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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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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: Reasonable expectation of privacy
HI: Fly-over of curtilage at 420′ violated REP under state constitution
Three fly-overs over the curtilage, one at 420′, was a violation of the Hawai’i Constitution, following the California Supreme Court in People v. Cook (1985). The Hawai’i Supreme Court differs from the Intermediate Court of Appeals on its analysis going … Continue reading
D.Mont.: No REP in a jail call
Defendant’s recorded jail call did not afford him an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy. His reliance on a Montana case on another issue not at all like this that did recognize a limited reasonable expectation of privacy under the Montana … Continue reading
OR: No REP in a camera and SD card left recording in a Starbucks bathroom
Defendant left a camera disguised as a cell phone charger in a Starbucks bathroom. It was found by a customer and turned over to the store manager. The manager believed it to be a camera, opened the back, and found … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: 21 month pole camera surveillance of def’s front door was reasonable
Pole camera surveillance of defendant’s house for 21 months didn’t violate Fourth Amendment. He had a subjective reasonable expectation privacy, but it’s not one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable. The court traces Katz to Jardines, and concludes … Continue reading
WA: Homeless man had REP in his tent camping in park after hours
A homeless man camping in a tent in Vancouver, WA had a privacy interest in his closed tent even though he was camping after hours. State v. Pippin, 2017 Wash. App. LEXIS 2365 (Oct. 10, 2017):
CA11: Parolee has no REP where he stays
Officers had cause for a protective sweep as well as consent from defendant’s girlfriend to search her apartment where he often stayed. A shotgun was in plain view. Defendant also had no standing because he was a parolee. United States … Continue reading
E.D.Wash.: No REP in jail calls
Defendant’s jail calls were not obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Angulo, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 190187 (E.D. Wash. March 18, 2015). Defendant challenges defense counsel’s performance in not asking the right questions during the suppression … Continue reading
D.Colo: No REP in prison cell or photographs of inmate’s body in a prison murder case
Defendant was charged with murder of another inmate in ADX Florence. He had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his prison cell from a search, and photographing his body was reasonable and not an invasion of privacy. United States v. … Continue reading
SD: Two months of pole camera surveillance without even RS violated a REP that society would recognize as reasonable; GFE applies, however
Defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy that society is now prepared to recognize as reasonable from installation of a pole camera across the street from his house and monitoring it for two months based solely on a tip that … Continue reading
ME: SW not needed to photograph def’s facial injuries
Police didn’t need a search warrant to photograph injuries on defendant’s face. State v. McNaughton, 2017 ME 173, 2017 Me. LEXIS 193 (Aug. 1, 2017). There was neither reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop nor his patdown. No facts were put … Continue reading
CA8: Code inspectors’ entry into common areas of rental property wasn’t 4A violation
City code inspectors’ entries into the common areas of plaintiff’s “historically unmanageable rental properties” did not violate the Fourth Amendment for lack of a reasonable expectation of privacy in those places. His claims as to allegedly protected areas was waived. … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Use of drug dog in hotel hallway wasn’t at all like invading the curtilage in Jardines
Use of a drug dog in a hotel hallway that produced an alert on defendant’s room’s door was not unreasonble under Jardines. A hotel hallway, accessible to many people, cannot be compared to the curtilage of a home. United States … Continue reading
PA: No REP in a gun hidden in ceiling tile at work that fell out
Officers came to the barber shop where defendant worked because of a call about a threat with a weapon. Defendant was in the bathroom, and one officer went to the door. Another went into the adjoining bathroom. Defendant put a … Continue reading
TX13: Untested hospital drawn blood sample has to be obtained by SW not subpoena
Defendant was in a car wreck and hospitalized. The other person in the wreck died. At the hospital, he was treated and released, but blood was drawn for medical purposes but never analyzed by the hospital. The officer obtained a … Continue reading
WI: Tax assessor’s effort to see interior of home for assessment implicates the 4A
The tax assessor’s demand to see the interior of plaintiffs’ house is a search governed by the Fourth Amendment. Because it is the home, it is not “minimal,” and there is no administrative search exception that permits it. The city … Continue reading
OH5: Plain view didn’t apply to a firearm where it wasn’t readily obvious it was stolen
The plain view doctrine did not apply because the firearm was not immediately apparent as incriminating evidence or contraband, and testimony at the suppression hearing established the officers could not readily identify the firearm as stolen. State v. Elschlager, 2017-Ohio-5545, … Continue reading
LA: “Defendant thus was in the difficult position of having to both distance himself from the barbeque grill, if he hoped to be found not guilty of possession of the cocaine found inside it, and tie himself more closely to the grill, if he hoped to obtain a favorable ruling on the motion to suppress. Trying to do both, he succeeded at neither.”
Showing a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched but denying possession is a fine line indeed. Show too much of an expectation of privacy just to challenge the search [always a risky proposition] and you might put yourself … Continue reading
ABAJ: Federal prosecutor admits she listened to recordings of attorney-client conversations, filing says
ABAJ: Federal prosecutor admits she listened to recordings of attorney-client conversations, filing says by Debra Cassens Weiss:
CA3: Search of prison cell didn’t violate 4A
The search of plaintiff’s prison cell and confiscation of some of his stuff wasn’t a Fourth Amendment violation. Barndt v. Wenerowicz, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 10754 (3d Cir. June 19, 2017).* The officer here saw a vehicle parked outside a … Continue reading