of switches to convert handguns to machine guns justified vehicle search when defendant was stopped
- N.D.Ohio: Heroin and three guns in plain view was exigency for entry with child alone inside
- S.D.Fla.: SW application redacted for discovery for now
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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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Fourth Amendment cases,
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--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (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 -
"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
Working on a book manuscript
Will catch up soon
techdirt: Ohio Court Says Distance Learning ‘Room Scans’ Violate The Fourth Amendment
techdirt: Ohio Court Says Distance Learning ‘Room Scans’ Violate The Fourth Amendment by Tim Cushing:
NLJ: Will Judicial Polarization Lead to More Strategic ‘Unpublished’ Opinions?
NLJ: Will Judicial Polarization Lead to More Strategic ‘Unpublished’ Opinions? (“Because unpublished opinions aren’t precedential and don’t typically get reviewed by full courts, some court watchers worry that panels could use them to get their desired outcome in a particular case … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: Burden on defense to show GFE doesn’t apply
The good faith exception is determined before probable cause. If there is objective good faith, the rest doesn’t matter. The burden is on the defense to show the good faith exception doesn’t apply. United States v. Ledesma, 2022 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
N.-M.: Forum shopping rejected because USMJ also had jurisdiction over search warrant
NCIS presented a search authorization that a military judge later determined was likely lacking in the showing of probable cause. To remedy that, NCIS did a new affidavit for warrant and presented it to a USMJ also with potential jurisdiction … Continue reading
USA Today: A lawyer in your pocket: Apps aim to change traffic stops forever with legal advice, live-streaming
USA Today: A lawyer in your pocket: Apps aim to change traffic stops forever with legal advice, live-streaming (“A review released this year of national police data gathered by the nonprofit Mapping Police Violence found police in the U.S. have … Continue reading
Don’t take CP on a cash run
One search led to another. United States v. Orozco, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 20390 (4th Cir. July 25, 2022):
W.D.Ky.: RS not required for knock-and-talk
Reasonable suspicion is not required for a knock-and-talk. United States v. Raley, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 128634 (W.D. Ky. July 20, 2022). The officer ran defendant’s LPN and it came back with “verify proof of insurance status.” That justified the … Continue reading
D.N.M.: No return of seized phone of election denier lawyer
Plaintiff is a self-described “constitutional lawyer,” and his claim the search warrant for phone wasn’t particular enough or that he had a right to see the warrant to point out defects to the officer before execution is denied. It was; … Continue reading
John Erlichman, President Nixon’s Domestic Policy Advisor:
The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Subject matter of search particularized it by time
The search warrant was particular and not overbroad. The subject matter of the investigation sufficiently limited the search even though time wasn’t otherwise specified. United States v. Hugger, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 123081 (S.D. Fla. July 12, 2022):
CA11: No IAC; hypothetical motion to suppress would fail
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective. The “hypothetical motion” to suppress would fail. Spriggs v. United States, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 17933 (11th Cir. June 29, 2022).* The rationale:
KY: REP in CSLI
There is a reasonable expectation of privacy in one’s CSLI. One can have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his or her movements on public roads. Commonwealth v. Reed, 2022 Ky. LEXIS 132 (June 16, 2022):
50th Anniversary of the Watergate break-in
50 years ago early this morning, the Watergate break-in occurred. And the rest is history. I was in the summer recess between being a 2L and 3L, probably already in summer classes. I studied for the bar exam to be … Continue reading
ATL: Federal Judge Just Doesn’t Feel Like Reading The Fifth Circuit’s Cases
And here, the defendant won on the search issue: ATL: Federal Judge Just Doesn’t Feel Like Reading The Fifth Circuit’s Cases by Kathryn Rubino (“Is this the most relatable a federal judge has ever been?”) discussing United States v. McKinney, … Continue reading
Bloomberg Tax: Congress’ Crypto Reporting Rules Draw Constitutional Challenge
Bloomberg Tax: Congress’ Crypto Reporting Rules Draw Constitutional Challenge (June 11, 2022) COURT: E.D. Ky.DOCKET: No. 5:22-cv-00149 (Bloomberg Law subscription)JUDGE: Karen K. Caldwell (Bloomberg Law subscription)
CNS: Can police secretly spy on your home without a warrant? The First Circuit doesn’t know
CNS: Can police secretly spy on your home without a warrant? The First Circuit doesn’t know by Thomas F. Harrison:
StarTribune: Ex-Minneapolis officer sentenced to three years in prison for stealing drugs during traffic stops
StarTribune: Ex-Minneapolis officer sentenced to three years in prison for stealing drugs during traffic stops by Randy Furst (“A former Minneapolis police officer who conducted questionable traffic stops in order to steal people’s drugs was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District … Continue reading
NYT: How a New York County Used the State’s ‘Red Flag’ Law to Seize 160 Guns
NYT: How a New York County Used the State’s ‘Red Flag’ Law to Seize 160 Guns by Andy Newman, Benjamin Weiser and Ashley Southall (“Suffolk County on Long Island aggressively uses the law to take guns from people in crisis … Continue reading
CA6: A minimal showing of nexus is enough for GFE even where PC is lacking
The affidavit failed to show probable cause. There was a minimal showing of nexus. That’s enough here for the good faith exception. United States v. Helton, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 13943 (6th Cir. May 24, 2022):