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- techdirt: The Problems Of The NCMEC CyberTipline Apply To All Stakeholders
- W.D.Ark.: Parole search waiver moots lack of PC argument
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- 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
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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)
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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)
Website design by Wally Waller, Little Rock 
Daily Archives: February 8, 2021
NE: Three day old information vehicle was involved in a shooting was RS
There was reasonable suspicion for the stop of defendant’s vehicle on a three day old report of it being involved in a shooting. On appeal from a denial of a motion to suppress, the evidence from both the suppression hearing … Continue reading
AL: A visitor to premises targeted by a SW who is more than a “transient visitor” is subject to search
Defendant was a visitor at a house that was searched under a warrant for drugs. Her purse was searched, too. “Because Powers was more than a ‘transient visitor’ at Moyers’s house and had a known relationship to the premises, and … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Smell of MJ in a car in California isn’t PC
“[T]he mere presence of marijuana or the commission of a marijuana-related vehicle infraction in a state where adults may legally possess and transport it does not give officers probable cause to suspect that a vehicle contains contraband.” United States v. … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Fact an officer knew of suspect from prior contact doesn’t preclude running name and dob for warrants
The fact an officer knew a suspect from prior interactions doesn’t mean that the officer can’t run the name and dob for warrants. New Covenant Church v. Futch, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22523 (S.D. Ga. Feb. 5, 2021). Defense counsel … Continue reading
MD: 911 call led to plain view
911 was called by defendant’s mother about his possible cardiac arrest. When the officer arrived, defendant was alert and fine, and his drugs were in plain view. Their seizure was valid. Glanden v. State, 2021 Md. App. LEXIS 80 (Feb. … Continue reading
CA11: GFE applies even if no PC, which was “hotly contested”
The good faith exception supports this search warrant, even if there wasn’t probable cause after a trash pull, an issue not decided. The existence of probable cause was “hotly contested.” United States v. Morales, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 3260 (11th … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Misdemeanor arrest in the home reasonable under 4A and common law
Defendant’s misdemeanor vandalism arrest while officers were inside his house was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Common law on misdemeanor arrests applies, too. United States v. Barajas, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21651 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 4, 2021). Defendant was convicted … Continue reading
CA6: SW for CP was completely lacking and GFE didn’t apply; no basis at all to search cell phone
A state search warrant was issued for alleged child porn on defendant’s computer and cell phone, and the district court suppressed for a clear lack of probable cause. The computer search required too many inferences to make probable cause. The … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: This trash pull didn’t produce direct drug evidence or corroborate CI, so PC lacking
“The evidence supporting probable cause in this case, assuming its accuracy and reliability, consists of (a) an unspecified “high” number of people visiting for very short periods during an unspecified time frame and (b) trash containing five plastic bags with … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Week old crime justified detention on RS
Defendant was a passenger in a car stopped and he was suspected of being involved in a shooting a week earlier. Even this old crime was sufficient for reasonable suspicion to extend the stop. United States v. Seymour, 2021 U.S. … Continue reading
CA11: Furtive gesture of hiding a cigarette pack was RS
The furtive gesture of hiding a cigarette pack during a traffic stop was reasonable suspicion (along with a few other reasons, but this is more important). United States v. Williams, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 3123 (11th Cir. Feb. 4, 2021). … Continue reading