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- E.D.Mich.: Second SW for cell phone data retained by govt was valid
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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com
Search and Seizure (6th ed. 2025)
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-26,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 600,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 50,000 posts since 2003 (29,000 on WordPress as of 12/31/25) -
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Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
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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)
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“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] -
“Children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom.”
– John le Carré, The Night Manager (1993), line by Richard Roper -
"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) -
The book was dedicated in the first (1982) and sixth (2025) editions to Justin William Hall (1975-2025). He was three when this project started in 1978.
Website design by Wally Waller, Colorado Springs. 
Category Archives: § 1983 / Bivens
CA8: Arguable PC means qualified immunity against false arrest
There was arguable probable cause for plaintiff’s arrest, so the officers get qualified immunity. Trevino v. Benton County, Arkansas, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 19166 (8th Cir. October 8, 2014).* The police obtained separate search warrants for marijuana and a cell … Continue reading
HuffPo: Michigan Cops Raid Wrong House, Shoot Beloved 15-Year-Old Dog
HuffPo: Michigan Cops Raid Wrong House, Shoot Beloved 15-Year-Old Dog by David Lohr: Authorities who went to the wrong house in search of a wanted fugitive and shot a beloved family pet are refusing to take responsibility for their actions, … Continue reading
CA7: “[P]ointing guns at Matz while ordering him to stop or risk having his ‘fucking head’ blown off, frisking, handcuffing, and placing him in a patrol car” reasonable here under Terry
While the question is close, “pointing guns at Matz while ordering him to stop or risk having his ‘fucking head’ blown off, frisking, handcuffing, and placing him in a patrol car—was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which initially … Continue reading
CA11: Arguable PC for arrest gives qualified immunity
Arguable probable cause for a warrantless arrest and then a valid search warrant gives qualified immunity to the officers involved. Ultimately the DA decided not to prosecute the plaintiffs, and it was a close case for prosecution. Roddy v. City … Continue reading
CA11: Officer denied qualified immunity for slamming passive arrestee to pavement
“We have repeatedly ruled that a police officer violates the Fourth Amendment, and is denied qualified immunity, if he or she uses gratuitous and excessive force against a suspect who is under control, not resisting, and obeying commands. See, e.g., … Continue reading
CA11: Courthouse security guard denied qualified immunity for twisting arm of a female lawyer on the phone
Plaintiff in this § 1983 case was a lawyer entering the Fulton County Courthouse. She put her briefcase and purse on the conveyor belt for the x-ray machine, but she set off the metal detector. She was instructed to take … Continue reading
CA9: A roving game warden stop not a proper administrative search
“We must decide whether a suspicionless roving automobile stop of commercial fishers made while they drive on a public highway to investigate compliance with Washington fish and game laws constitutes an unreasonable search and seizure within the meaning of the … Continue reading
SW Times Record: iPhone Photo Leads To Settlement Against Sheriff’s Deputy
SW Times Record: iPhone Photo Leads To Settlement Against Sheriff’s Deputy by Jeff Arnold: Although the settlement language allows him to claim no fault, a Sebastian County sheriff’s deputy recently accepted an almost $40,000 judgment against him instead of going … Continue reading
CA6: Ptf’s own video of stop supported that his arrest was without PC
Plaintiff in this § 1983 case videotaped his own stop because he was concerned of continued harassment by one particular officer. The video shows no factual basis for plaintiff’s arrest for “menacing” or disorderly conduct in his interaction with the … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Police deleting ptf’s computer file of police searching probationer’s home violates First Amendment
A police officer violated plaintiff’s First Amendment rights when he took her computer while she was recording their search of her house. No qualified immunity: If a citizen has a right to record the police in public, they sure do … Continue reading
CA5: Firing assault rifle into car with suicidal driver during high speed chase not constitutionally unreasonable
An officer firing an assault rifle into a fleeing stolen car operated at high speeds by a suicidal armed man did not commit a constitutional violation. There was no constitutional obligation on the part of the officer to use less … Continue reading
CA8: Hour long wait for a drug dog was not unreasonable in rural SD on reasonable suspicion
Once reasonable suspicion arose in a motorist assist, the officer called for drug dog, but the closest was an hour away because they were in rural South Dakota. The detention was still reasonable under all the circumstances despite that delay. … Continue reading
OK: Under collective knowledge, arresting officer doesn’t need all the details
Under the collective knowledge doctrine, all the details don’t have to be passed on to the arresting officer to make the arrest legal. State v. Iven, 2014 OK CR 8; 2014 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 7 (July 25, 2014). Plaintiff … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: Reasonable suspicion supported border search of 5 cell phones
Officers had reasonable suspicion that defendant was involved in alien smuggling when she crossed the border at San Ysidro. When she was sent for secondary inspection, the five cell phones she had could be searched under Cotterman. United States v. … Continue reading
IN: Completely unjustified frisk suppressed
The officer in this case received word that defendant was a drug dealer, so he went around looking for defendant. He saw the defendant a couple of times but nothing was unusual or suggested a crime. Then he initiated a … Continue reading
CA11: No exigency present on a domestic call to justify warrantless entry into home
No reasonable officer could conclude on these facts that there was exigency for a warrantless entry. There was no evidence that actual violence was occurring or threatened. Therefore, qualified immunity was denied. Walters v. Freeman, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 13540 … Continue reading
CA11: Tasering armed man out of a tree where he broke his back entitled to QI
Plaintiff was drunk in a tree with a gun after an altercation at a party. The police came and he refused to some down. He was Tasered twice, the second time falling headfirst eight feet and becoming a paraplegic. The … Continue reading
MA: Arrest on outstanding warrants doesn’t justify a search incident
Arrest on outstanding warrants for drugs and violation of a protective order does not give officers the authority to conduct a search incident. Commonwealth v. White, 469 Mass. 96, 12 N.E.3d 348 (2014). Pro se plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment claims were … Continue reading
CA10: No state action for Fourth Amendment claim against NBC’s “Dateline”
In a defamation action against NBC’s Dateline for surreptitiously entering plaintiff’s brokerage seminar to record parts of it with the encouragement of Alabama state officials, there was no Fourth Amendment violation. There was no state action or coercion in facilitating … Continue reading