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- VA: Body cam video of valid arrest would not be suppressed
- NM: Trial court’s finding of consent is reversed because the court engaged in its own internet investigation beyond what the parties provided
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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
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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)
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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. 
Category Archives: Exclusionary rule
CO: DNA taken in violation of statute not suppressed
Taking DNA from this defendant on a misdemeanor arrest was not a Fourth Amendment violation under King. It did violate state law, but the court doesn’t suppress. It matched DNA in a rape case and led to him being charged. … Continue reading
D.Md.: Blanket suppression reserved for flagrant cases; this isn’t
The search warrant didn’t specify that cash was subject to seizure, but it reasonably falls within evidence of the subject matter of the search warrant. To exclude the cash would be a “hypertechnical” suppression argument. Moreover, blanket suppression is reserved … Continue reading
IN adopts “new crime exception” under state constitution; illegal search doesn’t immunize battery on police officer
“Many state and federal courts have applied an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule called the new-crime exception. This exception provides that notwithstanding a strong causal connection in fact between an illegal search or seizure by law enforcement and … Continue reading
DC: Cold case DNA hit confirmed by DNA SW would not be excluded even if original sample was taken wrongfully, which isn’t decided
Defendant’s DNA was collected from him in the BOP in 2005 while he was there on another conviction out of D.C. It was 2009 before it was tested under the DNA Backlog Elimination Act. It matched a cold case in … Continue reading
RI: LEO’s wife violated wiretap and SCA with keylogger, but his dept can use it in administrative proceedings
Plaintiff is a Rhode Island police officer whose wife installed a keylogger to track his computer usage about his potential infidelity. She turned it over to his department. He was suspended for two years with pay for the duration. Her … Continue reading
KS declines to apply exclusionary rule to city officer’s extraterritorial arrest
The Kansas Supreme Court refuses in this case to apply the exclusionary rule to an extraterritorial police operation that resulted in defendant’s arrest, understanding why the trial court suppressed. The legislature modified the common law rule of territoriality somewhat, but … Continue reading
GA: Implied consent rejected in Georgia under McNeely; actual consent is required.
Implied consent rejected in Georgia under McNeely. Actual consent is required. “Nevertheless, sister states have considered statutory implied consent as an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement in the wake of McNeely, and have reached varying conclusions as to … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Def failed to even attempt to show REP in driveway as curtilage for pre-Jones GPS installation
GPS trackers were placed on two cars in codefendant’s driveway in 2009 (pre-Jones). The defense doesn’t show enough about the driveway and a reasonable expectation of privacy in it to conclude that there was a violation of curtilage here. United … Continue reading
CO: Juvie probation wouldn’t be deterred by suppressing DNA taken in violation of statute
Taking a DNA swab from a juvenile on probation violated the state statute on juvenile probation, but the court declines to suppress the evidence because probation officers cannot be deterred from committing such statutory violations. “Juvenile probation officers performing a … Continue reading
NM: The “new crime” exception to the exclusionary rule does not apply to identity-related offenses; it would to violent crimes
Defendant was a passenger in a car stopped without reasonable suspicion, and he had no seatbelt on. He gave a false name and signed the ticket with the false name. That was forgery. The new crime is suppressed because it … Continue reading
Essence: Dollree Mapp, 1923-2014: “The Rosa Parks of the Fourth Amendment”
Essence: Dollree Mapp, 1923-2014: “The Rosa Parks of the Fourth Amendment” by Ken Armstrong: Time is not always kind to the people whose names get attached to landmark legal cases. Ernesto Miranda, the defendant whose 1966 Supreme Court case forced … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Use of booking DNA statute to obtain DNA to link defendant to crime was unreasonable
Under Florida law, DNA is taken from certain types of offenders at the time of booking. The statute is constitutional under Maryland v. King. However, the taking of defendant’s booking DNA for “identification” (King) to link him to a gun … Continue reading
MA: Arrest on recalled warrant suppressed under state const. where officers violated policy and didn’t recheck
Product of an arrest on a recently recalled warrant suppressed under the state constitution. The police had plenty of time to check the status of the warrant during the hours of surveillance looking for defendant and waiting for him to … Continue reading
AK: The exclusionary rule does not apply in DL suspension proceedings, except where there is conduct shocking to the conscience
The exclusionary rule does not apply in drivers license suspension proceedings, except where there is conduct shocking to the conscience. Here, it’s not. Garibay v. State, Dept. of Administration, Division of Motor Vehicles, 2014 Alas. LEXIS 222 (November 28, 2014). … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: “No harm, no foul” on no exclusion for illegal cell phone search mentioned
An officer involved in the case conducted an illegal warrantless, albeit limited, search of defendant’s cell phone, realized it was wrong, and then stopped and didn’t tell the case agent or anyone else what he’d done. Later, he “came clean” … Continue reading
NC: Excessive force as an unreasonable search has to be raised in trial court first
During a traffic stop, reasonable suspicion was clearly developing, and defendant had something in his hand while denying it. Multiple requests to open his hand were refused, and, fearing a weapon, the officer ultimately had to take defendant down to … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: 404(b) and the exclusionary rule
N.D.Cal. wrestles with 404(b) and the exclusionary rule. United States v. Felix, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 156232 (N.D. Cal. October 31, 2014). See Treatise § 9.02. A thoughtful opinion, without really resolving the issue, yet:
Techdirt: The Exception Is The Rule: How The Government’s ‘Good Faith’ Efforts Are Destroying The Fourth Amendment
Techdirt: The Exception Is The Rule: How The Government’s ‘Good Faith’ Efforts Are Destroying The Fourth Amendment: While there has been some progress towards a restoration of the nation’s Fourth Amendment rights, there have also been several steps back. A … Continue reading