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- 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)
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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
S.D.Tex.: “This protection is at its strongest when a man has retreated into his own home to be free from the expanding gunmen of the state.”
In a remarkable case, the police use really old information and a search warrant previously obtained apparently by perjury, which they disregard and attempt to use the consent of a person they already knew didn’t even live in the house … Continue reading →
CA11: Defendant’s vehicle parked outside his house is a reasonable belief he’s home
Officers had an arrest warrant from events that occurred a year earlier involving drug sales from defendant’s home. On all the circumstances, it was reasonable for them to conclude that he would be found there because he had a real … Continue reading →
C.D.Ill.: One doesn’t have standing in a cell phone that’s not his
Defendant didn’t have standing to challenge the search of a cell phone that he denied was his, but it was covered under the search warrant anyway and circuit authority authorized warrrantless searches before Riley. United States v. Brown, 2014 U.S. … Continue reading →
TN: Tracking no. typo not prejudicial in SW
Presented as an IAC claim, defendant’s claim that the tracking number on the package on the anticipatory warrant had a typo was not sufficient to void the search. It was not a prejudicial error. Davidson v. State, 2014 Tenn. Crim. … Continue reading →
ND: State can’t justify exigent circumstances; suppressed
The state could not justify exigent circumstances in this case. Even the officer’s own testimony admittedly didn’t support it. State v. Stewart, 2014 ND 165, 2014 N.D. LEXIS 167 (July 31, 2014).* While consent of search of rooms of a … Continue reading →
NY2: Property assessors need a warrant for an interior inspection without consent
“Since the Town respondents sought entry into the petitioner’s home to have the Town’s appraiser conduct an inspection of the premises, the Town respondents were required to obtain a warrant upon a showing of probable cause. By directing the petitioner … Continue reading →
D.Ariz.: Being diverted at the border to a secondary inspection area is not custody for Miranda purposes
Being diverted at the border to a secondary inspection area is not custody for Miranda purposes. United States v. Sanchez-Avitia, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103233 (D. Ariz. March 26, 2014). Since there was no violation of the Fifth Amendment during … Continue reading →
CA11: Defendant consented to a search of his computer for CP in investigation of a missing 7 year old
A 7 year old girl went missing that defendant knew and visited his house, and he was questioned, but not as a suspect. [Later somebody with no connection to defendant was arrested.] When questioned, he admitted to visiting child pornography … Continue reading →
Cal1: Order to sit on curb and police dominated atmosphere made consent invalid
Defendant was unlawfully detained when he gave consent to search a backpack. The officer involved often casually talked to people on his beat. When he encountered defendant, he struck up a conversation but finally told him to have a seat … Continue reading →
CA8: Despite an ongoing search of his house for CP, defendant wasn’t in custody when he made statements
The district court erred in concluding defendant was “in custody” for Miranda purposes. He showed up at his house as a search warrant was being executed and was talked to on the couch. He was told he was not in … Continue reading →
W.D.Pa.: No standing in CSLI of somebody else’s cell phone
A cell phone user has no reasonable expectation of privacy in cell site location data records kept by the telephone company of a telephone that he was using that he was not the subscriber to. United States v. Woodley, 2014 … Continue reading →
D.Nev.: Jones GPS ruling is not retroactive on collateral review
United States v. Jones GPS ruling is not retroactive on collateral review. United States v. Wineman, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 98665 (D. Nev. February 27, 2014). Defendant’s stop was based on an unsubstantiated CI and there was no traffic offense. … Continue reading →
CA6: Heck bar doesn’t apply to third parties not in prior criminal case
One plaintiff’s complaint over his arrest was Heck barred, but third party Fourth Amendment claims were not. [This came up through a complex procedural issue.] Hayward v. Cleveland Clinic Found., 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 13802, 2014 FED App. 0157P (6th … Continue reading →
N.D.Ga.: Not briefing an argument in a motion to suppress is waiver
There was a hearing on defendant’s motion to suppress. He raised multiple issues. That which were not briefed in the post-hearing brief are deemed abandoned. “Defendant has failed to perfect, delineate the arguments for, or otherwise expound upon the basis … Continue reading →
N.D.Ga.: Buie in the real world; it’s not always clear
The protective sweep in defendant’s small home was not justified by the circumstances, but it did not taint the subsequent consent. United States v. Smallwood, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96248 (N.D. Ga. June 27, 2014). Interesting discussion of Buie before … Continue reading →
WA: Claimants can use motion for return of property seized for serial forfeiture seizures to speed up proceed
Defendant’s vehicle was seized for taking a whitetailed buck out of season. “¶17 The trial court understandably was concerned that by sequentially seizing property, the government could unreasonably deprive people of the use of their property by prolonging proceedings. However, … Continue reading →
MA: State’s RS argument wasn’t made to trial court, so it can’t be made on appeal
The state’s reasonable suspicion argument that officers were concerned for officer safety at the time of the search was not made in the trial court, so it can’t be made on appeal. Commonwealth v. Jordan, 469 Mass. 134, 12 N.E.3d … Continue reading →
WI: Passenger’s statement “Got a warrant for that?”, was not objection to driver’s consent to briefcase
Originally posted June 7, 2013, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals held that a passenger’s statement “Got a warrant for that?”, was not objection to driver’s consent to briefcase. a href=”http://wicourts.gov/ca/opinion/DisplayDocument.pdf?content=pdf&seqNo=92854″>State v. Wantland, 2013 WI App 36, 346 Wis. 2d 680, … Continue reading →
SC: Lifetime GPS monitoring of sex offender on parole might be unreasonable, but later
Defendant was convicted of a sex offense with a child, and he was ordered to be GPS monitored for life. GPS monitoring is a reasonable condition, but lifetime monitoring may not be. He can, however, raise that issue periodically with … Continue reading →
N.D.Ga.: Whatever time is “reasonable” for a stop, the clock restarts when consent is granted
The stop was of reasonable duration before consent was sought. “Once Jaramillo consented to the search of the Tahoe, ‘the clock re-started for purposes of evaluating the reasonableness of the duration of the intrusion.’ Hernandez, 418 F.3d at 1210 (citation … Continue reading →