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- VI: Wife had apparent authority to consent to search for firearm in bedroom, even if they didn’t share it
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- OH2: Motion to suppress not proper to challenge authentication of a record for trial
- IN: Greyhound bus subject to automobile exception because dog alerted on luggage compartment
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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (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 -
© 2003-25,
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,
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)
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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: Emergency / exigency
CA2: Exigency of potential destruction of evidence has to be “in real time”
This pro se plaintiff was the subject of a sexual assault investigation that led to officers warrantlessly entering and seizing his home for 12½ hours before getting a warrant. Summary judgment was granted the officers. Exigent circumstances didn’t justify the … Continue reading
E.D.La.: Pursuing fleeing drug dealer into an apartment was reasonable
Pursuing fleeing drug dealer into an apartment was reasonable. United States v. Williams, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39113 (E.D. La. Mar. 5, 2025):
GA: Shouting and arguing inside is not exigency
Yelling and arguing from inside a home is not exigent circumstances. As to a second entry, the defendant’s statements about an injury were tainted as fruit of the initial unlawful entry. Refusal to consent to re-entry did not constitute a … Continue reading
TX14: Def’s furtive movements with cell phone can justify exigency to seize it
Defendant’s furtive movements supported exigency that he could attempt to erase things on his cell phone thus justifying its warrantless seizure. Igboji v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 1021 (Tex. App. – Houston (14th Dist.) Feb. 20, 2025) (unpublished), on … Continue reading
CA8: Exigent circumstances justified warrantless entry into Airbnb in sex trafficking investigation
Officers had exigent circumstances for an entry into an Airbnb that was being used for sex trafficking a minor when the targets were constantly on the move from place to place. The FBI was on defendant’s tail with the minor, … Continue reading
IN: Cell phone ping to locate missing 13-year-old was with exigent circumstances
The ping of defendant’s cell phone to find him when a 13-year-old girl went missing was based on exigency under state statute. Brooks v. State, 2025 Ind. App. LEXIS 19 (Jan. 31, 2025). All the factors supported reasonable suspicion: CI … Continue reading
CA1: Report of a dead body in a house for a day didn’t justify warrantless entry
The police entered defendant’s home on a report of a dead body inside. They knew, however, the person was dead at least a day and likely wasn’t inside the home by then. The emergency exception did not apply. United States … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Overdose call justified frisk
Police encountered defendant because he was experiencing an overdose. A frisk of his pockets for the cause produced a gun. United States v. Wright, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 236845 (D. Minn. Nov. 25, 2024), adopted, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4921 … Continue reading
CA2: Mental health seizure for danger to self or others requires PC and exigency
“[A] ‘warrantless seizure for the purpose of involuntary hospitalization may be made only upon probable cause, that is, only if there are reasonable grounds for believing that the person seized is dangerous to [him]self or to others.” Singh v. City … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Officer seizing notebooks couldn’t authenticate them as exhibits at trial
The seizing officer could not authenticate defendant’s notebooks as evidence at the trial. He had no knowledge about how they came into being. United States v. Sherman, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5696 (E.D. Mich. Jan. 12, 2025). Defendant’s admission at … Continue reading
TN: Def’s yelling “police” and turning back from door justified immediate entry on fear of destruction of evidence
When police knocked at defendant’s door, he yelled “police” and turned back inside the house, they feared to warn others or destroy evidence. “Here, based upon the totality of the circumstances, the record shows that the officer had a reasonable … Continue reading
KY: Landlord’s maintenance entry with electrician and a LEO because of a feared weapon was reasoanable
Defendant was schizophrenic and he was destroying the wiring in his apartment. The landlord got an electrician and then they brought a police officer because they feared he had a weapon (which he did). The entry by the police was … Continue reading
NC: Smell of dead animal led police to exigency of finding dogs in distress
The officer responded to a neighbor’s call that there was the smell of a dead animal coming from defendant’s property. The officer walked up the driveway and could see chained obviously sickly dogs with no food or water. The smell … Continue reading
NC: Knock-and-talk led to smell of MJ and attempt to bar the door, and that was exigency
The officer came to defendant’s door for a knock-and-talk about marijuana sales, and, when the door was opened, he could smell marijuana. Defendant shut the door and attempted to put a bar up to block access, and that was all … Continue reading
MT: Cell phone probation search condition based on generalizations of cell phones and crime was unreasonable
This cell phone probation search condition based on generalizations of cell phones and crime was unreasonable. State v. LeDeau, 2024 MT 305 (Dec. 17, 2024). Plaintiff makes numerous claims against a city short term rental ordinance, including a Fourth Amendment … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Govt’s exigency claim to enter defendant’s garage is rejected
“To the extent defendants assert that the warrantless entry was necessary to continue a purported temporary detention of Wheelock to further their investigation, that is not a recognized exigency or exception to justify a warrantless entry into a home or … Continue reading
OH10: Suicidal domestic call followed by ShotSpotter alert was RS
Police had a call about a domestic situation with a suicidal man with a gun. Shortly thereafter, there was a ShotSpotter alert of 20 gunshots from a house nearby. Officers arrived and patted down those found there. This is substantially … Continue reading
ND: Calling 911 about OD’g child in your house is exigency for entry
Calling 911 that the child you’re caring for OD’ed on your fentanyl is consent to their emergency entry. State v. Gothberg, 2024 ND 217, 2024 N.D. LEXIS 221 (Dec. 5, 2024). 2255 petitioner pled guilty knowing the facts of the … Continue reading
CA11: Body slam of slighter built resisting arrestee was reasonable force
The officer’s body slam of a resisting minor suspect about half his weight was entitled to qualified immunity. “But even if the facts of our case did fit Richmond, the statement that ‘less force is appropriate’ would not put every … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: Govt showed exigency for access to public Facebook messages in terrorism investigation
The court assumes defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his private Facebook messages, but holds he did not in his non-private ones. Still, the government successfully argued that it had exigent circumstances for Facebook to reveal messages under … Continue reading