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- 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)
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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
CA11: There was justification for ptf’s stop, so pretext question doesn’t get to jury
“The plaintiffs contend that the record contains evidence that could lead a jury to conclude that Officer Benton merely used the tag violation as a pretext for an otherwise unlawful stop. But Officer Benton’s subjective purpose for conducting the traffic … Continue reading →
M.D.La.: Evidentiary objection to product of search isn’t addressed in a suppression motion
Defendant’s argument is really an evidentiary objection, not a ground to suppress. Suppression is denied. United States v. Sterling, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160728 (M.D.La. Aug. 24, 2021). “Here, the credited testimony of all three officers is that Deputy Lowe … Continue reading →
D.Nev.: Use of cell site simulator to track another’s phone leading to def was reasonable
The government’s use of a cell site simulator to track another person’s cell phone didn’t infringe on defendant’s rights. United States v. Goldsby, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160651 (D.Nev. Aug. 25, 2021). The court order (six years pre-Carpenter) showed probable … Continue reading →
IL: State showed reasonable belief in common authority for consent
The state established reasonable belief in common authority of defendant’s wife over his micro-SD card where there was child pornography. To rebut the state’s consent case, defendant would have to show that she actually had limited authority over the card, … Continue reading →
D.N.J.: Dashcam showed no RS for traffic stop
The court having reviewed the dashcam, the officer lacked reasonable suspicion for a traffic stop. The government’s alternative argument that there was generalized reasonable suspicion of drug dealing isn’t timely. On the merits, it still is inadequate. United States v. … Continue reading →
OH1: Telling def to keep his hands out of his pockets and then put them on hood when he wouldn’t didn’t taint later consent
During a stop, defendant was told to keep his hands out of his pockets, but he didn’t and he was fidgeting and putting his hands in and out. Telling him to put his hands on the hood after all that … Continue reading →
TX9: Court clerk can swear officer for SW application
The affidavit for search warrant does not have to be sworn to before the issuing magistrate under Texas law. A clerk will do. Fender v. State, 2021 Tex. App. LEXIS 6605 (Tex. App. – Beaumont Aug. 9, 2021). No reasonable … Continue reading →
D.Conn.: Not reasonable here to handcuff plaintiff for presenting handgun permit during traffic stop
Handcuffing plaintiff for presenting his handgun permit when stopped wasn’t reasonable. “Because, on the record read in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, no reasonable police officer could have believed he or she had probable cause to arrest … Continue reading →
ND: Co-tenant’s bedroom couldn’t be subject to probation search
Co-tenant’s bedroom in probationer’s house was not a common area subject to a probation search. Failure to object at the time isn’t consent. State v. Cochran, 2021 ND 141, 2021 N.D. LEXIS 141 (Aug. 5, 2021). Consent to search the … Continue reading →
CO: Consent to officer’s entry extended to her briefly leaving and reentering
Defendant’s consent for an officer to enter extended to her reentry after leaving to retrieve a camera and then returning (even before getting it). People v. Stone, 2021 COA 104, 2021 Colo. App. LEXIS 1089 (Aug. 5, 2021). Even though … Continue reading →
NY2: Justified search for mj didn’t justify looking at credit cards for forgery
The officer here could open a zippered pouch looking for marijuana, but he could not look at the credit cards inside to see if they were fraudulent. “On this record, Officer Zaleski’s discovery of three credit cards stacked inside a … Continue reading →
E.D.Cal.: No REP in a contraband cell phone in prison
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a contraband cell phone found on him in prison. The contents of the phone were used in a drug distribution indictment. The government got a search warrant for the contents of the … Continue reading →
TX1: Voluntariness of consent shown by officers’ efforts to insure def understood what they were asking
The record supports the trial court’s finding of consent. Neither officer exhibited a firearm, spoke in a harsh or loud tone, or indicated to defendant that he could not leave. Instead, both officers were trying to help defendant understand what … Continue reading →
WA: Request for proof of payment of a bus fare is not a search
Request for proof of payment of a public transportation fare is not a seizure under the Fourth Amendment or the state constitution. Defendant consented to the terms of ridership by boarding the bus, which included paying the fare and having … Continue reading →
S.D.Fla.: PC for constructive possession shown; def doesn’t have to handle firearm in video
There was probable cause for defendant’s constructive possession of a firearm. The government didn’t have to show he was in actual possession for probable cause. He also presumably knew he had a prior conviction to support his being a felon … Continue reading →
S.D.Ga.: SW for this motel room wasn’t stale after two days
While a search warrant for a motel room, a more transient place than a home, might get stale faster, this one didn’t considering the nature of the allegations. “[B]ased on the totality of the circumstances, the evidence was not stale … Continue reading →
ND: Backpack removed from car before dog sniff couldn’t be searched based on dog’s alert on car
Probable cause was lacking to search a backpack removed from a vehicle shortly after the stop but before the dog alerted on the car. Search incident also did not apply: “In the absence of either a concern for officer safety, … Continue reading →
N.D.Iowa: Asking “What’s going on?” was not withdrawal of consent
The court adopts the R&R finding on the totality that defendant consented to a search of his backpack, despite some intoxication. His saying “What’s going on?” was not withdrawal of consent. United States v. Harden, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 126242 … Continue reading →
CA1: Direct evidence and indirect inferences showed PC
“Lindsey argues that there was no probable cause to believe there was evidence of drug dealing on the cellphones because the affidavit offered ‘no direct evidence’ that the phones would contain evidence of any drug dealing and the ‘indirect’ evidence … Continue reading →
D.Ore.: 3 min. wait for backup here did not unreasonably extend traffic stop
Three minute wait for backup officer to arrive did not unreasonably extend the stop based on the articulated justification: “Officer Carney called and waited for a cover officer so that he could safely carry out the mission of the traffic … Continue reading →