May 2024 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Archives
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Recent Posts
- M.D.Pa.: Def was neither shipper nor recipient of USPS parcel, so he had no standing in it
- WI: Obtaining def’s DNA by ruse wasn’t an illegal search
- WaPo: Apple, Google and Venmo fight new U.S. plan to monitor payment apps
- CA4: Tracking order using cell site simulator with PC was reasonable
- CADC: When searching a cell phone and officers find it belonged to someone else, a new SW isn’t required; SWs are directed at things, places, and people and owner doesn’t matter for PC
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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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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) -
“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: Arrest or entry on arrest
CA2: Reason to believe ptf was inside justified entry with arrest warrant under Payton
Officers had an arrest warrant for plaintiff, and that gave them the ability to enter his home to look for him under Payton when they had a reasonable belief he was inside. Engelmayer v. Engelmayer, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 1617 … Continue reading
CA3: Cuffing and taking def in on RS for a show-up was not a de facto arrest
Removing defendant on reasonable suspicion from a high crime area to the police station for a show-up and further identification was not unreasonable. It did not become a de facto arrest. United States v. Carter, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 1155 … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Arrest of County Commissioner for speaking at public meeting shown 1A retaliation and without PC
Plaintiff is a County Commissioner arrested by police at a Commission meeting for being disruptive. The arrest was shown to be First Amendment retaliation and without Fourth Amendment probable cause. Plaintiff was never ruled “out of order” by the chair; … Continue reading
TX1: Arrest on PC when standing next to vehicle justified its search incident
Defendant’s arrest for a parole violation while he was standing next to his vehicle resulted in a search of the person finding drugs, and that justified a search incident of the vehicle, too. Badyrka v. State, 2024 Tex. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
Reason: Study Estimates Roadside Drug Tests Result in 30,000 Wrongful Arrests Every Year
Reason: Study Estimates Roadside Drug Tests Result in 30,000 Wrongful Arrests Every Year by C.J. Ciaramella (“Roughly 30,000 people every year may be getting wrongfully arrested and jailed because of police departments’ widespread use of unreliable roadside field tests for … Continue reading
CA9: Questions about supervised release status and request for consent during traffic stop are reasonable
This traffic stop was not unreasonably extended. “Officers were permitted to ask Contreras about his supervisory release status as an ordinary inquiry incident to a traffic stop. … Officers were also allowed to conduct a criminal records search. … Likewise, … Continue reading
LA4: Lack of PC finding at first appearance required OR bond
Defendant was arrested on a warrant. At the first appearance there was no determination of probable cause for the arrest, so state law required that he be ORed. The $10,000 bond is set aside. State v. Nelson, 2023 La. App. … Continue reading
Kansas City Star: Kansas police searched their car without a warrant, and they lost custody of their son
Kansas City Star: Kansas police searched their car without a warrant, and they lost custody of their son by Katie Moore & Katie Bernard (“It’s been more than two years since Claudia Astudillo Aguirre lost custody of her child. [¶] … Continue reading
W.D.Wis.: No habeas relief for unlawful arrest
That 2254 petitioner’s state arrest was unreasonable doesn’t state grounds for relief from a conviction. Haring v. Prosise, 462 U.S. 306, 321 (1983). Ramirez v. Meisner, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 218142 (W.D. Wis. Dec. 6, 2023). Defendant had no standing … Continue reading
WA: Def’s first appearance where bail was set under Gerstein not critical stage requiring counsel because bail could be revisited
Defendant’s first appearance where bail was set under Gerstein was not a critical stage requiring counsel because bail could be revisited. State v. Heng, 2023 Wash. LEXIS 603 (Dec. 7, 2023). “The government contends that [the search] was justified both … Continue reading
WV: SW for items that are also common to any home doesn’t make warrant general; it’s specific enough
Officers had two search warrants for Gray’s place, and defendant complained that the warrant described things common to any home. There was probable cause for that stuff, and there’s no requirement of a more specific description. State v. Knotts, 2023 … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: A pending forfeiture action in another district justifies dismissal of Rule 41(g) motion because there is another remedy
This is a Rule 41(g) action for return of property, a superyacht owned by a Russian oligarch seized allegedly in violation of Russian sanctions. The next day, a forfeiture action was filed in the S.D.N.Y., and that provided an adequate … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: “[T]here is no constitutional right to be free from arrest on the basis of illegally obtained evidence.”
“[T]here is no constitutional right to be free from arrest on the basis of illegally obtained evidence.” Santiago v. Swain, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 194607 (M.D. Fla. Oct. 31, 2023).* Plaintiff’s civil Franks claim fails because there was probable cause … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: That state arrest warrant was unsigned is not a 4A violation
A violation of state law on arrest warrant papers doesn’t per se make a Fourth Amendment violation. “There is no Fourth Amendment requirement that a state criminal complaint for an arrest warrant be signed, or even that the warrant itself … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Officer’s question about firearms in car made def unreasonably nervous
During a traffic stop, the officer’s question about weapons in the car resulted in defendant’s getting unusually nervous, his breathing completely changing where his chest rose and fell, and he refused to look the officer in the eye. That was … Continue reading
TX5: Even with legalized hemp, smell of MJ from car is still PC
The smell of marijuana from a vehicle is probable cause even if legal hemp can be mistaken for it. State v. Gonzales, 2023 Tex. App. LEXIS 7827 (Tex. App. – Dallas Oct. 12, 2023). Plaintiff’s claim for false arrest for … Continue reading
CA8: Continuation of arrest after the officer learned it was unjustified denied the officer QI
Continuation of plaintiff’s arrest after the officer learned it was unjustified denied the officer qualified immunity. “Even if we concluded Officer Holtan made a reasonable mistake about probable cause when he first tackled Nieters to the ground, Nieters immediately informed … Continue reading
CA6: Incriminating nature of gun was reasonably immediately apparent to officers
The incriminating nature of an AR-15 was immediately apparent to the officers. They don’t have to know that it’s contraband, just that it’s reasonably likely. On this record, that was shown. United States v. Grier, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 26077 … Continue reading