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- W.D.N.Y.: Def had no standing in a place he wasn’t allowed to be on parole
- CA11: QI for FBI SWAT raiding wrong house at 3:30 am
- NYLJ: Analysis: Turnabout: Cell Site Location Information for the Defense
- CA11: QI in suicide by cop case
- CA11: Officer’s experience and opinions about CP collectors and retention of information is entitled to weight in PC determination
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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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Monthly Archives: April 2020
CA9: Protective sweep of house after medical emergency at front door unjustified
Officers responded to a medical emergency at the entryway of defendant’s house. They ended up conducting a protective sweep for which there was no justification whatsoever. The firearm found in the protective sweep is suppressed. United States v. Gonzalez-Martin, 2020 … Continue reading
GA: Arrest for sex offense wasn’t PC to believe digital storage device on person had evidence; SW suppressed
Defendant was arrested for aggravated child molestation and aggravated sodomy, and he had a digital storage device on him. Police sought a search warrant for the storage device, but the affidavit failed to show any probable cause to believe evidence … Continue reading
CA8: Extraditee stated Bell v. Wolfish due process claim from injury and degradation from 8 day transportation that should have taken about 17 hours
Plaintiff was an extraditee transported from Colorado to Mississippi, a 17 hour trip, that took eight days and resulted in real injury and degradation from lack of stops and rest. Plaintiff sued in the Eastern District of California, but it … Continue reading
AR: Drug dog at scene while warning ticket being written didn’t extend stop
This dog sniff did not extend the stop where the dog arrived while the warning ticket was being written. Mickens v. State, 2020 Ark. App. 280, 2020 Ark. App. LEXIS 307 (Apr. 29, 2020). The blood draw of the unconscious … Continue reading
CO: SW for everything on cell phone was general warrant in violation of 4A
The search warrant for defendant’s cell phone had a particular list of files sought, but it still was effectively a general warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment because it sought virtually everything on the cell phone without regard to … Continue reading
Tampa Bay Times: Lawmakers warn coronavirus contact-tracing is ripe for abusive surveillance
Tampa Bay Times: Lawmakers warn coronavirus contact-tracing is ripe for abusive surveillance by Tribune News Service (“But as tech firms lay the foundation for a potentially massive digital contact-tracing infrastructure, Washington is grappling with whether such technology can work without … Continue reading
Law.com: Analysis: Seventh and Ninth Circuits Decide Important ‘Heck’ Issues
Law.com: Analysis: Seventh and Ninth Circuits Decide Important ‘Heck’ Issues by Martin A. Schwartz (“The Supreme Court in ‘Heck’ held that a §1983 constitutional claim that ‘necessarily’ implies the invalidity of the plaintiff’s conviction is not ‘cognizable’ unless the conviction … Continue reading
Law360: How Virus Surveillance And Civil Liberties Could Collide
Law360: How Virus Surveillance And Civil Liberties Could Collide by RJ Vogt:
Cato@liberty: Supreme Court Will Soon Decide Whether To Reconsider Qualified Immunity
Cato@liberty: Supreme Court Will Soon Decide Whether To Reconsider Qualified Immunity by Jay Schweikert:
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
We’re back, somewhat
After three weeks of recovery, I’m going to get started on getting caught up. Three weeks behind is hundreds of cases I have to screen. It will be six weeks getting caught up, probably. So, basic cases that won’t be … Continue reading
Update on author
The author has been out due to illness (not COVID-19 related!), and will begin updating this site again next week. It was to be two days in hospital, but will end up being 11-12.
EFF: Thermal Imaging Cameras are Still Dangerous Dragnet Surveillance Cameras
EFF: Thermal Imaging Cameras are Still Dangerous Dragnet Surveillance Cameras by Matthew Guariglia and Cooper Quintin (“As governments around the world continue to seek solutions to prevent the spread of COVID-19, companies are eager to sell their technology as a … Continue reading
CA10: Criminal history checks may be run in any stop under Rodriguez
Criminal history checks are reasonable under any traffic stop because they negligibly extend the stop. This court held that en banc in 2001 in a case relied upon in Rodriguez. Other circuits are in accord. United States v. Mayville, 2020 … Continue reading
Two on waiver for untimeliness
Pro se defendant making a motion to suppress during trial was waiver. He talked about it with his former attorney and waited until the government offered it into evidence. United States v. Young, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 10820 (7th Cir. … Continue reading
VA: Purported inventory was clearly an investigative search and suppressed
The purported inventory here (shown on video) was an investigative search, and the officer made no effort to comply with the inventory policy, noting nothing and just rummaging around. The paperwork also showed it was “incident to arrest.” Inevitable discovery … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Def doesn’t show that his guilty plea was unknowing as a result of IAC on a 4A claim
“The movant’s unsubstantiated claim that counsel’s mistakes on a Fourth Amendment issue somehow rendered his guilty plea unknowing are insufficient to overcome a record that reflects that the plea was knowing and voluntary.” Hernandez-Rodriguez v. United States, 2020 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Merely saying in a motion to suppress def was arrested without probable cause doesn’t state grounds
Defendant does not offer further context or analysis. Based upon his failure to fully address this issue, the Defendant’s argument regarding an alleged illegal search and seizure is denied without prejudice. See United States v. Collins, 796 F.3d 829, 836 … Continue reading
W.D.N.C.: Prisoner’s § 1983 strip search case dismissed
Pro se prison inmate plaintiff fails to state claims for § 1983 relief including alleged arbitrary strip searches. With his disciplinary record, they aren’t arbitrary. He’s in a prison, after all. Wright v. United States, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 59884 … Continue reading