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Recent Posts
- TN: Owner of cell phone doesn’t need to be known for SW for it
- GFR: Feds Demand Identity Of YouTube Users Who Watched Certain Videos
- W.D.Wash.: DNA warrant isssued with PC not quashed before execution
- 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
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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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Monthly Archives: February 2021
FL2: There was suspicion for the stop, but it wasn’t reasonable suspicion
There may have been suspicion for defendant’s stop, but it wasn’t reasonable suspicion. He was potentially dumpster driving at a closed business at night, and he left when he saw the police officer. Vonlydick v. State, 2021 Fla. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA2: Three judges approved of these SWs, there was PC and GF
“Here, the state judge who issued the warrant interviewed the cooperating witness in camera. Two federal judges reviewed the state judge’s notes and also found probable cause for the issuance of the warrant. Hence, three judges independently found there was … Continue reading
D.N.M.: While the govt didn’t prove exigency, inventory exception applied
While there was some exigency, the government failed on its burden of proving exigency necessitated its action. Instead, the court finds inevitable discovery. United States v. O’Neil, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 35424 (D. N.M. Feb. 25, 2021):*
WaPo: ICE investigators used a private utility database covering millions to pursue immigration violations
WaPo: ICE investigators used a private utility database covering millions to pursue immigration violations by Drew Harwell (“Government agencies increasingly are accessing private information they are not authorized to compile on their own.”)
CA1: SWs are directed at places, too, and def didn’t need to be connected in the affidavit
Defendant made a Franks challenge. Removing the allegedly offending material still left probable cause. Defendant’s argument then was that the remainder still didn’t point to him, but that’s not the law: Search warrants are directed at places, too, not just … Continue reading
CA10: Nexus shown to AZ residence where additional records were found
A search of a pain management doctor’s Arizona residence was based on nexus to his Wyoming medical practice. The government showed that patient records were in both places. United States v. Khan, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 5611 (10th Cir. Feb. … Continue reading
CO: Impoundment of car legally parked in residential neighborhood unreasonable; no community caretaking need
Defendant was arrested, and his vehicle, lawfully parked in a residential neighborhood, was unreasonably impounded and towed. There was no community caretaking function need. People v. Thomas, 2021 COA 23, 2021 Colo. App. LEXIS 268 (Feb. 25, 2021). Syllabus by … Continue reading
CA8: Presenting def with DNA SW after he lawyers up wasn’t attempt to reopen interrogation
Presenting defendant with a search warrant for DNA swabs during an interrogation after he lawyered up was a statement of fact and not an attempt to get him to talk again. Thus, Miranda not violated. United States v. Zephier, 2021 … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Police dog attack on wrong person not promptly called off was excessive
The officer had reasonable suspicion to frisk three men before they fled him. Releasing a police dog was not unreasonable. The dog’s attack of a 40ish woman, however, was not seen to be reasonable, and the dog was not promptly … Continue reading
WY: No hot pursuit into home for traffic violation that wasn’t “hot”
Hot pursuit for a traffic violation did not permit an entry into the home. Here, the pursuit just wasn’t “hot” or exigent because the officer called for backup. Fuller v. State, 2021 WY 36, 2021 Wyo. LEXIS 41 (Feb. 24, … Continue reading
Reason: ‘Everything Has Been Criminalized,’ Says Neil Gorsuch as He Pushes for Stronger Fourth Amendment Protections
Reason: ‘Everything Has Been Criminalized,’ Says Neil Gorsuch as He Pushes for Stronger Fourth Amendment Protections by Damon Root (“The justice weighs in during oral arguments in Lange v. California.”)
PA: With MMJ, smell of MJ alone isn’t PC for search of a car; more required
Because of medical marijuana being law in Pennsylvania, the smell of marijuana in a car alone is no longer enough for probable cause. More is required. Commonwealth v. Grooms, 2021 Pa. Super. LEXIS 79 (Feb. 24, 2021):
GA: Contraband in plain view on def’s property didn’t justify warrantless entry to seize it
Officers’ entry onto abandoned property next door to defendant’s place to get a better view of his place was reasonable. He had no reasonable expectation of privacy there or in the view from there. However, they saw contraband in plain … Continue reading
W.D.Wash.: iCloud SW temporal limit was impractical
An iCloud search warrant was not overbroad because the warrant sought a lot of material. Based on Apple’s protocols, it essentially had to be, and a time restriction wouldn’t be of any use. United States v. Woolard, 2021 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
VA: RS for a frisk of def just gotten out of car also justified frisk of his car, too, when frisk of person came up empty
Brandishing a gun at another was reasonable suspicion for a stop and frisk of a defendant and then the car. “After the officers found no firearm as a result of their pat down of the appellant’s person, this fact served … Continue reading