In the case where two brothers, one of whom was a police officer, read about bank robberies in Illinois and determined that their father was the robber, the brothers conducted a search of their father’s house for evidence of the bank robberies. They were determined to be acting as private citizens for the purpose of the search, even though the officer brother came with a bulletproof vest and badge. United States v. Ginglen, 467 F.3d 1071 (7th Cir. November 6, 2006).
Reasonable suspicion not required for a knock and talk. Consent was not coerced. Officers asked for ID and returned it before asking for consent. United States v. Cruz-Mendez, 467 F.3d 1260 (10th Cir. November 6, 2006).
Having been told he was free to leave, the defendant voluntarily consented to further discussion with the officer that [apparently was a stall to keep them there long enough and] led to a dog sniff. United States v. Farrior, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 80560 (W.D. Va. November 3, 2006)* (it’s a close question):
The court finds that the defendant’s initial consent to search the vehicle was voluntarily given. The fact that Officer Morris returned Farrior’s license and explicitly told Farrior that he was free to go before asking the defendant to consent to a search of his vehicle strongly indicates that no seizure occurred at that point within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Weaver, 282 F.3d 302, 311 (4th Cir. 2002). That fact alone, however, is not dispositive. The voluntariness of Farrior’s consent is also supported by the circumstances surrounding Officer Morris’ request and Farrior’s response. Officer Morris testified that after telling the defendant that he was free to go, he asked Farrior if he would step out of the car. Farrior responded that he could talk from inside the car. Officer Morris proceeded to do so. Officer Morris testified that he explained to Farrior that the Town of Pulaski was having a lot of drug problems in that area. Officer Morris next asked Farrior if he had any drugs or guns, to which Farrior replied in the negative. Officer Morris then asked Farrior if he could search his car. Farrior consented and stepped out of the car. The court believes that these circumstances indicate that Farrior was not intimidated and that a reasonable person in his position would believe that he had a choice to exercise. Therefore, the court finds and concludes that a reasonable person in Farrior’s position would have felt free to decline Officer Morris’ request.
Apparent overseizure of computer equipment was reasonable. Warrant specified one document, in paper or electronic form, and the police seized 16 computers for off-site analysis. United States v. Cook, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 80557 (W.D. Wash. November 3, 2006):
The object of the search was a document titled “Secured Promissory Note,” and all copies of the document, whether in hard-copy or electronic form. Id. at 23. The warrant authorized the seizure and removal of computer systems and components for off-site forensic analysis. Id. at 24. The search took place on June 29, 2005, and included both a hand search for documents and the removal of sixteen computer systems with seventeen hard drives and various removable storage media. See Johnson Decl., docket no. 126, P 3. Special Agent Kim Young, a computer forensic examiner, took control of the sixteen computers and spent approximately 21 hours imaging their seventeen hard drives. Id. P 4. Agent Young completed her imaging on June 30, 2005. Id. Twelve computers were returned to the Cooks on July 5, 2005, and the remaining four computers were returned on August 22, 2005. Id.
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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, Let it Bleed (album, 1969)
"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]
“Children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom.” – John le Carré, The Night Manager (1993), line by Richard Roper
"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)
The book was dedicated in the first (1982) and sixth (2025) editions to Justin William Hall (1975-2025). He was three when this project started in 1978.
