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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: geofence
D.D.C.: Geofence warrant for cell phones in Capitol building during 1/6 insurrection was valid and relied on in good faith
The D.C. District Court upheld a geofence warrant for cell phones located in the Capitol building during the 1/6 insurrection. Surveying all the cases, and there aren’t many, and noting that there is a margin of error as to accuracy … Continue reading
NYLJ: Geofence Warrants, January 6 and the Fourth Amendment
NYLJ Law.com: Geofence Warrants, January 6 and the Fourth Amendment (“Recently, litigation in several of the January 6th cases has disclosed the extensive use of this geofence search warrants. The Fourth Amendment implications raised by the use of this new investigative tool … Continue reading
Reason: Geofencing Warrants Are a Threat to Privacy
Reason: Geofencing Warrants Are a Threat to Privacy by Bonnie Kristian:
USA Today: Cold cases cracked by cellphones: How police are using geofence warrants to solve crimes
USA Today: Cold cases cracked by cellphones: How police are using geofence warrants to solve crimes by Christopher Damien & Nick Penzenstadler (“Mike Price, litigation director at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Fourth Amendment Center, said innocent bystanders … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: Court decides geofence warrant on GFE without getting to 4A merits
Defendant was a suspect in a series of 35 carjackings where the car was shortly thereafter used in an armed robbery. A geofence warrant was used to track defendant at the scenes of the robberies. After discussing the case law … Continue reading
EFF: Geofence Warrants and Reverse Keyword Warrants are So Invasive, Even Big Tech Wants to Ban Them
EFF: Geofence Warrants and Reverse Keyword Warrants are So Invasive, Even Big Tech Wants to Ban Them by Matthew Guariglia (“Geofence and reverse keyword warrants are some of the most dangerous, civil-liberties-infringing and reviled tools in law enforcement agencies’ digital … Continue reading
AP: Man pleads guilty in case testing use of geofence warrant
AP (via ABC News): Man pleads guilty in case testing use of geofence warrant (“A Richmond man has pleaded guilty to bank robbery charges in a case that tested the constitutionality of broad search warrants that use Google location history … Continue reading
NPR: WNYC: The Takeaway: How Crime, Technology, and Civil Liberties Collide Through Geofence Warrants
NPR: WNYC: The Takeaway: How Crime, Technology, and Civil Liberties Collide Through Geofence Warrants (“Last month, a federal judge in Richmond, Virginia ruled that the use of a geofence warrant to make an arrest in a robbery case was unconstitutional … Continue reading
Techdirt: Law Prof Suggests Geofence Warrants Are A Net Gain For The Public, Even If They Invert The Probable Cause Standard
Techdirt: Law Prof Suggests Geofence Warrants Are A Net Gain For The Public, Even If They Invert The Probable Cause Standard by Tim Cushing (“On March 9th, we covered a Virginia court’s decision to reject a geofence/‘reverse’ warrant as unconstitutional. … Continue reading
WaPo: Letting police access Google location data can help solve crimes
WaPo: Letting police access Google location data can help solve crimes by Jane Bambauer (“Acquiring anonymous data about which devices were in a bank at the time of a robbery should not be unconstitutional.”) [So do general violations of the … Continue reading
WaPo: Cellphone dragnets can help catch criminals. Judges say they can also violate constitutional rights.
WaPo: Cellphone dragnets can help catch criminals. Judges say they can also violate constitutional rights. By Justin Jouvenal & Rachel Weiner (“Police requests for ‘geofence’ data showing active cellphones near crime scenes have skyrocketed.”)
Reason: Geofence Warrants Are the Future (and That’s a Good Thing)
Reason: “Geofence Warrants Are the Future (and That’s a Good Thing)” from Prof. Jane Bambauer posted by Eugene Volokh:
Reason: The Fourth Amendment and Geofence Warrants: A Critical Look at United States v. Chatrie
Reason: The Fourth Amendment and Geofence Warrants: A Critical Look at United States v. Chatrie by Orin Kerr:
E.D.Va: Geofence warrant was unreasonable, but saved by GFE
This geofence warrant violated the Fourth Amendment because it lacked particularity and caused capture of information of innocent persons. It was, however, saved by the good faith exception. [What about the next one?] United States v. Chatrie, 2022 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
VA Cir.: Proposed geofence warrant lacks PC and particularity
This proposed geofence warrant fails both probable cause for what it seeks to capture and particularity. In re Info. Stored at the Premises Controlled by Google, 2022 Va. Cir. LEXIS 12 (Fairfax Co. Feb. 24, 2022):
EFF: In 2021, the Police Took a Page Out of the NSA’s Playbook: 2021 in Review
EFF: In 2021, the Police Took a Page Out of the NSA’s Playbook: 2021 in Review by Jennifer Lynch:
CNS: State court could put cellphone ‘dragnets’ in knots
Courthouse News Service: State court could put cellphone ‘dragnets’ in knots (“Cops want to use phone data to identify everyone who was nearby when a crime happened — a system that for civil libertarians comes at too high a privacy … Continue reading
KyCIR: To solve murders, Louisville police turn to ‘geofence’ warrants — but net few arrests
KyCIR: To solve murders, Louisville police turn to ‘geofence’ warrants — but net few arrests by Jacob Ryan, Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting:
RawStory: FBI used secret Google tracking data to nab Capitol rioters
RawStory: FBI used secret Google tracking data to nab Capitol rioters by John Wright (“Federal prosecutors have cited secretive ‘geofence’ warrants — which allow law enforcement to pinpoint cell-phone users’ precise locations over time — in 45 Capitol riot cases, … Continue reading
Bloomberg: Robbery Poses Legal Test for Police Use of Google Location Data
Bloomberg: Robbery Poses Legal Test for Police Use of Google Location Data by Andrea Vittorio: