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- CA6: State officer’s arrest for violation of federal MJ law likely wouldn’t violate 4A
- D.N.M.: Shared driveway outside of fence and gate was not curtilage
- CA6: Knowing passcode to cell phone shows common authority over it to consent
- VI: Smell of MJ no longer PC in VI since legalization
- Reason: 3 Charlotte Cops Resign After Group Chat Reveals Competition To Arrest the Most Black People
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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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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)
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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: Standing
MI: No REP in overheard jail conversations between cells recorded through intercoms
Defendants were in jail together, in separate cells 20′ apart (#1 & #4) and talking about their case through the doors’ openings. Jailers could overhear them. “When jail personnel noticed that defendants were communicating with each other by speaking loudly … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Smell of raw marijuana on def’s clothes supported PC it was in car
The officer testified that he first smelled raw marijuana about a minute into the stop. When he got defendant into the patrol car, he could smell it on defendant’s person. That was probable cause for a search of the car … Continue reading
KS: Passenger had no standing in car he bought for girlfriend
The fact defendant paid for the car for his girlfriend but was a mere passenger at the time of the stop was not enough for standing under Byrd. He still had no reasonable expectation of privacy in it. State v. … Continue reading
CA5: NCMEC not public actor, but its search didn’t exceed private search
NCMEC is not a government actor for Fourth Amendment purposes. Even if it was, its search did not exceed that of the private searcher that forwarded the information to it. “Because Meals has not carried his burden concerning NCMEC’s participation … Continue reading
MD: State’s Attorney’s “do not call list” of officers with credibility issues not FOIA exempt
The Baltimore Office of State’s Attorney cannot plead a personnel exemption to a public records request to keep private its “do not call list” [those with “integrity issues” or, in some locales, “the liar’s list”] of those who may have … Continue reading
D.Del.: 4A child seizure claim requires the child be a party
A Fourth Amendment child seizure claim requires the child be a party, even if the parents assert the child’s rights. Spahr v. Collins, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 241127 (D.Del. Dec. 17, 2021). Defendant in his 2255 cannot show defense counsel … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Order for palmprints from indicted def requires RS
The government sought palmprints from this indicted defendant to compare to palmprints on boxes that were recovered in an investigation. The court concludes under Davis v. Mississippi (1969) and Hayes v. Florida (1985) that the standard is reasonable suspicion to … Continue reading
OH6: No standing in a package stopped in transit where def’s name not anywhere on it
Defendant lacked standing to contest the detention of a package in transit in the Post Office because he was neither shown as the addressee nor the recipient. Even so, there was reasonable suspicion to detain the package. The dog sniff … Continue reading
D.Kan.: § 1983 case over bad faith prosecution and search of cell phone barred by Younger
Plaintiff sued under § 1983 claiming that his prosecution is proceeding in bad faith and that his cell phone was wrongfully seized and searched. This is all barred by Younger v. Harris. Kabutu v. Short, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 238360 … Continue reading
CA11: Ptf had no REP in workplace computer, even with personal iPhone backed up on it
Plaintiff had no reasonable expectation of privacy in her workplace computer from a search by the employer during an audit of her time off related to a second job instigated after a discrimination complaint. The fact she backed her iPhone … Continue reading
ND: A prima facie showing of an illegal search or seizure shifts burden to state to justify
“If a defendant makes a prima facie showing of an illegal search or seizure, the burden shifts to the government to show an exception applies.” Here there was no seizure until the officer took defendant’s keys and turned off his … Continue reading
TN: No standing in text messages on codef’s cell phone
Defense counsel could not be ineffective for not moving to suppress text messages on the codefendant’s cell phone where defendant had no standing. Wells v. State, 2021 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 553 (Dec. 7, 2021). There is no reasonable expectation … Continue reading
CA9: No standing in pole camera surveillance of house of another
Defendant doesn’t have standing to challenge prolonged pole camera surveillance of the property of another. Also, there was reasonable suspicion on the totality including collective knowledge to extend defendant’s stop for a drug dog. United States v. Cruz, 2021 U.S. … Continue reading
NY4: Failure to ID source of information in affidavit for SW failed showing PC
“Here, the majority of the information provided in support of the warrant application was in an affidavit prepared by a detective, and that affidavit ‘does not “permit a reasonable inference that it was based upon [the detective]’s personal knowledge”’ .… … Continue reading
OH5: Employer’s call to police def was probably driving drunk was RS
A Home Depot employee was sent home for working under the influence of alcohol. They used a PBT on him, and he was twice the limit. They tried to arrange a ride for him, but he attempted to drive off … Continue reading
D.N.M.: DEA can make a traffic stop under 4A
It is not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment for a DEA agent to stop a car on state highways for an alleged traffic violation. There was probable cause for an automobile exception search. United States v. Vallejos, 2021 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
D.Conn.: Protective sweep led to seizure of cell phone in plain view
Officers conducted a valid protective sweep and found defendant’s cell phone. It was seized in plain view, and then a search warrant was obtained for it. All searches were valid. United States v. Salaman, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 219785 (D.Conn. … Continue reading
OH11: No standing in father’s cell phones even when communicating with defense experts
Defendant is charged with killing his wife. He didn’t have standing to challenge a search warrant for his father’s cell phones where attorney-client privilege in their contents was asserted because the father was communicating with expert witnesses in his case. … Continue reading