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Recent Posts
- LA4: Merely having a concealed firearm isn’t RS for a frisk
- OR: Merely driving off the road wasn’t RS, but adding the driver’s demeanor at the time was
- OH6: Trial court’s failure to explain RS under Rodriguez required remand
- CA6: Asking def before a patdown during arrest what he had on him wasn’t barred by Miranda
- NY Queens: PC shown for SW blood drawn at hospital after car wreck
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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,
citations, and links -
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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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"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)
Website design by Wally Waller, Little Rock 
Category Archives: Warrant execution
AP News: A Mississippi jury rules officers justified in fatal 2017 shooting after police went to wrong house
AP News: A Mississippi jury rules officers justified in fatal 2017 shooting after police went to wrong house (“The case was notable in part because the city of Southaven had previously argued that Lopez had no civil rights to violate … Continue reading
ME: State constitutional arguments must be developed; citing it not enough
(1) The tracking device placed on defendant’s vehicle by court order was with probable cause. (2) “For a claim under the Maine Constitution to be deemed preserved for our review, however, the party advancing the claim cannot merely allude to … Continue reading
Anyuak Media: The Kansas Bureau of Investigation Launches Criminal Probe of Newspaper Raid
Anyuak Media: The Kansas Bureau of Investigation Launches Criminal Probe of Newspaper Raid by Martin Edwards:
MD: IAC Brady claim fails over search claim
Defense counsel’s failure to seek the IAD file on the officers at a suppression hearing wasn’t ineffective assistance of counsel. The searching officer had an alleged propensity to exaggerate and excessively strip search. Here, however, another officer was there to … Continue reading
Radley Balko today
From Radley Balko today: • The New York Civil Liberties Union released data to the Gothamist that shows staggering racial disparities among interactions by the New York Police Department under the leadership of former cop turned mayor Eric Adams. Just … Continue reading
NYTimes: The Revealing Case of a Kansas Judge and a Search Warrant
NYTimes: The Revealing Case of a Kansas Judge and a Search Warrant by Gregory P. Magarian (“A government raid on a newspaper’s office and its publisher’s home, with police seizing reporters’ computers and phones, sounds like a lurid tale from … Continue reading
Kansas Reflector: In Marion County newspaper raid, a grim threat to Kansans’ First Amendment rights
Kansas Reflector: In Marion County newspaper raid, a grim threat to Kansans’ First Amendment rights by Clay Wirestone:
M.D.Tenn.: 4A unreasonable search clause may apply to excessive damaging search
In executing a search warrant unreasonably causing excessive and unnecessary property damage, the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment almost never applies, but the Fourth Amendment’s unreasonable search clause may. Slaybaugh v. Rutherford Cty., 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 149105 (M.D. … Continue reading
CA5: No police wrongdoing here to support “police created exigency”
Defendant came in to the police for an interview about sex assault in the Army. As it developed, exigency for seizure of defendant’s cell phone arose. This was not a police created exigency which requires some wrongdoing on the part … Continue reading
D.Conn.: Apparent overbreadth in SW cured by GFE on how it was executed and on what
The search warrant didn’t specify the crime under investigation and that was a problem for particularity. That could have been cured by the affidavit being attached to the warrant at execution but it wasn’t. It was referred to in the … Continue reading
Reason: A SWAT Team Destroyed an Innocent Man’s Shop. Then the City Left Him With the Bill.
Reason: A SWAT Team Destroyed an Innocent Man’s Shop. Then the City Left Him With the Bill. by Billy Binion (“Pena didn’t fault the city for attempting to subdue an allegedly dangerous person. But he objected to what came next: … Continue reading
E.D.Ark.: Ptf’s Facebook posts shooting guns supported use of flashbang during drug raid
Plaintiff’s Facebook posts of her shooting guns on her property supported the use of flashbang devices when her house was subjected to a drug raid by the SWAT team. Davenport v. City of Little Rock, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 119102 … Continue reading
E.D.La.: Leaving the wrong SW at the scene of the search is not a ground to suppress
Leaving the wrong search warrant at the scene of the search is not a ground to suppress. United States v. Major, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 116569 (E.D. La. July 7, 2023). The CI had no track record, but his story … Continue reading
OH5: Pickup of visitor parked on street could be searched with SW for premises where it was suspected of drug transactions there
Defendant’s pickup was parked on the street in front of another man’s house that was searched with a warrant. His truck was searched too, but wasn’t mentioned in the warrant. “We find the search of the truck was authorized by … Continue reading
TX: Def had no REP in work truck searched by owner at police request three days after his arrest and expiration of SW
Recognizing that Byrd holds that a person can have standing in a vehicle owned and maybe even operated by another: “Does an employee retain standing to contest a search or seizure in his work vehicle several days after he was … Continue reading
NM: SW for bodily standards in case pending for trial not 4A or due process violation
After defendant was indicted a search warrant for bodily standards was sought from the metropolitan court. It didn’t lose jurisdiction for a search warrant, even in a case pending in a “higher” trial court. “[P]ost-indictment warrants are lawful in New … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: No right to ex ante notice of email SW to challenge it before execution; remedy is after
An email account holder does not have a right to notice before execution of an email warrant. Moreover, he or she has no standing to challenge a search warrant for email before the warrant is executed. In re Search of … Continue reading
OH5, D.Minn.: Not calling additional witnesses at suppression hearing didn’t change outcome
There was reasonable suspicion for the stop here, and defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not calling another witness that wouldn’t have changed the outcome. State v. Ware, 2023-Ohio-1807 (5th Dist. May 30, 2023).* In a tax warrant case, defense counsel … Continue reading
NY Co.: SW not timely executed is suppressed
Search warrants in NY have to be executed within ten days. This cell phone warrant wasn’t, so suppression is granted. The order is stayed so the state can decide whether to appeal. People v. Nurse, 2023 NY Slip Op 23167, … Continue reading