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Recent Posts
- CA7: False confession claim is a 4A not 14A claim
- CA5: RS required of weapons or contraband for search of vagina
- CA4: Affidavit for SW provided neither nexus nor timing and even failed GFE
- CA9: Ptfs didn’t meet burden of showing administrative subpoena was 4A violation or in bad faith
- CA2: No 4A requirement for SWs being issued with notice to target
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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
TN: Cell phone could be seized with PC and exigency and SW then applied for
Defendant consented to show a video of the victim on his cell phone, and it was immediately obvious that the cell phone had evidence the police needed because the time of the recording contradicted several things the defendant said. They … Continue reading →
FL3: Consent for DNA sample need not include warning it would be tested against CODIS, too
Defendant had his DNA taken by consent to attempt to match it to DNA found in a 2012 crime, but it didn’t match. It did, however, in CODIS match a 2008 sexual assault case. His motion to suppress was granted … Continue reading →
OH12: Living with a probationer is not a complete waiver of a reasonable expectation of privacy, except as to common areas
By living with a probationer, one’s reasonable expectation of privacy is not completely lost and the entire house is not open to a probation search. The probationer can only consent to search of common areas. Here, the probationer let the … Continue reading →
SC: Def had no standing to contest police entry onto the porch where he was hanging out, allegedly dealing drugs
Officers watched the porch of Apartment 122 and observed five men 10:00-10:30 pm, and five cars came up and one would go to the cars and do what appeared to be a hand-to-hand transaction. Finally, the officers moved to the … Continue reading →
AR: Def’s rear door shown as door where knock always answered, so curtilage not violated
Defendant’s house had a circle drive and a front door and a back door. The back door was found a normal place of entry. At the suppression hearing, the officer testified that he’d been there before on official business and … Continue reading →
CT: 1986 consent to DNA sample didn’t bar 2009 retesting
Defendant’s consent to a DNA test in 1986 did not preclude a 2009 retest of the sample after technology improved. State v. Benefield, 2014 Conn. App. LEXIS 468 (November 18, 2014). Based on a lot of information, including wiretaps, trash … Continue reading →
FL4: Missing a school bus doesn’t make student a truant subject to frisk
A pat frisk of a student as an alleged truant who missed a school bus an hour before the start of school was invalid because he wasn’t yet a truant. Even so, what’s the basis for a frisk for truancy. … Continue reading →
D.Kan.: Dash cam video showed consent was voluntary
“The video also shows that Trooper Nicholas employed no coercive tactics during the encounter. He was the only officer on the scene and was at all times pleasant and respectful. He did not threaten or deceive the travelers. He never … Continue reading →
E.D.Wis.: No consent; situation was police dominated and with directives, not asking
Defendant merely submitted to a claim of authority to search; it could not be found to be by consent. The situation was completely police dominated, and nothing was asked–it was directed. United States v. Ivory, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155784 … Continue reading →
CA5: Defendant didn’t show standing in another person’s car for a GPS issue
Defendant didn’t show standing in another person’s car for a GPS issue. United States v. Vo, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 20953 (5th Cir. November 3, 2014).* The record supports that the consent was voluntary. United States v. Vega, 2014 U.S. … Continue reading →
E.D.Va.: Body cam showed consent
The officers’ body cams showed that defendant consented to the entry into his hotel room. Officers were walking by the room, not even looking for defendant, and they smelled marijuana. They determined it must be coming from defendant’s room, so … Continue reading →
MD: Drug deal in defendant’s vestibule was in open view and opening glass door was by exigency
Remembering that there is a difference between plain view and open view, the officers saw defendant selling cocaine in the vestibule between a glass door and the front door of his house. When the police approached, they could see the … Continue reading →
AR: Defendant consented to search of storage unit without Miranda warnings
Defendant come home while a search warrant was being executed on his house, and he walked up to officers to ask what was going on, and one officer said “Hold him.” UnMirandized, he was asked about a storage unit, and … Continue reading →
S.D.N.Y.: “[B]y agreeing to AOL’s terms of service, DiTomasso consented to a search of his AOL emails by law enforcement, thereby waiving his Fourth Amendment rights.”
AOL’s terms of service amount notice to the user that AOL looks for illegal email content and reports it. Therefore, he lacks a reasonable expectation of privacy and he consented to AOL turning them over to NCMEC. “[B]y agreeing to … Continue reading →
W.D.La.: “Home visits” means searches, but defendant consented anyway
While the term of probation said “home visits,” the PO testified that she told all her charges that “visits” meant searches, so defendant was well aware. Aside from the probation search, defendant was specifically asked for consent, and he gave … Continue reading →
TX10: Consent to cell phone password was limited to seeing who was calling, and it was not a general consent to search
Defendant was stopped for erratic driving. While in the patrol car, defendant’s cell phone rang, and the officer asked for the password to see who was calling. Defendant gave it. That was not a consent to search the whole phone. … Continue reading →
OH2: Def’s position in a forfeiture on a piece of property was estoppel on standing in a criminal case
Judicial estoppel: Defendant had no standing in a video camera seized during a drug raid that had a video of him having sex with an impaired victim where he denied in a separate forfeiture proceeding that the camera was his. … Continue reading →
CA9: Def chose not to deal with police, so he didn’t reject consent for Randolph purposes
Randolph requires an express refusal of consent. Defendant here refused to come to the door when the police arrived, and he let his girlfriend talk to them, and she consented to a search. He didn’t have to be asked. United … Continue reading →
NY Westchester: Ptf survives summary judgment on search of wrong house
Plaintiffs’ house was subject to a no-knock search warrant by the SWAT team with flashbang explosive set off inside. Once in, it was apparent that the place was not at all as described by the confidential informant. Plaintiff survives summary … Continue reading →
E.D.Mo.: By calling police to a home invasion robbery, defendant consented to entries
Defendant called the police because he was the victim of a home invasion robbery. That investigation also turned into an investigation of defendant for drug possession. Officers returned the next day to talk about the home invasion, but they also … Continue reading →