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Recent Posts
- W.D.N.Y.: No due process right to adversarial hearing before issuance of a DNA warrant
- E.D.Wis.: Lifetime GPS monitoring of some sex offenders traveling out of state doesn’t violate 4A
- CA9: With a SW for a murder weapon, a frisk of the occupants is reasonable
- W.D.Mich.: Drug dealers commonly keep proceeds and drugs at home, and that’s nexus
- OH8: For Rodriguez purposes, checking out-of-state DLs just takes longer
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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com
Search and Seizure (6th ed. 2025)
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-26,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 600,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 50,000 posts since 2003 (29,000 on WordPress as of 12/31/25) -
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Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
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Section 1983 Blog -
"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)
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“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.
Website design by Wally Waller, Colorado Springs. 
Author Archives: Hall
CA8: Affidavit only referred to CI as “reliable,” and the affiant could have said more but didn’t; PC on totality
The affidavit for a GPS warrant only referred to the CI as “reliable,” and the affiant could have said more but didn’t. Still, the officer did do things to try to corroborate without elaborating. On the totality, probable cause was … Continue reading
CA9: The exclusionary rule doesn’t apply in § 1983 cases
The exclusionary rule doesn’t apply in § 1983 cases, joining other circuits. Lingo v. City of Salem, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 11708 (9th Cir. June 27, 2016) (amended Aug. 8, 2016):
Verdict: A Potential Landmine in Waiting in Utah v. Strieff
Verdict: A Potential Landmine in Waiting in Utah v. Strieff by Sherry F. Colb:
ID: Shoplifting stop didn’t justify a frisk
Defendant was stopped out in the parking lot of a store as an alleged accessory to shoplifting. The stop was with reasonable suspicion, but the frisk for weapons was not. Heroin was found in his pocket, and it is suppressed. … Continue reading
CA5: Roving Border Patrol stop satisfied Brignoni-Ponce standard
“In determining reasonable suspicion in the context of roving Border Patrol stops, courts examine the totality of the circumstances, including the factors enunciated in Brignoni-Ponce. … These are (1) the area’s proximity to the border; (2) the characteristics of the … Continue reading
HI: Four flyovers of def’s house violated curtilage and REP under state constitution
Four police flyovers of defendant’s house, one at 420′, was not a search under the Fourth Amendment, but it was unreasonable under the Hawai’i Constitution. 20-25 marijuana plants were seen in the flyover. Driving by the residence, however, no plants … Continue reading
IA: School officials had RS to search football player’s equipment bag on hearing metal clunk
Defendant was a high school football player injured during a game, and he went to the hospital. He was expressly concerned about the contents of his school-issued equipment bag to the point that school officials nearly had reasonable suspicion. When … Continue reading
AK: Protective sweep could precede probation search
The challenged part of the home search here was a protective sweep before a probation search, and it was reasonable. Elisoff v. State, 2016 Alas. App. LEXIS 118 (June 22, 2016) (mem.).* 2255 petitioner’s claim that his defense counsel was … Continue reading
OR: Telling def he had to stay with the car while the drug dog came was based on reasonable suspicion
Quick entry and exit of a house under surveillance for drug sales led to police following defendant’s car. Furtive movements occurred inside, and defendant delayed stopping the car until those movements stopped. All that was reasonable suspicion to detain for … Continue reading
NYTimes: Mark Zuckerberg Covers His Laptop Camera. You Should Consider It, Too.
NYTimes: Mark Zuckerberg Covers His Laptop Camera. You Should Consider It, Too. by Katie Rogers:
M.D.Tenn.: Retired cop and current FOP member was still “neutral and detached” non-lawyer magistrate
The court declines to find a retired police officer acting as a non-lawyer judicial commissioner in issuing search warrants was not neutral and detached. His social media and socialization with police and remaining an FOP member aren’t enough, but maybe … Continue reading
Boston Globe: The FDA is stockpiling military weapons — and it’s not alone
Boston Globe: The FDA is stockpiling military weapons — and it’s not alone by Jeff Jacoby:
Hot Air: The Fourth Amendment wasn’t created to protect the guilty
Hot Air: The Fourth Amendment wasn’t created to protect the guilty by Jazz Shaw:
N.D.Ga.: Running away from the getaway car is an abandonment
Officers had probable cause to search defendant’s car for DNA and other evidence connecting it to a bank robbery that the car was connected to. Aside from that, everybody in the car fled when it was stopped, and that’s an … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Asking a question about a debit card during a plain view not unreasonable
The police were called to defendant’s apartment by a “scream filled 911 call” needing an ambulance. Once inside, in plain view, officers saw a debit card with a name that didn’t belong to the occupants. Asking about it did not … Continue reading
OH8: SW for “Apt. #1” with white door was valid where there was only one with a white door, albeit No. 3, and officers were directed by color of door
The description of the apartment with the white door on the corner of the building, “Apt. #1,” proved incorrect because Apt. #3 was the only one with a white door. The officers executing the warrant were directed to the one … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Criminal 4A violation proved by LEO being lookout on duty for robbery of recent ATF arrestee’s home
Defendant was a Puerto Rico police officer on a task force with the ATF. He worked the 4 pm to midnight shift, and he was involved as a police lookout to enable a condominium robbery to occur. He was convicted … Continue reading