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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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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)
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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
PA: Entry up 200′ driveway to inspect hit-and-run vehicle did not violate curtilage
Defendant was suspected of being involved in a hit-and-run accident with a motorized wheelchair. Police got to his house, 200′ off the road, about an hour after the incident. Their entry up the driveway to inspect the damage on his … Continue reading
WaPo: You may be powerless to stop a drone from hovering over your own yard
WaPo: You may be powerless to stop a drone from hovering over your own yard by Andrea Peterson and Matt McFarland. The story of a Kentucky man who shot down a drone over his land getting prosecuted and sued in … Continue reading
CA11: Hot pursuit permitted entry onto curtilage
The officer here was in hot pursuit of a car suspected of being the car taken in a carjacking. Finding it in the driveway of a house, the officer could enter the curtilage to ask about it. United States v. … Continue reading
MD: Dog sniff outside apt door didn’t violate curtilage or a reasonable expectation of privacy
A dog sniff outside an apartment door from a common hallway otherwise closed to those not living there did not violate curtilage or an expectation of privacy. Lindsey v. State, 2015 Md. App. LEXIS 171 (Dec. 16, 2015):
TX: Jardines applies to apartments
“In this case, we are asked to decide whether it constitutes a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment for law-enforcement officers to bring a trained drug-detection dog directly up to the front door of an apartment-home for the … Continue reading
CA8: Pre-Jardines dog sniff at defendant’s window was governed by Jardines
A dog sniff of defendant’s apartment window was a violation of Jardines. While the sniff was pre-Jardines, there was no clear binding authority that the government could rely on for Davis good faith to apply. United States v. Burston, 2015 … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: When no one answers a knock-and-talk, Jardines prohibits shining a flashlight in the window
The legal authority to enter to do a knock-and-talk under Jardines does not permit the police to shine flashlights in the windows when nobody answers. In addition, the government’s reliance on a Davis-type good faith exception for this conduct during … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: No trespassing sign but gate not closed did not create trespass for knock-and-talk
“When law enforcement officers, without a warrant, enter a homeowner’s fenced property through a partially open gate with a ‘No Trespassing’ sign posted on the fence nearby, and then proceed through an unlocked screen door onto an enclosed front porch … Continue reading
WaPo: Volokh Conspiracy: Helicopter (and drone?) surveillance and the Fourth Amendment
WaPo: Volokh Conspiracy: Helicopter (and drone?) surveillance and the Fourth Amendment by Eugene Volokh: The Supreme Court has held that observing and photographing people’s homes and surrounding areas from an airplane, flying at 1,000 feet, doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment … Continue reading
Atlantic: The NYPD Is Using Mobile X-Ray Vans to Spy on Unknown Targets
Atlantic: The NYPD Is Using Mobile X-Ray Vans to Spy on Unknown Targets by Conor Friedersdorf: New York City won’t reveal how often cops bombard places, vehicles, or people with radiation—or if there are health risks for residents. Dystopian truth … Continue reading
NM: Police helicopter flyover at 50-100′ disrupted and damaged the property and scared the occupants and violated curtilage
A police helicopter flyover at 50-100′ disrupted and damaged the property and scared the occupants. Therefore, it violated the curtilage under the Fourth Amendment. Thus, the state constitutional issue does not have to be decided. State v. Davis, 2015 N.M. … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Gas meter on side wall doesn’t mean side isn’t curtilage as to the police; look in window suppressed
The side wall of a house where the gas meter was was still curtilage. Just because the gas company is invited there doesn’t mean the police are. United States v. Conerd, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 98629 (N.D.Iowa July 28, 2015): … Continue reading
NC: SW for a house did not authorize search of a car of a visitor in the driveway [Reversed 12/21/16]
Officers with a search warrant for a house could not search a car of a visitor in the driveway under the warrant. State v. Lowe, 2015 N.C. App. LEXIS 633 (July 21, 2015). Update: Reversed State v. Lowe, 2016 N.C. … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Dog sniff at the front door of a specific apartment unit qualified for curtilage under Jardines
A dog sniff at the front door of a specific apartment unit qualified for curtilage under Jardines. The policy reasons behind it still apply to a particular apartment’s door. Nonetheless, there was some other information on which the officers relied, … Continue reading
CA11: Absence of a clear path and a door knocker doesn’t mean police can’t come to the front door
Defendant didn’t raise standing but the court did on its own. And it denied the motion to suppress on the merits. Based on the plea colloquy, it’s evident that the product of the search didn’t contribute to the conviction, so … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Going onto the front porch to try a key in the lock didn’t violate Jardines; entering the already cracked open door did
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the house searched. It was owned by others and where the electric bill was in another’s name. There was probable cause for a search of a second location. Police going on to … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Entry to backyard to get trash violated curtilage; trash is a collection of information until it is abandoned
The trash receptacle here was by the back door and window, and entry to the backyard to retrieve the trash was an entry onto the protected curtilage. Until the trash is put out for collection, the container is a receptacle … Continue reading
W.D.La.: By requesting a tax reassessment, plaintiff did not consent to an entry onto the curtilage or an entry into the property
By requesting a tax reassessment, plaintiff did not consent to an entry onto the curtilage or an entry into the property for the reassessment. King v. La. Tax Comm’n, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 80012 (W.D.La. June 19, 2015). Defendant’s stop … Continue reading