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- D.Alaska: Def’s half hour detention was without RS
- CA9: When the PC for SW dissipates, the search must stop; no GFE
- C.D.Cal.: SW for all software in gambling case was overbroad and no GFE
- E.D.Mich.: State environmental inspector who entered property to look at unlicensed seawall gets QI
- S.D.Fla.: SW for def’s house included his tent outside
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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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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: Automatic license plate readers
404 Media: Flock: LAPD Regularly Pulled Over Innocent People Because License Plate Readers Flagged Their Cars As Stolen
404 Media: Flock: LAPD Regularly Pulled Over Innocent People Because License Plate Readers Flagged Their Cars As Stolen by Jason Koebler (“The Los Angeles Police Department let its Flock contract expire over the weekend in part because it was regularly … Continue reading
USA Today: Five GA cops used Flock cameras for personal searches, GBI says
USA Today: Five GA cops used Flock cameras for personal searches, GBI says by Irene Wright (“Five police officers have been accused of using Flock license plate camera technology in South Georgia to make personal searches, according to the Georgia … Continue reading
404 Media: Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Using Flock to Stalk People
404 Media: Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Using Flock to Stalk People by Jason KoEbler (“There have been more than a dozen cases around the country where police use Flock to obsessively and illegally stalk people.”)
W.D.Mo.: ALPR information helped support RS
There was reasonable suspicion for the dog sniff during this stop based on prior knowledge, a GPS placed with a prior warrant, and APLR reports of where the vehicle was that day showing it went where expected for alleged drug … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Extending stop to run ALPR information on car was with RS
Here, the officer in a traffic stop wanted to run defendant’s LPN through ALPRs to determine whether the travel was as stated. There was reasonable suspicion to continue the stop 15 minutes for that. United States v. Moore, 2026 U.S. … Continue reading
WaPo: AI license plate cameras tore this town apart and led to a state of emergency
WaPo: AI license plate cameras tore this town apart and led to a state of emergency by Annie Gowen (“In Troy, New York, residents and city officials are at odds over police use of Flock cameras, which some call a … Continue reading
NY Columbia Co.: Alleged excessive nervousness when multiple police cars arrive at a traffic stop doesn’t add to RS
Defendant’s alleged excessive nervousness wasn’t visible on the video. And, even if he was, that’s a reasonable response to multiple police cars showing up for a routine traffic stop. No reasonable suspicion to continue the stop. People v. Thomas, 2026 … Continue reading
The Guardian: ‘Creepy surveillance’: why some cities are shutting down Flock cameras amid privacy concerns
The Guardian: ‘Creepy surveillance’: why some cities are shutting down Flock cameras amid privacy concerns by George Chidi (“In recent city council meetings in Dunwoody, Georgia, a spokesman for Flock Safety, a Georgia-based firm that provides automated license plate readers, … Continue reading
D.N.D.: ALPR not a search
ALPR not a search. United States v. Lawrence, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 56945 (D.N.D. Mar. 18, 2026). Failure to show materiality for Franks requires the court to also consider the elements of the crime being investigated. United States v. Engler, … Continue reading
FoxNews: Surveillance tech causes police to accuse wrong woman in porch theft investigation
FoxNews: Surveillance tech causes police to accuse wrong woman in porch theft investigation (“License plate reader data led to police accusing the wrong woman of porch theft before new evidence showed the suspect’s vehicle was not at the scene.” It … Continue reading
CA5: No REP against license plate readers
License plate readers violate no reasonable expectation of privacy. Also, the stop was supported by reasonable suspicion. United States v. Porter, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 7888 (5th Cir. Mar. 17, 2026). The informant’s information was sufficient to show probable cause … Continue reading
What happens when Flock ALPRs misread an LPN?
Arkansas police drew guns on a family, then blamed a license plate frame.
CNS: California drivers accuse Flock Safety of sharing data with federal and out-of-state agencies
CNS: California drivers accuse Flock Safety of sharing data with federal and out-of-state agencies by Edvard Pettersson (“Even after Flock removed California law enforcement agencies from its National Lookup service last year, unauthorized access to the agencies’ databases has continued, … Continue reading
NPR: Some cities are ditching license plate readers over immigration surveillance concerns
NPR: Some cities are ditching license plate readers over immigration surveillance concerns by Jude Joffe-Block (“The use of automatic license plate readers has exploded across the country in recent years. The cameras on roads and freeways that take images of … Continue reading
CA8: Stop unreasonably extended for drug dog; denial of suppression reversed
Window tint violation should have taken 5-6 minutes, but it dragged out for 20 minutes while the drug dog was coming. The stop was overlong under Rodriguez and the motion to suppress should have been granted. United States v. Johnson, … Continue reading
CA6: Flock violated no duty to ptf when he was stopped based on police mistake, if there was one
Plaintiff sued Flock because he was stopped but then released because his LPN was put on a “hot list” by police, apparently mistakenly. He had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his LPN, and his stop was by the police, … Continue reading
WA: No REP in ALPR so no prejudice from destruction of data
Defendant moved to suppress based on ALPR tracking. The data was gone. He moved to dismiss for destroying it, which was granted. Since it’s not a violation of his reasonable expectation of privacy, he can’t be prejudiced by it. Reversed. … Continue reading
TX13: No REP in ALPR information
ALPR readings cannot be compared to CSLI, and there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in those movements on the streets. Ford v. State, 2026 Tex. App. LEXIS 729 (Tex. App. – Corpus Christi – Edinburg Jan. 29, 2026). The … Continue reading
CA11: ALPR showing short round trip to Atlanta supported stop with RS
On plain error review, it can’t be said there was no reasonable suspicion whatsoever essentially based on a license plate reader that the car’s round trip to Atlanta was suspiciously short. Thus, “we cannot say that the district court committed … Continue reading