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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: Roadblocks
W.D.N.C.: Roadblock near scene of home invasion robbery was reasonable
Police set up a perimeter a distance around the scene of a home invasion looking for the car involved, and defendant’s car was stopped. This checkpoint stop was valid under Illinois v. Lidster. United States v. Gilmore, 2018 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
CA5: Greyhound bus interdiction at Conroe TX was not a checkpoint stop; defendant disclaimed bag and bus driver’s consent applied to it
A Greyhound bus interdiction at Conroe, Texas was not a checkpoint stop. Two plainclothes officers got on the bus and walked down the aisle. Defendant was feigning sleeping. He ultimately consented to a search of a bag over his head … Continue reading
Michigan Daily: Libertarians protest roadside drug-testing program
Stunning, the chutzpa of the Michigan State Police: Michigan Daily: Libertarians protest roadside drug-testing program by Leah Graham:
PA: Commercial truck inspections coming into a landfill were valid under Burger
Pennsylvania State Police and environmental inspectors set up a roadblock into a landfill to inspect commercial trucks. In defendant’s truck they found some beer, and he was charged with DWI and “unlawful activities.” The stop and inspect of defendant’s truck … Continue reading
WI: Checkpoint minutes after an armed robbery was reasonable; only two cars stopped
Officers responding to an armed robbery call were in the vicinity and parked in the street with top lights on along a possible escape route creating de facto checkpoint or roadblock. Because of time of day, there were few cars … Continue reading
PA: Random suspicionless stops of boats on inland waters for safety inspection is unreasonable
Surveying apparently all the cases and statutes, Pennsylvania decides that random suspicionless stops of boats violate both the Fourth Amendment and the state constitution. The court distinguishes stops on the open seas upheld in United States v. Villa monte-Marquez. “Thus, … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Driver’s license checkpoints don’t require written rules
Driver’s license checkpoints don’t require written rules. United States v. Moore, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 116012 (E.D. N.C. May 18, 2017), adopted, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 115453 (E.D. N.C. July 25, 2017):
E.D.N.C.: DL checkpoint stopping all cars was reasonable
Defendant was stopped at a driver’s license checkpoint where all cars were stopped. The court finds the checkpoint constitutional. Defendant then consented to the search of his car. United States v. Moore, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 116012 (E.D. N.C. May … Continue reading
MT: Admission at a game checkpoint wasn’t “in custody”
Defendant was stopped at a game checkpoint and admitted to placing his daughter’s tag on a deer he shot. He was not “in custody” when he confessed. State v. Maile, 2017 MT 154, 2017 Mont. LEXIS 350 (June 23, 2017). … Continue reading
MA: Minor deviations from the DUI roadblock plan don’t require suppression
The minor deviations from the plan for the DUI roadblock here don’t require suppression. Commonwealth v. Baker, 2017 Mass. App. LEXIS 53 (May 4, 2017). A citizen informant’s call that defendant had a knife in his back pocket justified a … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: A general motion to suppress a DUI roadblock is denied; that “Something must be wrong here” doesn’t cut it
A general motion to suppress a DUI roadblock on a military base is denied for lack of content of fact or law. United States v. Jefferson, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37096 (S.D. Ga. March 15, 2017):
D.Ore.: Def stopped at roadblock from Malheur National Wildlife Refuge could be searched again after he went back to talk others into leaving
Defendant arrived at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January 2016. After arrests and the killing of one, he decided to leave and encountered a roadblock where he was briefly searched. Officers asked if he would go back to the … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Roadblock on the path of escape from an armed robbery was a reasonable stop
A roadblock on the path of escape from an armed robbery was a reasonable stop. United States v. Philpot, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 183882 (N.D.Ga. June 3, 2016), adopted, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 177557 (N.D. Ga. Nov. 16, 2016):
VT: Probation officer’s home visit is not a search
A probation officer’s home visit is not a search. Levitt v. State, 2016 VT 60, ¶ 32. State v. Albarelli, 2016 VT 119, 2016 Vt. LEXIS 121 (Nov. 18, 2016). The DUI roadblock in this case was established in accord … Continue reading
AR: DUI roadblock set up purely in the discretion of the officer on an interstate highway off-ramp was unreasonable
A DUI roadblock set up purely in the discretion of the officer on an interstate highway off-ramp was unreasonable. Whelan v. State, 2016 Ark. 343 (Oct. 20, 2016):
S.D.Tex.: Stop of Greyhound bus in Conroe TX just to search it was unreasonable
Five officers boarded a Greyhound bus in Conroe, Texas just to search it and confront passengers. Defendant’s consent to search belongings suppressed. This was a forced interaction by detaining the bus. United States v. Wise, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130681 … Continue reading
NC: Trial court’s sustaining DUI checkpoint on this record was plain error
The trial court plainly erred in finding the DUI checkpoint was valid under the Brown v. Texas factors. State v. Ashworth, 2016 N.C. App. LEXIS 816 (Aug. 2, 2016). Greatly detailed “innocent details” from the CI were corroborated, and that … Continue reading
SC: Where def avoided a DUI checkpoint, he couldn’t challenge its constitutionality
Where defendant was stopped because he avoided a checkpoint, the constitutionality of the checkpoint isn’t relevant to the appeal because there was no stop. An officer pursued and found the car parked with the lights off. Coming up to the … Continue reading
IL: 1:30 am U-turn 50′ before safety roadblock was RS
Defendant’s U-turn over railroad tracks 50′ before a “safety roadblock” set up on a highway just across the state line from Iowa was reasonable suspicion. (Time of day was an important factor.) It was not indicative of “going about one’s … Continue reading
KY: DUI roadblock failed state’s well established standards
Kentucky DUI roadblock failed the standards adopted a decade ago, and the stop had to be suppressed. Some standards were complied with, but not enough to make the court comfortable with this one. Commonwealth v. Cox, 2015 Ky. LEXIS 2010 … Continue reading