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- E.D.Ky.: When court can’t tell the dog alerted, motion to suppress granted
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- D.Me.: Looking around house when allegedly “freezing” it was an illegal search
- OR: Police listening to attorney-client jail calls because attorney calls not properly segregated leads to dismissal of some counts and setting aside guilty plea
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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)
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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: March 8, 2024
OH5: Officer’s writing wrong statute number on ticket was a reasonable mistake of law
Defendant’s stop for a loud muffler was reasonable. His claim that it wasn’t loud on the bodycam is rejected. Another alleged offense cited the wrong statute. That’s a reasonable mistake of law. State v. Braucher, 2024-Ohio-811, 2024 Ohio App. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA10: SW for house included detached garage next to it without even mentioning it
The search warrant for defendant’s house included the detached garage on the curtilage without having to mention it. United States v. Ronquillo, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 5489 (10th Cir. Mar. 7, 2024). “And the Department of Homeland Security officers did … Continue reading
NJ: Prior knowledge def probably had drugs in car didn’t require SW, and automobile exception still applied
Prior knowledge defendant might have marijuana in his car didn’t require the police to get a search warrant for the car. The automobile exception still applied. [Eight months afterward, NJ legalized marijuana.] State v. Baker, 2024 N.J. Super. LEXIS 24 … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Jail strip search to document tattoos was reasonable
Plaintiff’s strip search in jail to photograph his tattoos was reasonable. Turn v. Leslie, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39329 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 5, 2024), adopted, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38391 ( E.D. Mich. Mar. 5, 2024). Plaintiff stated a Fourth … Continue reading
MN: Evans rejected under state constitution; arrest on quashed warrant invalid
“Because we recognize several purposes served by the exclusionary rule, including deterring unlawful government conduct generally, and we conclude that applying the exclusionary rule here serves these remedial goals, we decline to extend the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule … Continue reading
WSJ: U.S. Spy Agencies Know Our Secrets. They Bought Them.
Wall Street Journal: U.S. Spy Agencies Know Our Secrets. They Bought Them. by Byron Tau (“Whatever the U.S. can do with commercial data, foreign governments can do too. Last week, President Biden signed an executive order to prevent certain adversary … Continue reading
WI: Drug dog’s entering car was trespass, and “instinct exception,” even if it could be recognized, doesn’t apply
Drug dog’s twice entering defendant’s car without probable cause was a common law trespass under Jones and Jardines, and the police unlawfully gained information from that. The court rejects the “instinct exception” for the dog on the facts here, even … Continue reading
NJ: State could get SW for bullet removed during surgery even four years after shooting
Defendant had elective surgery four years after a shooting to remove the bullet. The police were entitled to a search warrant for the bullet from the hospital because it was evidence of a crime. Trial court’s denial of the warrant … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: The residence had two front doors but could not be definitively determined to be two residences before search; search still valid when it was two
The residential building searched had two front doors but one address. This suggested that it might be two residences, but police investigating couldn’t find any indication that it was two, not one. In any event, the warrant was based on … Continue reading
NYTimes: Do You Have to Let the National Guard Search Your Bag on the Subway?
NYTimes: Do You Have to Let the National Guard Search Your Bag on the Subway? by Maria Cramer and Hurubie Meko (“Gov. Kathy Hochul would not say how long she planned to keep hundreds of soldiers and state police officers … Continue reading