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- CA11: Yahoo not a govt actor in scanning emails for CSAM
- Treatise 25% off through 7/8
- 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
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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)
--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
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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
PA grants review of whether consent to search includes a dog sniff an hour later
Review granted: Commonwealth v. Valdivia, 2017 Pa. LEXIS 234 (Feb. 1, 2017), from Commonwealth v. Valdivia, 2016 PA Super 181, 145 A.3d 1156 (2016): Whether, in a case of first impression, the Superior Court erred in holding that a reasonable … Continue reading →
OH3: CI invited in could record def in home
It does not violate the Fourth Amendment for a CI invited into defendant’s house for a drug deal to surreptitiously video record it. State v. Valdez, 2017-Ohio-241, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 242 (3d Dist. Jan. 23, 2017). Defendant claims he … Continue reading →
OH2: Def providing key when asked was consent to opening locked drawer
The record supports the conclusion that defendant consented to opening a locked drawer by providing the key when the officer asked for it. State v. Muncy, 2017-Ohio-121, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 89 (2d Dist. Jan. 13, 2017). Defendant was stopped … Continue reading →
IL: Def stopped when he saw police lights but encounter was consensual and initiated by community caretaking function
Defendant pulled over because a police car fast approached him from behind, and the officer pulled in behind and turned on his take down light, they both stopped, and the officer walked up to the car with a flashlight in … Continue reading →
OH: Two on length of detentions: One had invalid consent for a patdown; one led to dog sniff within minutes of stop
The trial court’s findings that defendant’s consent to a patdown during what had become an unlawful detention was mere acquiescence to authority was supported by the evidence and is affirmed. State v. Oberholtz, 2016-Ohio-8506, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS 5335 (9th … Continue reading →
M.D.Fla.: “We can do this the ‘easy way or hard way’” doesn’t make otherwise voluntary consent invalid
“We can do this the ‘easy way or hard way’” doesn’t make otherwise voluntary consent invalid. United States v. Jackson, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 175964 (M.D.Fla. Nov. 16, 2016), adopted, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 175505 (M.D. Fla., Dec. 20, 2016):
E.D.N.C.: Def’s 75 minute detention with PC before actual arrest was reasonable
Defendant was detained for 75 minutes with probable cause before her actual arrest. This was not unreasonable and didn’t circumvent McLaughlin’s 48 hour rule to have a first appearance. United States v. Morgan, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 174889 (E.D.N.C. Dec. … Continue reading →
NC: Officer prolonged stop without RS; driver not free to leave when officer holding DL
The officer’s observation of the vehicle in a high-crime area was not reasonable suspicion. There was nothing incongruent about defendant’s travel plans and he kept his hands in plain view above the steering wheel. The officer improperly prolonged the traffic … Continue reading →
MT: RS not needed to stop a commercial truck because they are closely regulated
“We conclude that the officer did not need a fact-based particularized suspicion to stop and inspect the truck because it was a commercial vehicle subject to close regulation by law.” The driver was found under the influence. State v. Beaver, … Continue reading →
E.D.Wis.: Def didn’t show he was removed from house just so he couldn’t refuse consent
Defendant, a suspect in a shooting, was arrested in his house, handcuffed, patted down for a weapon, and removed to the police station. His girlfriend lived with him and consented to a search of the premises. Defendant could not show … Continue reading →
CA6: Ptf consented to inspections as a condition of licensing her group child care home
Plaintiff ran a group child care home, and twice before state officials came to inspect to see if she had violated the terms of her license. To get licensed in Michigan, one consents to administrative searches: “In order to permit … Continue reading →
WA: Actual owner has superior authority to consent, even over objection of bailee
The permitted user of a vehicle has a reasonable expectation of privacy in it, but the owner has paramount authority to consent and can even override the refusal of the user, a bailee, to consent. State v. Vanhollebeke, 2016 Wash. … Continue reading →
CA5: “The mere failure of the officers to give an encyclopedic catalogue of everything they might be interested in does not alone render the consent to search involuntary.”
Defendant’s consent was voluntary even though she did not know she could refuse or what the officers were looking for. United States v. Avila-Hernandez, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 21721 (5th Cir. Dec. 6, 2016):
DE Super.Ct. holds after a traffic stop consent can’t be sought without RS; otherwise it’s just official harassment
When the traffic stop was over, the officer gratuitously asked for consent to search without any inkling of reasonable suspicion, and the driver consented. The court finds that unreasonable and suppresses. State v. Geist, 2016 Del. Super. LEXIS 594 (Nov. … Continue reading →
DE: Consent to search can’t be proved “entirely upon hearsay”
Hearsay that defendant consented, in testimony from an officer who was not present, was insufficient to show consent. Even if it could, the hearsay didn’t satisfy the standards of showing voluntariness. Then, the search of his person being invalid, the … Continue reading →
OH10: E-mail SW was not overbroad considering it sought evidence of solicitation of minors and the actual execution was limited
The e-mail search warrant in this case authorized the search of “any and all” e-mails. It was reasonable for the issuing magistrate to conclude that e-mails in the e-mail account predating the exchanges between a person answering an advertisement for … Continue reading →
E.D.N.Y.: Def agrees that govt can have his emails, so Rule 41 SW isn’t appropriate; use consent or other court order instead
Because the indicted and debriefed defendant freely consents to disclosure of his email account, the request for a Rule 41 search warrant for it is therefore denied. The government can get it by subpoena or other court order. In the … Continue reading →
E.D.Tenn.: Consent in the face of a parole search condition isn’t involuntary
Defendant’s consent to a search when confronted with the fact he was subject to a parole search doesn’t make it involuntary. United States v. Foster, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 161940 (E.D.Tenn. Sept. 28, 2016). The California federal court’s supervised release … Continue reading →
D.Me.: Officer doesn’t have to articulate the RS for continuing the stop
The officer doesn’t have a constitutional obligation to tell (“articulate”) the suspect the reasonable suspicion that forms the basis of the stop. “Cf. Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146, 155 (2004) (‘While it is assuredly good police practice to inform … Continue reading →
D.Ariz.: Hiding in the bushes near a pre-school near the Mexico border justified stop
Defendant was with another hiding in the bushes by a pre-school really near the border. Also, sensors had gone off showing that there were people there. When officers showed up, they started walking. When stopped, they were nervous and fidgety … Continue reading →