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- VA: Search incident between def’s shorts and underwear was reasonable
- Reason: Border Cops Seize Nurse’s Phone Filled With Psychiatric Patient Information
- MI: Handcuffing uncooperative def at scene of accident wasn’t unreasonable
- S.D.Ga.: Def’s car in driveway next to sidewalk was not on curtilage
- S.D.Ind.: Post search database search of occupants of a place didn’t show SW affidavit was false at time it issued
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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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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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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: Emergency / exigency
S.D.Ga.: Def shooting victim’s clothes could be seized from ER floor as plain view or because of exigency
Defendant arrived at a hospital ER after he was shot. His clothing was cut off him and on the floor, and the officer’s seizure was valid because it was in plain view and had clear evidentiary value from blood and … Continue reading
E.D.La.: Drive-by shooting led to emergency ping order which led to valid protective sweep
“Defendant lacks standing to challenge the sweep of Ms. Wells’ home. At best, Defendant was a frequent visitor to the home where he babysat children and worked on cars in the yard. Those limited connections to the home are insufficient … Continue reading
OH12: 911 call about overdose brought narcs and EMS; entry justified and plain view sustained
Defendant was making methamphetamine in his garage, and he overdosed on heroin. His mother found him and called 911. A narcotics officer arrived shortly before EMS, and he saw defendant on the floor with a used syringe near him. EMS … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Def’s quibbling in a Franks challenge is insufficient: “I’m just a ‘drug dealer’ not a ‘drug trafficker.’”
Defendant is quibbling rather than making a bona fide Franks argument that he was arraigned 11 times not 10 on other drug cases and that he was a “drug trafficker” when he insists he is just a “drug dealer.” One … Continue reading
CA6: 53 days after an occurrence is hardly exigent
Detroit has a stray dog problem and passed an ordinance in 2004. The ordinance allowed warrantless entries into yards to search for and seize dogs. The district court enjoined that, and the city did not appeal. On individual claims, an … Continue reading
OR: Exigency-based entry into house for DUI arrest requires proof of exigency, and here it was lacking
Here the officer entered defendant’s home in a DUI case to seize him for evidence of his intoxication. Exigency can permit an entry, but the state has the burden of proof on exigency, and here it failed to prove the … Continue reading
UT: Potentially missing 65 yo man led to welfare check entry of his house at insistence of his mother; “welfare check” entry valid
Defendant was 65, in ill-health, and his mother talked to him every day. When she hadn’t heard from him, she called the police to check on him. At the house, nobody answered the door, the lights were on, there was … Continue reading
MA: Trial judge’s omission of significant facts made finding of no exigency error
The trial judge’s finding that there were no exigent circumstances is reversed. Her findings of fact omitted serious facts in support of exigency, and thus was clearly erroneous. Commonwealth v. Arias, 2017 Mass. App. LEXIS 148 (Nov. 9, 2017):
DE: Probation absconder didn’t have standing in another person’s property; alternatively, probation absconding is exigency
Defendant was a probation absconder, and he did not have standing to contest a search of another probationer’s camper. Even if defendant did have standing, the probation officers substantially complied with departmental guidelines. Defendant’s presence as an absconder from probation … Continue reading
OH1: Warrantless search of def’s cell phone in kidnapping investigation was reasonable and justified by exigency
The warrantless search of defendant’s apartment, his person, and his cell phone was justified by exigent circumstances under the Fourth Amendment because the still-missing kidnapping victim’s life was in danger. The police reasonably believed that his phone had been used … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Third Leon test essentially shores up PC here
The affidavit for the child pornography search warrant here was issued at least with a reasonable belief in probable cause under the third Leon test. [The court should have just found probable cause because it certainly looks like there is … Continue reading
DE: 14 yo could consent to entry to look for missing person
The search of the house was valid both by apparent authority to consent and the emergency aid doctrine. The victim was missing, and the consenter was a 14 year old with a key. The consent was solely to look for … Continue reading
DE: Warrantless entry into def’s home seeking a man for questioning in a week old murder violated 4A
Police had no warrant to enter defendant’s house looking for another person for questioning in a robbery-homicide, not to arrest him. The alleged need for a security sweep violated the Fourth Amendment because the police were searching for a third … Continue reading
CA10: That search violated CO Const. was not an issue for federal court (on habeas)
Petitioner’s habeas argument that the search of his home violated the Colorado Constitution has nothing to do with a federal conviction where the search complied with the Fourth Amendment. In any event, he already lost on that issue in the … Continue reading
CA1: There was no “doorway arrest” under Santana when ptf was behind a locked door the entire time
Police entered plaintiff’s house without a warrant to arrest him. An hour had passed, and any exigency was long gone. As for whether this could be a “doorway arrest” under Santana, that too is rejected because plaintiff was behind a … Continue reading
IL: 911 call about a beating in a house supported emergency entry and plain view; without record of suppression hearing, trial testimony can be used on appeal
911 was called because defendant had just beaten an alleged prostitute and people heard glass breaking and her yelling for help. Defendant admitted beating her. He failed to include a copy of the record of the suppression hearing in his … Continue reading
M.D.La.: No standing in a stolen car
The stop was justified by a seatbelt violation, but defendant didn’t have standing because the car was stolen. United States v. Joseph, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 123893 (M.D. La. Aug. 7, 2017). The landing in front of an apartment is … Continue reading
OR: No exigency for warrantless entry into home for BAC when another warrant required for that anyway
In a DUI case, the state did not show exigent circumstances to enter defendant’s home to take him into custody to then have to seek a search warrant for his blood anyway. State v. Ritz, 361 Ore. 781, 2017 Ore. … Continue reading
ND: 9 hour old call about a suicidal man was no longer emergency; “Every emergency ends at some point.”
A nine hour old report of a man claiming suicidal ideations was no longer an emergency when the police got it. It was also vague and uncorroborated. “Every emergency ends at some point.” And this one did before the entry. … Continue reading