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- FL: Violation of knock-and-announce statute doesn’t require exclusion
- TX3: DUI blood draw while in restraint chair not 4A unreasonable
- TX1: Def has a duty to make his record on PC and the SW; missing affidavit was on him
- N.D.Ala.: SW not invalid because issuing judge previously represented the target
- The Guardian: ‘We should be worried’: report sheds light on ICE’s booming arsenal of hi-tech surveillance tools
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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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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)
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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: Consent
N.D.Ind.: No IAC where def pled but co-def prevailed on 4A claim
Defendant entered into a beneficial plea agreement and pled to a superseding information and was sentenced. Later, the passenger in his car filed a motion to suppress and prevailed. Still, this was not ineffective assistance of his counsel. “Aside from … Continue reading →
N.D.Ohio: Passenger’s false info justified extending stop
“Based upon all of the above, the roughly 2 minutes and 23 seconds that Sergeant Perrin spent trying to determine why the passenger had given his false information was not an unreasonable extension of the duration of stop.” United States … Continue reading →
NM: Passenger’s lie about age was RS to continue stop
The passenger’s admitted lie about his age was reasonable suspicion to continue the stop. He wasn’t forthcoming in giving his age and first lied about it. It was permissible to ask the passenger about his identifiers. State v. Vasquez-Salas, 2023 … Continue reading →
D.S.D. & OH5: When challenging another court’s SW, it has to be filed with the papers for the court to rule
Defendant challenges the tribal search warrant as lacking probable cause and being vindictively obtained, the latter of which does not exist under Rule 41. He fails to include the warrant papers so the court can’t rule. United States v. Floyd, … Continue reading →
S.D.Ga.: Probation search waiver valid despite def not signing it
Defendant’s probation Fourth Amendment waiver was still valid by law despite the fact he hadn’t signed the form. United States v. Crawford, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 140719 (S.D.Ga. July 7, 2023), adopted, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 139645 (S.D. Ga. Aug. … Continue reading →
CA10 doesn’t have to decide whether furtive movement alone supports vehicle protective sweep
Furtive movements alone may or may not be enough to justify a protective sweep of a car, a question this circuit has never decided. Here, however, there was the additional fact of a “slow roll” to a stop which was … Continue reading →
VT: 14-year-old sex assault victim had sufficient common authority to consent to search of premises for evidence of that crime
Defendant was accused of sexual assault of his 14-year-old daughter, he was arrested, and released on conditions, one of which was a no contact order to say away from the house. The 14-year-old had enough common authority to consent to … Continue reading →
Cal.4: Parole search that wasn’t “harassing, arbitrary, or capricious” was reasonable
The parole search was valid. “Defendant offers no argument that the search qualified as harassing, arbitrary, or capricious.” People v. Session, 2023 Cal. App. LEXIS 549 (4th Dist. July 19, 2023). Defendants were stopped in a go fast vessel (GFV) … Continue reading →
W.D.Mo.: No standing in a stolen car
No reasonable expectation of privacy [standing] in a stolen car. United States v. Burkhalter, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 120556 (W.D. Mo. July 13, 2023). On a probation search, “Applying these principles, the Court finds that Brooks has failed to meet … Continue reading →
MD: Withdrawal of consent to computer search extended to copy of hard drive police made
“[D]efendant had reasonable expectation of privacy in data stored on his laptop’s hard drive, whether data was electronically stored on his hard drive or government’s copy of hard drive made with defendant’s consent. Defendant’s reasonable expectation of privacy was not … Continue reading →
S.D.Iowa: Accosting a person carrying a gun in an open carry state lacked RS
After Iowa permitted open carry, accosting defendant for carrying a firearm lacked reasonable suspicion. United States v. McMillion, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 117283 (S.D. Iowa June 30, 2023). The search warrant for defendant’s cell phone permitted a search by use … Continue reading →
D.P.R.: Indicted fugitive can have standing in a place even using an alias
Defendant being an unindicted fugitive using a false name still had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place he was staying. This is different from the government’s authority involving convicted escapees. United States v. Cotto-Cruz, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading →
E.D.Cal.: “No viable Takings Clause claim occurs when property has been disturbed by a lawful search warrant.”
“No viable Takings Clause claim occurs when property has been disturbed by a lawful search warrant. See AmeriSource Corp. v. United States, 525 F.3d 1149, 1154 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (‘so long as the government’s exercise of authority was pursuant to … Continue reading →
OH4: Entry to recover AR-15 was reasonable, even though it was hard to find
Officers responding to a 911 call were told there was an unsecured AR-15 in the house. The entry to retrieve it was reasonable, and Caniglia v. Strom is distinguishable. State v. Pine, 2023-Ohio-2191, 2023 Ohio App. LEXIS 2166 (4th Dist. … Continue reading →
CA7: Claim of excessive force in arrest by federal agent does not state new type of Bivens claim
A claim of excessive force during an arrest by a federal agent does not state a new type of Bivens claim, and it can proceed. Snowden v. Henning, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 16221 (7th Cir. June 27, 2023). (This was … Continue reading →
MO: When a backpack is abandoned, that includes the sealed packages inside it
When defendant’s backpack was abandoned, that included sealed packages inside it. State v. Fernandez, 2023 Mo. App. LEXIS 461 (June 27, 2023). “Nonetheless, the Durham Court’s general statement, that having a roommate does not convert a single-family house into a … Continue reading →
CA4: Search of unlocked van with door ajar left overnight on bank parking lot with visible assault rifle was reasonable under community caretaking function
A bank employee saw a van parked on the bank’s lot that had been there overnight. Officers responded and saw an assault rifle in the passenger compartment. “Around 12:30 [p.m.], without knocking or announcing their presence, Lambert and Wagner pulled … Continue reading →
IN: Drug dog’s half sitting alert was still reliable
“In contrast, here the State established that Maverick was a certified drug sniffing dog with a history of reliability. Maverick’s behavior, even without a full final response of sitting, was sufficient to indicate that he had detected the odors of … Continue reading →
CA1: Vertical collective knowledge applied; horizontal doesn’t have to be decided
Vertical collective knowledge clearly applies where an officer directed another to make a stop. Therefore, the bounds of horizontal collective knowledge doesn’t matter here. United States v. Balser, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 15060 (1st Cir. June 16, 2023) (a good … Continue reading →
KY: The conditions of parole factor into reasonableness of a parole search
Defendant did not properly preserve his state constitutional claim that warrantless parole searches should be more protective of a suspect’s rights than the Fourth Amendment. On the Fourth Amendment claim, the search complied with Samson and Knights. The conditions of … Continue reading →