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- CA6: Knowing passcode to cell phone shows common authority over it to consent
- VI: Smell of MJ no longer PC in VI since legalization
- Reason: 3 Charlotte Cops Resign After Group Chat Reveals Competition To Arrest the Most Black People
- E.D.Mich.: Second SW for cell phone data retained by govt was valid
- S.D.W.Va.: “Shocking” nature of immigration raid on a Mexican restaurant at lunchtime didn’t warrant suppression
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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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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: Curtilage
CA8: Visitor at apt complex can’t claim standing in parking lot as alleged curtilage
Defendant didn’t have standing to claim that police entry into an apartment building’s parking lot was entry onto the curtilage because he didn’t live there. [It’s not curtilage anyway.] A cousin did, and he was an occasional visitor. Officers shining … Continue reading
SC: Entry into backyard for knock-and-talk was really a search violating curtilage
Officers entered defendant’s backyard, the curtilage, to conduct what they called a “knock-and-talk,” but it was really a search by their own admission, and they violated the Fourth Amendment. The trial court was correct in finding the backyard curtilage and … Continue reading
CT: Dog sniff at door of condominium violates sanctity of home under state constitution and 4A
A drug dog sniff in the common areas of a condominium violated the state constitution. The Second Circuit held that as to the Fourth Amendment in 1985 in United States v. Thomas, 757 F.2d 1359 (2d Cir. 1985), and other … Continue reading
NC: Search warrant for house included rental car on curtilage, reversing CoA
A search warrant for the home includes the curtilage, and that includes vehicles parked on the curtilage; here, a rental car. State v. Lowe, 2016 N.C. LEXIS 1116 (Dec. 21, 2016), rev’g State v. Lowe, 774 S.E.2d 893 (N.C. App. … Continue reading
IA: Ordering def off his porch and out to the driveway is a seizure
“[W]e conclude that White was seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when Officer Stricker directed White to step off of the front porch and onto the driveway. We reach this conclusion for several reasons. …” State v. White, … Continue reading
OH3: Burning MJ on lot next to def, with his admission to firefighters it was his MJ and fire, justified knock-and-talk
The fire department was called to an open burn, and the police came along, too. There was the apparent smell of burning marijuana. The officers went to the nearest structure next door for a knock-and-talk about the burning marijuana. The … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Steagald only applies to entries into dwellings of third parties and not the curtilage
Steagald only applies to entries into dwellings of third parties and not the curtilage. United States v. Mackin, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 156888 (N.D.Ind. Nov. 14, 2016):
GA: Police entry onto the curtilage to look into the car windows for a plain view was unreasonable
Police entry onto the curtilage to look into the car windows for a plain view was unreasonable. State v. Vickers, 2016 Ga. App. LEXIS 610 (Nov. 1, 2016). While there may have been some remedy to the defendant Kentucky Open … Continue reading
OH7: Obstructing officers from going behind house in alleged violation of curtilage affirmed
Defendant was convicted for obstruction by seeking to prevent officers from going behind his house in alleged violation of his curtilage. The officers, however, could articulate valid reasons for going there because of flight of somebody else behind the house, … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Even if dog unlawfully came on curtilage, officers’ plain smell of MJ from the street was PC
Officers went to defendant’s house suspecting a grow operation. On the sidewalk in front of his house, they could smell raw marijuana. They went to the door and window air conditioning unit and could smell it. They brought a drug … Continue reading
OH5: Def’s wrecked empty car on road to house justified entry onto curtilage to check on potential injury
Defendant’s car was upside down and there was blood on the passenger air bag. Nobody was there. The officer went to the house where the car was registered to find the driver and passenger. “Present in this case was a … Continue reading
MO: Chicken coop inside barbed wire fence tho 100′ from house within curtilage
Defendant’s chicken coop with drugs inside was a fair distance from the house, but it was still within the curtilage. Applying all the Dunn factors, they favor defendant. It was inside a primary barbed wire fence and the contents weren’t … Continue reading
VI: No REP in a bag on ground outside an apt building
Defendant’s apartment was subjected to a search warrant, and defendant argued that a Crown Royal bag outside on the ground was outside the scope of the warrant and couldn’t be seized. The court applies Dunn and the curtilage analysis to … Continue reading
MI dismisses grant of discretionary review on application of Jardines to a knock-and-talk
Michigan granted discretionary review to determine the application of Jardines to a knock-and-talk, but dismissed it after considering the briefs. Three justices dissented from declining to decide the case. People v. Radandt, 2016 Mich. LEXIS 1591 (July 29, 2016)*:
NH: Hot pursuit of a suspected murderer with a tracking dog permitted entry onto curtilage
Officers were in hot pursuit after a murder with a tracking dog when they entered defendant’s curtilage. The entry was reasonable under the circumstances. A house can be entered in hot pursuit; this entry onto the curtilage was minimal by … Continue reading
CA5: Pre-Jardines dog sniff at garage was valid at time under case law; GFE applies
The good faith exception applied to validate dog sniffs based on law at the time saying that a sniff at defendant’s garage wasn’t an invasion of the curtilage back then. The search was 2008 and Jardines was 2013. The deterrent … Continue reading
NH: Officers who parked in def’s driveway could lawfully smell marijuana coming from his garage
Officers got out of their cars in defendant’s driveway and could smell marijuana coming from defendant’s garage. They didn’t unreasonably invade the curtilage. State v. Socci, 2015 N.H. LEXIS 259 (Dec. 4, 2015),* prior appeal State v. Socci, 166 N.H. … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: CSLI is but third party information, following almost every other court
Defendant challenges CSLI and concedes four circuits have held it’s third party information. That’s the holding of the court. United States v. Elima, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 87588 (C.D.Cal. June 22, 2016).* Officers entering defendant’s curtilage after following him home … 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
S.D.Miss.: Post-Jardines dog sniff of house and car leads to suppression of sniff of car, even though it’s not on curtilage
Officers did a dog sniff at defendant’s door after Jardines and then the car in the driveway. The car in the driveway is not on the curtilage, but the court suppresses because the sniff of the car was essentially an … Continue reading