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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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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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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: Emergency / exigency
CO: Def was accused of pointing a laser-sighted rifle from his house at a neighbor; police arrived and exigency justified the entry
The entry into defendant’s home was with exigent circumstances. A neighbor of defendant repeatedly called the police to say that defendant was repeatedly pointing a laser-sighted rifle at him from the house. Police came to the house to inquire. Defendant … Continue reading
OH5: Warrantless fire scene search after fire out, power off, and property secured was unreasonable
During a fire in a house, a grow operation was seen and reported to the police. By the time the police came in, the fire was out, the power was off, and the property was secure. The warrantless fire scene … Continue reading
OH11: Specific and articulable facts, including bullet casings in front of house and bullet holes in house, supported an entry an hour later
“[T]he officers had a reasonable belief based on specific and articulable facts to search for injured people” based on bullet casings in the street and bullet holes in the house even when the waited an hour. They didn’t have to … Continue reading
CA3: Expired rental agreement justified extending the stop
Defendant’s rental agreement had expired, and calling the rental company prolonged the stop. Whether the dog alerted or not wasn’t obvious on the dashcam video, but the district court found that it did, and that’s a found fact, and it’s … Continue reading
D.Utah: Officers had no objective information supporting exigency for entry
The officers had no objective information that even suggested that a protective sweep was required here, and the warrantless entry into the home was unreasonable. Moreover, the claimed consent wasn’t voluntary. United States v. Lawley, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125920 … Continue reading
ME: Def was about to go into surgery after suspected DWI and accident; warrantless blood draw was with exigency and PC
Defendant was in a serious accident, and he was about to go into surgery. The blood draw at the request of the police was with exigent circumstances and probable cause. State v. Palmer, 2018 ME 108, 2018 Me. LEXIS 111 … Continue reading
M.D.La.: Leaving one’s garage door open is not a waiver of REP or standing
Defendant’s garage door was left open, and that reduced his reasonable expectation of privacy in it, but that didn’t mean he had no standing. By leaving open the garage, defendant didn’t invite the police in, and exigent circumstances or a … Continue reading
LA5: Knock-and-talk cannot be used to create exigency
Officers came to defendant’s house because a couple of drug suspects had visited him. The officers’ knock-and-talk didn’t gain them entry into the house, and a knock-and-talk can’t be used to create exigent circumstances. A protective sweep was unjustified because … Continue reading
NY3: No exigency justified this entry; exclusionary rule applies in NY probation revo proceedings
There was no emergency basis for entry into defendant’s apartment, a probationer. The police understood that another person might be there who they were curious about. Still, there was no justification for the warrantless entry with gun drawn at midnight. … Continue reading
GA: Trial judge’s order of defense counsel to be drug tested violated 4A; ADA’s SW for blood test next day was valid, however
Defense counsel appeared to the trial judge to be under the influence of something, and the judge ordered a recess. Defense counsel came back to finish the trial after a few hours, and the condition still existed. The court ordered … Continue reading
N.D.W.Va.: No standing in car where permission to borrow had been revoked
Defendant had permission to possess and drive a car for a while, but it had been rescinded by the time of the search. Therefore, he lacked standing in the car. United States v. Leclear, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 106550 (N.D. … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Unaccounted for gun and likely presence of another inside was exigency for entry to look for it
Defendant was arrested outside his house, and a firearm expected to be on him was not found during his search incident. There was expected to be another person in the house, and that, coupled with the unaccounted for gun, was … Continue reading
MO erroneously suggests bad faith for exclusionary rule requires pattern and practice evidence
The question of consent from a disturbed and hallucinating man is moot–the state relies on exigent circumstances. In the process, however, the court suggests that defendant’s argument the police acted with bad faith might require pattern and practice evidence of … Continue reading
TX: Even if suppression motion is made in trial, state bears burden on a warrantless search
Whether a motion to suppress is filed pretrial or during trial, if the search is shown to be warrantless, the burden shifts to the state to prove the legality of the warrantless search. White v. State, 2018 Tex. Crim. App. … Continue reading
LA3: Ping order for def’s cell phone was based on exigency
The police ping request to locate defendant’s phone to locate him was based on clear exigent circumstances. Thus, it did not violate the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2702(c)(4). State v. Malveaux, 2018 La. App. LEXIS 1082 (La. App. … Continue reading
D.Mont.: No SW needed for non-tribal officer to enter a reservation
The search here was in a remote area on the Crow Nation. First, officers had exigency because it was cold, raining, and getting dark, and evidence might be lost. Also, defendant was abandoned there by his assault victim, and he … Continue reading
NY3: Smell and smoke from working meth lab in garage was exigency
The officer pulled into defendant’s driveway and defendant came out and was really nervous. Smoke was coming out a window in the garage that smelled like a meth cook. There was exigency for entry without a warrant. People v. Alberts, … Continue reading
CA11: Interrupted residential burglary is exigency for police entry and search
“Police officers interrupt what they reasonably believe to be a residential burglary and detain two suspects just outside the house. Having done so, can the officers thereafter lawfully enter the home—without a warrant, and without further suspicion of wrongdoing—to briefly … Continue reading
PA: Def consented to recordings of jail calls, and this is an exception to the state wiretap statute
The trial court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law were completely wrong. Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy concerning his jail calls made over a television monitor and through a computer system. This was a case of consent … Continue reading
IN: Def slumped over steering wheel in hospital parking lot justified look in car based on emergency aid exception
A deputy sheriff was doing off-duty security work at a hospital same day surgery parking lot when he saw the defendant slumped over his steering wheel, the door open, and the engine off. When the officer turned on his take … Continue reading