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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: Body searches
CA5: Ptf’s manual strip and body search in prison for a missing syringe was reasonable
Plaintiff’s manual strip and body search in prison for a missing syringe was reasonable. Parker v. Woods, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 36359 (5th Cir. Nov. 19, 2020):
D.Mont.: Warrantless taking of penile swabs from def in custody lacked exigency
Warrantless collection of penile swabs from defendant in custody lacked exigent circumstances and was suppressed. United States v. Birdsbill, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 196612 (D. Mont. Oct. 20, 2020):
TX: SW to draw blood in DUI case allows testing for BAC
A search warrant to draw defendant driver’s blood included the ability to test it for BAC. But not anything else, such as genetic information, but that’s not the issue. Crider v. State, 2020 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 612 (Sept. 16, … Continue reading
Argus Leader: Federal judge awards thousands to those forcibly catheterized for urine samples
Argus Leader: Federal judge awards thousands to those forcibly catheterized for urine samples by Danielle Ferguson (“A federal judge has approved a settlement to individuals who were unconstitutionally made to provide urine samples for suspected drug use through forced catheterizations. … Continue reading
CA7: County jail’s body cavity searches of ptf were fact based on RS and reasonable
Plaintiff was subjected to two body cavity searches of her rectum and vagina for drugs she was reasonably believed to have smuggled into the jail through booking. It was invasive, but it was reasonable on balance with the jail’s security … Continue reading
CA10: Body cavity search of arrestee not going into jail was unreasonable and based on jail policy
“A series of coincidences and mistaken beliefs led to the arrest of Laramie Hinkle for possessing a stolen trailer that was not even stolen. And things got worse from there. Despite Hinkle’s recently having served as police chief in a … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Forced catheterization of drug suspects with SW merely to see if drugs are in their system was unreasonable
Forced catheterization of drug suspects with a search warrant, who refused to urinate on demand, because of suspicion of drug use was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment under Schmerber. The individual defendants get qualified immunity, however, because of a lack … Continue reading
Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Judge: Forced catheterizations by South Dakota law enforcement violated Constitution
Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Judge: Forced catheterizations by South Dakota law enforcement violated Constitution by Jonathan Ellis (“South Dakota law enforcement’s practice of using forced catheterizations to obtain urine samples from suspects violates the U.S. Constitution, a federal judge has … Continue reading
TX5: SW for blood didn’t have to say it could be tested, too; why else was it drawn?
A search warrant for a blood sample doesn’t have to say that it could be tested, too. Otherwise, why draw it at all. Common sense dictates it would be. Suppression order reversed. State v. Staton, 2020 Tex. App. LEXIS 2610 … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Preliminary injunction denied against compulsory blood testing of newborns
Michigan blood tests newborns for certain diseases. Based on Kanuszewski v. Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, 333 F. Supp. 3d 716 (E.D. Mich. 2018), the court finds that the parents are unlikely to succeed on a preliminary injunction. … Continue reading
NYTimes: Opinion: DNA Collection at the Border Threatens the Privacy of All Americans
NYTimes: Opinion: DNA Collection at the Border Threatens the Privacy of All Americans by Daniel I. Morales, Natalie Ram and Jessica L. Roberts (“We’re one step closer to the ‘genetic panopticon’ that Antonin Scalia warned us about.”)
WaPo: You need a good reason to curb privacy. None exists for collecting DNA at the border.
WaPo: Editorial Board: You need a good reason to curb privacy. None exists for collecting DNA at the border. NEWS THIS MONTH that the U.S. government would start collecting DNA from people detained at the border seemed to sketch out … Continue reading
CA3: Body cavity search for baggie of drugs was reasonable because of exigency of risk of overdose
Plaintiff’s body cavity search for a baggie of drugs in her vagina was reasonable by exigent circumstances because of a legitimate fear that she could be harmed and overdose if the bag leaked. Carbone v. Salem, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA2: Not clearly established for QI that a warrantless body cavity search required exigency and a particularized suspicion
A police officer was entitled to qualified immunity because the right to be free from a warrantless manual body cavity search in the absence of exigent circumstances and a particularized suspicion that evidence of a crime was secreted inside the … Continue reading
NYTimes: Woman Who Said Officer Removed Her Tampon Will Receive $205,000
NYTimes: Woman Who Said Officer Removed Her Tampon Will Receive $205,000 by Isabella Kwai (“San Antonio approved the payout to Natalie Simms, 40, who said in a lawsuit that the officer violated her rights during a cavity search on the … Continue reading
WaPo: Her tampon was pulled out in public by a police officer looking for drugs. Now, she could get $205,000.
WaPo: Her tampon was pulled out in public by a police officer looking for drugs. Now, she could get $205,000. By Allyson Chiu:
CA9: IRS agent’s need to watch ptf pee during SW was unreasonable; they didn’t do that to her husband when he did
Plaintiff’s claim that an IRS CID investigator had to watch her go to the bathroom just in case she was hiding evidence survived a qualified immunity challenge. The right to bodily privacy was established at the time, and the officer’s … Continue reading
CA5: At summary judgment stage, “[t]his is an obvious case” that can’t be resolved on summary judgment
“The summary judgment facts, as determined by the district court, are that Ryan posed no threat to the officers or others to support firing without warning. The ‘Officers had the time and opportunity to give a warning and yet chose … Continue reading
MN: Forced anoscopy under sedation was unreasonable under Winston
Strapping defendant down for a forced anoscopy under sedation in the presence of nonmedical personnel was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The court applied Winston v. Lee on forced surgery, noting that several courts have applied it to nonsurgical body … Continue reading