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Recent Posts
- AR: RS def rented a hotel room was sufficient for search waiver; PC not required
- LA5: No standing to challenge search of shooting victim’s cell phone in def’s possession
- N.D.Okla.: Cell phones possessed by tribal police not subject to return under Rule 41(g)
- E.D.Ark.: Landlord and tenant refused rental property inspection and SW was validly issued and protected privacy interests
- D.D.C.: Judge shopping after denial of SW inappropriate; could have appealed to DJ
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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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"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: Cell phones
CA11: Lawyers were arrested for interfering with cell phone search
In a CPS-type case, there was a search warrant for two cell phones with alleged child pornography on them, and officers were going to execute them outside a hearing in the courthouse. Watching on surveillance video, officers saw the phones’ … Continue reading
CA8: Pulling off a blanket during a stop on slight RS was unreasonable
Defendant got off a Greyhound bus in Omaha during a driver change. The officers just barely had reasonable suspicion to detain defendant, and pulling his blanket off amounted to a search. That enabled the officer to see he had a … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: Info on def’s cell phone provided nexus for SW of house
Information on defendant’s cell phone linking him and Trafficker A also linked his home to the transactions and that showed nexus. United States v. Johnson, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130082 (W.D. Va. July 27, 2023).* The information about defendant’s drug … Continue reading
techdirt: Top Court In Illinois Says Compelling Password Production Isn’t A 5A Violation
techdirt: Top Court In Illinois Says Compelling Password Production Isn’t A Fifth Amendment Violation by Tim Cushing. Case posted here.
E.D.N.Y.: Compelled use of fingerprint to open cell phone not testimonial
Seeking to have defendant use his fingerprint to unlock his cell phone was not testimonial. The Second Circuit hasn’t ruled yet. “Nevertheless, the Court is persuaded by the weight of authority in other circuits, which holds that the compelled use … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: SW for a cell phone includes the SD card in it
A search warrant for a cell phone includes the SD card in it. United States v. Glatz, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 114963 (E.D. Tenn. July 5, 2023). A jury question on probable cause to arrest remained, and that avoids qualified … Continue reading
RI: Exigency of hot pursuit in a homicide case made pinging cell phone reasonable
Despite Carpenter saying it is limited to historical CSLI, this court concludes there is no meaningful difference between real-time and historical CSLI under Carpenter. Exigency, however, was real. The police were in hot pursuit seeking to question defendant for a … Continue reading
CA5: No preliminary injunction for copying attorney cell phone at border
An immigration attorney who claimed the government copied his cell phone four times after he returned from other countries wasn’t entitled to a preliminary injunction. “Government retention of unlawfully seized property is not sufficient, standing alone, to establish irreparable injury.” … Continue reading
CA5: Only RS needed for a routine manual border search of a cell phone
The Fifth Circuit follows other circuits to require only reasonable suspicion for a routine manual border cell phone search. Having found child pornography, the government could keep looking. “He argues that the government violated the Fourth Amendment by conducting the … Continue reading
NY Bronx: SW for arrest bystander’s cell phone denied
NYPD got a search warrant for a cell phone that a citizen used to record an arrest. The further search warrant to search the phone is denied. They would have to download the entire phone and then search that, and … Continue reading
IL grants access to cell phone passcode because biometric scan obviates act of production doctrine
After finding jurisdiction because denying the state access to a cell phone by its forcing the revealing of its passcode was effectively suppressing the search warrant, the Illinois Supreme Court holds that the act of production doctrine of the Fifth … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: No REP in attorney-client communication in jail 8′ from jailer
Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment complaint that attorney-client communications in jail were overheard does not survive summary judgment. He was a mere eight feet from the jailer who could clearly overhear everything. There was no reasonable expectation of privacy under the circumstances. … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: 40 day delay in getting cell phone SW was not unreasonable where def was still in custody and could not possess it
Delays in the case were to work out a plea agreement, not file motions. For that reason, the motion to suppress is denied. On the merits, the 40 day delay in seeking a warrant for his cell phone was reasonable … Continue reading
CA1: Affidavit for CP failed to show any more than child nudity and lacked PC; no GFE either
The search warrant for defendant’s phone was defective and lacked probable cause. Child nudity alone is not child pornography, and the affidavit tracks the statute and doesn’t show that it was pornography. “We hold that the affidavit failed to cross … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Rooker-Feldman barred § 1983 claim over search litigated in state court
“Applying these standards, the Court concludes that Rooker-Feldman precludes only Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment illegal seizure claim and damages sought amounting to the Property’s value. All four factors of the Rooker-Feldman doctrine are present here as to the Fourth Amendment cause … Continue reading
GA: 2022 SW for cell phone illegally searched in 2020 had no independent basis; no GFE
The trial court did not err by granting the motion to suppress evidence seized as a result of the search of his cell phone because the State’s original warrantless search in 2020 was improper and the State did not remedy … Continue reading
Techstory: Cellphone Border Searches: Feds, You’ll Need a Warrant
Techstory: Cellphone Border Searches: Feds, You’ll Need a Warrant by Sneha Singh (“In a groundbreaking ruling, a federal district judge declared that authorities must obtain a warrant before searching an American citizen’s cell phone at the US border, except in … Continue reading
NY: Second SW for phone a year later after first SW failed to show PC wasn’t timely
The first cell phone search warrant was rejected for lack of probable cause. It only provided a generic description of cell phones as repositories of potential evidence without linking it to this case. The phone was still in the evidence … Continue reading