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- NY Queens: PC shown for SW blood drawn at hospital after car wreck
- CA7: Hotel room vacated by tenant could be searched by hotel management
- W.D.N.Y.: SW for devices used for video surveillance included cell phones because apps can be used to view cameras from cell phones
- CA3: PC for ptf’s arrest for punching a police horse
- D.N.M.: Three Franks challenges, one successful
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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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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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Daily Archives: May 3, 2020
E.D.Tenn.: Stop should have been completed in six minutes, not the 17 it took for dog to arrive; suppressed for no RS to continue it
Defendant’s stop was unjustified for speeding according to the dashcam. Then, the officer prolonged the stop to 17 minutes for a drug dog to arrive. The stop reasonably should have been completed in six minutes. United States v. Hayes, 2020 … Continue reading
PA: Because CA police agreed to question a potential suspect in a PA murder, they didn’t become “agents” of PA
A murder occurred in Pennsylvania in 2002. A person with knowledge of the murder had moved to San Bernardino, California. Pennsylvania authorities called California and emailed reports on the murder. The California authorities undertook to interrogate defendant, which she agreed … Continue reading
AR: Error in officers’ testimony as to place actually searched was properly excluded at trial as potentially confusing where it was clearly def’s place
Police confusion at trial as to the address actually searched wasn’t relevant, and the trial court didn’t abuse its discretion in foreclosing questions about that for confusion of the issues. “But his argument ignores the undisputed proof that the drugs … Continue reading
CA4: Search incident of backpack of handcuffed def still reasonable
Despite his being handcuffed, a search incident of defendant’s backpack was reasonable because he could still try to access it. (First holding was abandonment for disavowing the backpack). United States v. Ferebee, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 12940 (4th Cir. Apr. … Continue reading
KY: Detaining bystanders to facilitate the arrest of one was reasonable
State case law already permits officers to detain bystanders for a reasonable period for officer safety in execution of search warrants. The court adopts the Sixth Circuit rule and extends it to arrest warrants, too. “We hold that detaining Constant … Continue reading
D.Utah: Dog handler’s subjective belief dog alerted unreasonable
The dog handler’s subjective belief that his drug dog alerted is inadequate for a search of a person’s car. United States v. Jordan, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71048 (D. Utah Apr. 21, 2020):
TX2: SW for seizure of blood includes the ability to analyze it
It is well settled in Texas that a search warrant for blood in a DUI case includes the ability to analyze it. Jacobson v. State, 2020 Tex. App. LEXIS 3447 (Tex. App. – Ft. Worth Apr. 23, 2020). Defendant’s CSLI … Continue reading
IN: Arrival of drug dog while ticket being written didn’t extend stop
The dog arrived at defendant’s traffic stop while the information was being entered into the traffic ticket program in the police car’s computer, so the dog sniff did not prolong the stop under the Fourth Amendment. Separately considering the state … Continue reading
CA6: One day detention without finding of PC valid under Gerstein and Riverside
Plaintiffs’ one day detention without a finding of probable cause failed to state a claim under Gerstein and County of Riverside. That is still presumptively reasonable. Cox v. City of Jackson, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 13124 (6th Cir. Apr. 22, … Continue reading
WaPo: Cellphone monitoring is spreading with the coronavirus. So is an uneasy tolerance of surveillance
WaPo: Cellphone monitoring is spreading with the coronavirus. So is an uneasy tolerance of surveillance by Kareem Fahim, Min Joo Kim and Steve Hendrix (“To the feelings of fear, restlessness, insecurity and sorrow taking hold around the globe, the pandemic … Continue reading