Archives
-
Recent Posts
- S.D.Ohio: Defense of denial of possession in drug case meant no assertion of standing to challenge the search, so no IAC
- N.D.Okla.: Anticipatory tracking warrant for money counter is without authority and nexus is speculative even if not
- CA9: Supervised release condition of financial disclosure permitted under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) and didn’t violate 4A
- N.D.Ohio: Refusing discovery on 4A grounds in forfeiture case results in no standing
- thedrive.com: Police Are Tagging Fleeing Cars With GPS Darts to Avoid Dangerous Pursuits
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2017); ABA Journal Blawg 100 (2015-16) (discontinued 2018)
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
-
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)
ACLU on privacy
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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)
Website design by Wally Waller, Little Rock
Category Archives: Anticipatory warrant
CA8: Package with anticipatory SW was placed back on porch with “return to sender” on it; search still constitutionally sufficient
In this anticipatory warrant case, the package was received, but it was placed back outside with “return to sender” written on it. Still, the warrant was constitutionally sufficient and the officers supplying their own triggering event, one not provided for … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Govt fails its burden of proof to show RS for a stop and frisk based on credibility of the officer; it was a hunch at best
Defendant was seen at 1 am in a high crime area on the street in the Bronx talking with three others. The officer claimed he could see him adjusting his waistband, suggesting a gun. Collectively, the court simply doesn’t believe … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: PC shown for def’s CSLI at time of murder
The affidavit for search warrant for CSLI for defendant’s phone was issued with probable cause. Defendant’s phone allegedly talked to the murder victim shortly before the murder, and it was reasonable to attempt to determine where the defendant’s phone was … Continue reading
D.Nev.: The fact the officers claimed to smell marijuana but didn’t find any doesn’t mean they were lying
It was testified that the car smelled like burnt marijuana. The fact none was found doesn’t indicate that officers were lying. United States v. Davila, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42805 (D. Nev. Jan. 31, 2019),* adopted, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Officers’ testimony about smell of PCP was too equivocal to be reliable
The officers’ testimony about allegedly smelling PCP when they stopped defendant was too equivocal through the hearing to be reliable. A patdown of defendant off that alleged smell produced a gun in his pocket. Defendant’s alleged consent to the patdown … Continue reading
CA6: SW’s flexibility as to when it could be executed didn’t make it an anticipatory warrant with a triggering condition
The search warrant reasonably provided flexibility as to when it would be executed, but it was not an anticipatory warrant at all. United States v. Huntley, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 20956 (6th Cir. July 30, 2018):
KS: Warning officers about self-incrimination at suppression hearing deterrent enough; no exclusion
Kansas police officers can go outside their jurisdiction when requested to do so. Kansas statute implies an exclusionary remedy. Here, the officers appear to have violated the statute, but the district court warned the officers against self-incrimination at the hearing … Continue reading
M.D.Tenn.: Even if Karo didn’t permit monitoring a tracker on a package brought into the house, there was PC anyway
Even if Karo required excising or excluding the statement in the affidavit for search warrant that the package was in the target residence for the anticipatory warrant, there was probable cause without it, so it doesn’t matter. United States v. … Continue reading
CA6: When an anticipatory SW says delivery to X, X has to receive it for search to occur
When the triggering event in an anticipatory search warrant doesn’t occur, then the search can’t occur. Here it was to a named person. Somebody else accepting it isn’t acceptable. “In this case, requiring delivery to Perkins is the only common … Continue reading
OH8: No standing in a package neither sent nor to be received by def
Defendant lacked standing to challenge the placing of the GPS tracking device on the package because she was neither the sender nor addressee of the package and demonstrated no reasonable expectation of privacy in the package. The police could validly … Continue reading
CA9: Officer could enter door of screened in porch to knock on house door with package and anticipatory warrant
An officer with a package and an anticipatory search warrant did not violate the curtilage by entering through defendant’s screen door to approach the front door when he could see that there were other packages on a table by the … Continue reading
C.D.Ill.: SW could permit adding breakaway filaments to package for anticipatory warrant
It was not unreasonable nor a violation of the Fourth Amendment for a warrant to permit officers to add breakaway filaments to a package as a triggering notice for an anticipatory warrant. United States v. Halliburton, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
C.D.Ill.: The conditions precedent for this anticipatory warrant were vague, but it still wasn’t unreasonable when finally executed
The conditions precedent for execution of this anticipatory warrant were vague, but not so vague that it was unreasonable when executed. “The Court … finds and recommends that both triggering events for the warrant occurred. Moreover, even if those events … Continue reading
OH3: PC for anticipatory SW exists here merely because drug traffickers commonly use their home to store drugs
The trial court did not err by denying the motion to suppress because the issuing judge had a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause for an anticipatory search warrant existed. Evidence of drug trafficking, without more, furnished probable cause … Continue reading
OH3: It’s not constitutionally required that the triggering condition of an anticipatory SW be stated
The triggering condition for the anticipatory search warrant was provided for in the warrant, but that’s not constitutionally required. It did not matter that defendant was a guest in the premises. There was a fair probability that the triggering conditions … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Writing “return to sender” and putting package back on porch didn’t nullify PC for anticipatory warrant
The fact a package with drugs is coming to a particular address is enough to issue an anticipatory warrant for that address. A prior history of that address and drugs isn’t required. When the triggering condition is taking the package … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Triggering event for anticipatory warrant not met, and suppression granted
The specific triggering event for this anticipatory warrant was handing the package to defendant, but that did not happen. The police entered anyway and seized. The Sixth Circuit recognizes that the triggering event has to be considered in a common … Continue reading
IA: While Iowa doesn’t recognize anticipatory warrants by statute, a federal anticipatory SW that ended up in state court was valid
“The defendant now appeals, arguing among other things that Iowa’s search warrant statutes do not authorize anticipatory warrants. We agree, but hold that where the federal government conducts a search pursuant to a valid federal search warrant for purposes of … Continue reading
HI imposes triggering condition in anticipatory warrants under state constitution
“We are faced with a question of first impression for this court: Does the Hawai’i Constitution require that an anticipatory search warrant identify the triggering condition on the face of the warrant? In light of the privacy protections contained in … Continue reading
VA: Grubbs and its “sure course” analysis isn’t the only way to prove an anticipatory warrant; PC and nexus also enough.
Grubbs and its “sure course” analysis isn’t the only way to prove an anticipatory warrant. Probable cause and nexus are also enough. Taylor v. Commonwealth, 2016 Va. App. LEXIS 238 (Sept. 13, 2016):