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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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"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: Curtilage
Cert. granted: Collins v. Virginia (does automobile exception apply to search a vehicle parked near to a house on curtilage)
Cert. granted: Collins v. Virginia, 16-1027 (ScotusBlog) Issue: Whether the Fourth Amendment’s automobile exception permits a police officer, uninvited and without a warrant, to enter private property, approach a house and search a vehicle parked a few feet from the … Continue reading
OH7: Enclosed porch door was curtilage, but inside door was threshold door
Defendant’s house had an unlocked porch door and a door inside. The porch door was part of the curtilage, but it was reasonable for persons visiting to go to the inside door and knock. “Based on this record, the facts … Continue reading
OH1: Leaving drug house under surveillance for two weeks was RS
It was reasonable suspicion for defendant to visit a house under surveillance for two weeks as a drug house with detailed collection of information about comings and goings. State v. Donohue, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 3668 (1st Dist. Aug. 25, … Continue reading
M.D.La.: No standing in a stolen car
The stop was justified by a seatbelt violation, but defendant didn’t have standing because the car was stolen. United States v. Joseph, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 123893 (M.D. La. Aug. 7, 2017). The landing in front of an apartment is … 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
N.D.Fla.: Entry onto 3-4 acre plot for knock-and-talk lawfully entered curtilage
Defendant lived on a 3-4 acre plot, and police lawfully entered through an open gate to conduct a knock-and-talk at defendant’s door. Exactly where the curtilage ends isn’t clear, but it certainly was close to the house where they were. … Continue reading
IL: A dog sniff on the third floor apartment doors of an unlocked building violated Jardines
A dog sniff on the third floor apartment doors of an unlocked building violated Jardines. The sniff occurred two years after Jardines. People v. Bonilla, 2017 IL App (3d) 160457, 2017 Ill. App. LEXIS 380 (June 14, 2017):
IL: Officer reaching into vestibule of home violated curtilage
The officer’s reaching into the vestibule of a two-unit apartment building intruded into an area with a reasonable expectation of privacy under Jardines. The building was essentially a one family dwelling. People v. Martin, 2017 IL App (1st) 143255, 2017 … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Driveway not curtilage for dog sniff of car
Relying on United States v. Beene, 818 F.3d 157 (5th Cir. 2016) (posted here), defendant’s car parked on the driveway in front of his home was subject to a dog sniff as if it was on the street. Because of … Continue reading
MA: Porch and side yard of multifamily dwelling was protected curtilage
The porch and side yard of a multifamily residence was within the curtilage for Dunn and Jardines, so the police entry to look under the porch was unreasonable and the search is suppressed. Commonwealth v. Leslie, 2017 Mass. LEXIS 341 … Continue reading
MO: Officers didn’t violate curtilage by going to back of mobile home to see what the neighbors could see
Officers did not violate curtilage when they could see marijuana growing behind defendant’s mobile home. While the plants weren’t visible from the front of the curtilage, going to look for another door would have revealed it. It was also visible … Continue reading
TN: State’s failure to challenge trial court’s findings entry to curtilage was unreasonable is waiver
Officers had a levy for unpaid court costs, and it wasn’t uncommon for drug officers to come along for the seizure. The record supported the conclusion that defendant did not affirmatively and expressly disclaim or relinquish his privacy interest in … Continue reading
WaPo: ‘The Volokh Conspiracy’ Blog: The Fourth Amendment and “no trespassing” signs
WaPo: ‘The Volokh Conspiracy’ Blog: The Fourth Amendment and “no trespassing” signs by Orin Kerr: In light of the uncertainty, I thought I would point out the latest decision on the Fourth Amendment implications of ‘no trespassing’ signs: State v. … Continue reading
WaPo: The Fourth Amendment and “no trespassing” signs
WaPo: The Fourth Amendment and “no trespassing” signs by Orin Kerr:
CA1: No curtilage in def’s apt building yard
Defendant’s curtilage to an apartment building wasn’t violated by police entry through an unlocked back gate to get to the front door. (That apparently was a common way in.) Defendant came to the door and let them in, and then … Continue reading
OH5: MJ grow in back yard visible from next door permitted officers to come to house to inquire
Defendant’s back porch was not curtilage. [Wrong! It is. We’ll just pretend the court didn’t say that.] Marijuana growing in the back yard was visible from the next door neighbor’s property, and that brought the officers to the house to … Continue reading
FL2: Protective sweep of curtilage unreasonable; CI’s tip of obvious details to any observer not corroborated
The trial court erred in denying defendant’s motion to suppress under the protective sweep exception to the warrant requirement because the trial court’s finding that the detective’s intrusion onto the curtilage was justified for officer safety was not supported by … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Entry into the curtilage was justified by exigency of a shots fired call
Defendant’s next door neighbor called 911 to report shots fired at defendant’s house. When they arrived, officers set up a perimeter and entry into the curtilage was valid based on exigency, and a cartridge case was seen in plain view. … Continue reading
Guam: Jardines curtilage doesn’t apply to castle doctrine and defense of dwelling
Jardines on curtilage doesn’t apply to the statute on the castle doctrine for defense of home which applies to the habitable dwelling and not the porch. Defendant’s proffer jury instruction was properly denied. People v. John, 2016 Guam 41, 2016 … Continue reading