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- VA: Body cam video of valid arrest would not be suppressed
- NM: Trial court’s finding of consent is reversed because the court engaged in its own internet investigation beyond what the parties provided
- Reason: No Warrant, No Suspicion, No Problem: Flock and Border Cellphone Searches Excluded From 4th Amendment Rules
- Reason: Flock’s Gunfire Alerts Raise a New Fourth Amendment Question
- N.D.Ohio: Car in driveway was on curtilage and plain view prohibited
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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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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)
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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: Dog sniff
N.D.Ga.: Questions about drugs without RS unreasonably extended stop
The officer’s questions about drugs during the mission of a routine traffic stop unreasonably extended the stop, and the dog sniff is suppressed. United States v. Chavez, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 110229 (N.D. Ga. June 3, 2024). Defendant rented an … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: State law alleged defects in warrant process not applicable in federal court without showing why suppression is an appropriate remedy
A state search warrant was used to prosecute in federal court. Defendant raised numerous state law defects to the warrant that did not constitute Fourth Amendment violations. “Even if these warrants were procedurally deficient under state law, Gray has supplied … Continue reading
CA5: Psychological injuries can support a 4A claim; unintended shooting victim has claim
If the facts were resolved against the police here, they violated clearly-established Fourth Amendment law by unjustifiably shooting into an occupied house and hitting an intended victim. Also, psychological injuries may sustain a Fourth Amendment claim. No qualified immunity. Singleton … Continue reading
CA5: CBP dog sniffing for people was PC even if it couldn’t differentiate between the driver and alleged hidden passengers
A CBP dog trained to sniff for people provided reasonable suspicion even against the argument of how the dog could differentiate between the truck driver and hidden passengers. United States v. Martinez, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 12043 (5th Cir. May … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Drug dog touching car door handle with nose isn’t unreasonable search
The drug dog touching the vehicle door handle with its nose was not an unreasonable search. United States v. Green, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88401 (D. Kan. May 16, 2024). Defendant’s 2255 wasn’t timely. “Even if Williams’s motion were timely, … Continue reading
N.D.Okla.: Cell phones possessed by tribal police not subject to return under Rule 41(g)
Motion for return of cell phones is denied. They are in the possession of the Muskogee Creek Nation tribal police, not the federal government. United States v. Smith, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 87341 (N.D. Okla. May 15, 2024). Motion for … Continue reading
CAAF: Service member has REP in a private barracks room because it was not shared with anyone else
A service member has a reasonable expectation of privacy in a private barracks room because it was not shared with anyone else. United States v. Rocha, 2024 CAAF LEXIS 250 (C.A.A.F. May 8, 2024) (not a Fourth Amendment search case). … Continue reading
D.Utah: Drug dog arriving within 7 minutes was reasonable and part of the initial stop
Defendant’s phone was pinged by Utah court order, but it left the state and was spot checked when out-of-state. “Further, the ping data that ultimately led to the traffic stop at issue was collected while phone 3145 was in Utah. … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: When court can’t tell the dog alerted, motion to suppress granted
The court reviewing the dashcam video repeatedly cannot tell that the dog alerts at all. Motion to suppress granted. United States v. Edmonds, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74570 (E.D. Ky. Apr. 24, 2024). Update: techdirt: Court To Cops: If We … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Drug dog sticking his nose in the open window of car was a search, and here without PC
The drug dog’s sticking his nose in the open window of defendant’s car was a search, and here without probable cause. United States v. Handley, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64531 (N.D. Iowa Apr. 9, 2024). This search warrant is particular … Continue reading
techdirt: Court To Cops: There’s No ‘Instinct Exception’ For Drug Dogs Handlers Refuse To Handle
techdirt: Court To Cops: There’s No ‘Instinct Exception’ For Drug Dogs Handlers Refuse To Handle by Tim Cushing (“Officers who handle drug dogs like to claim they’re so highly skilled at animal handling they can recognize otherwise imperceptible moves by … Continue reading
AR: Computer crash losing drug dog’s performance record doesn’t doom search
The loss of the drug dog’s performance record from a computer crash didn’t make the dog’s alert on the highway unreasonable because those records are of marginal importance. The circuit court resolved credibility questions. No inference of spoliation will be … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: By the time the drug dog entered the car, there already was PC
The drug dog entered the car on the second attempt. But defendant left the door open, and the smell of marijuana was evident. The officer held the dog back in case there was something hazardous in the car. Still, not … Continue reading
WI: Drug dog’s entering car was trespass, and “instinct exception,” even if it could be recognized, doesn’t apply
Drug dog’s twice entering defendant’s car without probable cause was a common law trespass under Jones and Jardines, and the police unlawfully gained information from that. The court rejects the “instinct exception” for the dog on the facts here, even … Continue reading
CA7: Rodriguez time argument waived by failure to specifically plead it below
“At the outset, we note that Johnson did not challenge the length or validity of the dog sniff in the district court. The record therefore does not contain information crucial to the Rodriguez inquiry, such as whether Deputy Haber acted … Continue reading
CA8: Affiant officer’s belief that criminals brag about crimes on social media allows cell phone search in a gun case
“We conclude the affidavit adequately established probable cause that Ivey’s cell phone would contain evidence of a firearms offense. Officers found the phone in Ivey’s possession while he was located in a vehicle with a gun under his seat. The … Continue reading
WI: Drug dog “instinct exception” not applicable here, even if it is ever adopted
The court declines to adopt, at least for now, a drug dog’s “instinct exception” for the dog entering defendant’s car. Other courts have adopted that exception, but factually it doesn’t even apply here because the court finds the dog was … Continue reading
CA2: Dog sniff of def’s car in driveway was done in GF reliance on law at time
Acting on a tip, officers did a dog sniff of defendant’s covered car parked in his driveway, and they used that to get a warrant for it. Collins didn’t come along until the following year. The officers laid it all … Continue reading