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Recent Posts
- W.D.Ark.: Parole search waiver moots lack of PC argument
- AR: RS shown for boating while intoxicated stop
- W.D.Mo.: Wrong address in SW wasn’t fatal where right house was searched
- NY: Failure to show independent source for officer’s observation of def required reversal
- VA: Outline of a gun in def’s pocket was RS
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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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Daily Archives: May 6, 2020
CA4: State court suppressed SW for lack of nexus, and then feds indicted; GFE applies to the state warrant
Defendant was prosecuted in state court for a drug related murder, and the state court suppressed the search of his house finding lack of nexus. State v. Miller, 2016 S.C. Unpub. LEXIS 28 (Mar. 30, 2016). Defendant was then prosecuted … Continue reading
D.N.J.: There were material misrepresentations in the affidavit for a vehicle SW, but they are mooted by the automobile exception
The validity of the search warrant for defendant’s car was irrelevant where the automobile exception applied. Therefore, defendant’s Franks challenge is moot despite the fact there were material misrepresentations in the affidavit because the officers were trying to keep a … Continue reading
MA: Fixed license plate readers on bridge to Cape Cod did not provide “a mosaic of location information” sufficiently detailed to violate REP
Although the widespread use by Massachusetts police departments of automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) could implicate constitutional protections against unreasonable searches, the positioning of four cameras in fixed positions on the ends of the two bridges leading to Cape Cod … Continue reading
TX14: Vehicle coming back as “no record” in database check is RS for stop
The fact defendant’s vehicle came back as “no record” from the Texas law enforcement databases was reason for a stop as unlicensed. After the valid stop, defendant consented. Villarreal v. State, 2020 Tex. App. LEXIS 3180 (Tex. App. – Houston … Continue reading
CA6: No REP in a shipped package after it was received by another
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a package shipped to and then received by another. Moreover, there was probable cause for a search of the car the package was in and the package, too. United States v. Moore, … Continue reading
TN: DNA sample was subject to inevitable discovery where def was subjected to another one for a homicide two years later
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not objecting to a DNA sample where defendant claimed it exceeded his consent. The post-conviction court found that it didn’t. Moreover, discovery was inevitable because another DNA sample was validly taken two years later as … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Desire to file a Franks motion doesn’t expand discovery rights
“Generally, the fact that a defendant wishes to seek a Franks hearing ‘does not entitle him or her to additional discovery before the Franks hearing.’” The government stated it has provided discovery required by Rule 16. Defendant’s request for further … Continue reading
UT: Stop based on query to Insure-Rite database was with RS despite database being updated biweekly
Defendant was stopped because the Utah Criminal Justice Information System querying the Insure-Rite database showed he had no car insurance. Once stopped, he admitted he didn’t have a DL either. Then, outstanding warrants were found. Defendant’s claim the Insure-Rite database … Continue reading
D.C.Cir.: Police stopping nearest vehicle after hearing shots fired lacked RS
On de novo review of reasonable suspicion, the court finds defendant was stopped by being blocked in by a police car parked three feet away with takedown lights on. They are designed to obscure vision and disorient the motorist looking … Continue reading
TX6: Even if def’s vehicle was over the property line and not on the property subject to SW, was the officer’s mistake reasonable?
Officers had a search warrant for vehicles on a particular piece of property. Defendant contended his vehicle wasn’t on the property. Even if the officer was wrong, was his belief unreasonable? “The Brinegar Court explained the requirement of reasonableness in … Continue reading
MO: Search incident of a McDonald’s sack in a car for shoplifting a sweatshirt was unreasonable
Defendant was stopped in a shopping center parking lot for suspicion of shoplifting a sweatshirt. He consented to a frisk of his person and car, and nothing was found. Another officer arrived, and he was de facto arrested. A search … Continue reading
EFF: Courts Issue Rulings in Two Cases Challenging Law Enforcement Searches of License Plate Databases
EFF: Courts Issue Rulings in Two Cases Challenging Law Enforcement Searches of License Plate Databases by Jennifer Lynch: