Archives
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Recent Posts
- SCOTUS: Geofence warrants governed by Carpenter and are a search; remanded for resolution of issues (interesting take on third party doctrine, too)
- The Guardian: ‘It’s dangerous and it’s going to erode trust’: redesign of US government websites stokes surveillance fears
- W.D.N.Y.: Possibility of co-conspirators in mass murder justified emergency disclosure request to Apple, Verizon, and Facebook
- E.D.N.Y.: Flight out a window is exigency for police to enter
- W.D.Tenn.: A driveway isn’t always curtilage
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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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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (2012)
ACLU on privacy
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
Section 1983 Blog -
"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
Cal.6th: Inventory wouldn’t permit removal of dashboard, but finding drugs during inventory turned into probable cause for a search
Defendant’s car had cocaine hidden in a compartment behind the dashboard. Normally, an inventory search would not permit removal of car parts to conduct it. Here, however, the officer found cocaine under the seat during the inventory, and that was … Continue reading →
NY4: Officers rearranged things to photograph them during a consent entry and plain view didn’t vitiate the PC
Defendant’s wife called 911 to report a possible burglary, and police were invited in. In the house they did a protective sweep, and they saw likely evidence of dogfighting: a caged injured dog, a treadmill modified for dogs “and apparent … Continue reading →
S.D.Ill.: To claim denial of consent over cotenant under Randolph, def has to prove something; here nothing
Defendant’s co-tenant, away from the premises, consented to a search. Defendant was there and alleges in the motion he protested the consent search. Under Randolph, “Absent exigent circumstances, a warrantless search of a home based on a co-tenant’s consent is … Continue reading →
OR: Def bystander to a school shooting scene wasn’t subject to a frisk: no RS or other exception applies from refusal to make eye contact with officer
Defendant heard there was a shooting at a high school his sister attended, so he armed himself and went down there. The students coming out were frisked to make sure that any shooter did not escape with the students. Defendant … Continue reading →
CA6: “Pill mill” employee was a snitch who let in undercover DEA agent as a patient; this was consent to enter and assumption of risk
The defendant was suspected of running a “pill mill.” A nurse practitioner worked for the clinic and was feeding information to the DEA as well as engaging in illegal acts, too. The DEA got the nurse to let an undercover … Continue reading →
OH3: PO officer asking LEO to assist in probation search didn’t make it unreasonable
The probation search of defendant’s house was valid. The probation officer was acting on a tip that defendant had a meth lab in the house. Task force officers aided in the search. No meth lab was found, so the PO … Continue reading →
CA9: Ptf has to plead well established law was violated for § 1983
Plaintiff has the burden of pleading well established law was violated by defendants’ conduct. Here, the law was “murky” on whether the actions of the plaintiff was probable cause. Thus, the officers get qualified immunity. Burgan v. Nixon, 2017 U.S. … Continue reading →
OH2: Def spoke English well enough to consent
The court finds the defendant spoke English well enough to understand what the officer was saying to him and thus consented to a search of his hotel room. State v. Guerrero-Sanchez, 2017-Ohio-8185, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 4548 (2d Dist. Oct. … Continue reading →
E.D.Mo.: Just being around a lot of cops isn’t coercion per se; still found voluntary
While there were a lot of police officers present, defendant doesn’t show that his consent was the product of coercion. It was voluntary. United States v. Long, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 171660 (E.D. Mo. Aug. 4, 2017),* adopted, 2017 U.S. … Continue reading →
D.Kan.: Consent to USM was to search for wanted man, and continuing search after finding him exceeded consent
Defendant’s consent was explicit: to search his house for a wanted man. When that man was found, the search had to end. Motion to suppress granted because officers exceeded the consent. United States v. Nelson, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164992 … Continue reading →
WA: Periodic pretrial urine testing for DUI violated state constitution
The conditions of periodic urine testing imposed on the defendants as a condition of pretrial release for DUI were invalid under the state constitution because the defendants did not suffer a diminution in their privacy interests sufficient to justify the … Continue reading →
KY: Arrest outside a dwelling doesn’t justify a protective sweep inside
An arrest outside an apartment doesn’t justify a protective sweep inside. There was no sufficient emergency to justify an entry into the apartment. Exclusion is the proper remedy. Pace v. Commonwealth, 2017 Ky. LEXIS 389 (March 23, 2017), modified Sept. … Continue reading →
D.Colo.: Where vehicle registered to both occupants, either could be asked for consent
When defendants were stopped for a traffic offense, reasonable suspicion arose that neither was a licensed driver when they produced only ID cards. Where the car was registered to both the driver and passenger, either could be asked for consent. … Continue reading →
NY, Monroe Co.: False assertion officers “had a warrant” made third party consent to search invalid
Officer’s false assertion they had a warrant for defendant made the third party consent here invalid under the Fourth Amendment as mere submission to a claim of authority. “Moreover, Judy P.’s response — ‘I don’t have a choice’ — empirically … Continue reading →
MI: Consent to draw blood includes consent to test it
Defendant consented to a draw of blood for testing, and a separate warrant isn’t required for testing under the Fourth Amendment. The collection and testing of blood are “a single event for fourth amendment purposes.” United States v. Snyder, 852 … Continue reading →
CA9: Guest of evicted tenant has no REP in premises
Plaintiff claimed to be the guest of the alleged tenant who had been evicted from the premises and he knew it. Thus, they were trespassers, and there was no reasonable expectation of privacy to complain of the officers’ entry. Plaintiff … Continue reading →
D.Minn.: To rely on one party’s consent to a phone call being recorded, the govt has to prove it
The extension of the stop here was based on reasonable suspicion from two CIs. The alert of a drug dog with 90% accuracy is probable cause. A recording of CI’s telephone call between him and defendant is suppressed because the … Continue reading →
CA3: CI’s conversations with def and officer’s observations was PC
CI’s conversations with the defendant coupled with the officer’s observations was probable cause. United States v. Ray, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 15827 (3d Cir. Aug. 21, 2017).* Defendant’s stop wasn’t prolonged at the point he was asked whether he had … Continue reading →
CA6: Def consented to search of person when he came out of bathroom and was accosted by two officers
“Perhaps the last thing one usually expects when exiting the bathroom is to find a police officer on the other side of the door. However, such was the situation Tremaine Cowan discovered when he exited the restroom of a private … Continue reading →
D.N.J.: Anonymous Crimestopper tip was too generic to be RS
Crimestopper’s anonymous tip that was not corroborated and had only generic information identifying the suspect had “virtually no indicia of reliability.” The stop violated the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Little, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125664 (D. N.J. Aug. 8, … Continue reading →