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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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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)
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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: Standing
CA9: 4A claim of manufactured PC is a new form of Bivens claim and is barred
Plaintiff’s complaint against DHS that agents fabricated probable cause to have him prosecuted is a new form of claim Bivens will not recognize. Sheikh v. U.S. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 16441 (9th Cir. July 5, 2024). … Continue reading
CA4: Officers with arrest warrant for def could enter yard of property they knew he was visiting to arrest him; plain view sustained
Defendant was a social visitor, not a business visitor, and his standing is more like Olson than Carter. The district court erred in finding no standing. On the merits, however, he loses on a ground fully litigated but not decided … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Owner of vehicle not in it can’t challenge stop, but he can the inventory which was unreasonable
The owner of a vehicle who was not driving or in it when it was stopped has no standing to challenge the stop as opposed to an inventory search. “After considering, as it must, ‘all the facts and circumstances’ of … Continue reading
MT: State investigative subpoena for medical records requires showing of PC
An investigative subpoena for protected medical records must be based on probable cause. Here, there was objective facts in addition to defendant’s DUI prior that showed probable cause. State v. Hesser, 2024 MT 134, 2024 Mont. LEXIS 686 (June 25, … Continue reading
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
CA7: Manual border search of cell phone revealing CP was reasonable
Manual border search of defendant’s cell phone was reasonable and revealed child pornography, and that justification for a more intensive search. United States v. Mendez, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 14058 (7th Cir. June 10, 2024). Defendant rented his hotel room, … Continue reading
Two on standing in a rental car
“We find that Guice was, like the driver in Byrd, a driver in lawful possession or control of a rental car and the mere fact that she had retained the vehicle beyond the rental return date does not defeat her … Continue reading
LA5: No standing to challenge search of shooting victim’s cell phone in def’s possession
Defendant lacked standing to challenge the search of his shooting victim’s cell phone. Also, by statute the search of the phone more than 10 days after seizure was reasonable. State v. Lowry, 2024 La. App. LEXIS 804 (La. App. 5 … Continue reading
100 years ago today, abandonment, open fields, and maybe even standing in another’s land was decided
Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57, 58-59, 44 S. Ct. 445, 68 L. Ed. 2d 898 (1924): The officers had no warrant for search or arrest, and it is contended that this made their evidence inadmissible, it being assumed, on the … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Def was neither shipper nor recipient of USPS parcel, so he had no standing in it
Defendant was neither the shipper nor recipient of a USPS parcel with drugs in it, opened six weeks after it was unclaimed. He had no standing in it. United States v. Bell, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78182 (M.D. Pa. Apr. … Continue reading
CA7: No standing in a stolen car; PC anyway for automobile exception
Defendant was driving a stolen car. He had no standing in it. Besides, the search was good under the automobile exception with probable cause. United States v. Ostrum, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 10076 (7th Cir. Apr. 25, 2024). The Labor … Continue reading
CA5: Deficient privilege log after records search was waiver
After voluminous records were seized with a warrant, defendant’s privilege log was deficient to identify who and what, and that was treated as waiver. United States v. Fluitt, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 9983 (5th Cir. Apr. 24, 2024). Defendant was … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Mandamus doesn’t lie to unseal SW papers
A petition for writ of mandamus doesn’t lie parallel to an action before the USMJ to unseal search warrant materials. Martino v. United States Dist. Court for the E. Dist. of Pa., 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74349 (E.D. Pa. Apr. … Continue reading
OR: Police listening to attorney-client jail calls because attorney calls not properly segregated leads to dismissal of some counts and setting aside guilty plea
The jail computer controlled phone system did not properly block attorney-client telephone calls, and the police listened to defense counsel’s conversations with defendant in jail. The police then used that information to supersede the indictment. Prejudice is presumed. State v. … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Motion to suppress was near denial of standing by disavowing relationship with premises
The affidavit showed a substantial basis for concluding that drug evidence would be found in the search of the apartment. [The motion to suppress sought to distance defendant from the place. Came close to being a denial of standing, but … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Def had no standing in a place he wasn’t allowed to be on parole
As a parolee, defendant didn’t show standing in his girlfriend’s apartment when he wasn’t supposed to even be there in violation of parole. United States v. Melvin, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73044 (W.D.N.Y. Apr. 22, 2024). The officer showed probable … Continue reading
FL1: Violation of state knock-and-announce statute requires suppression; Hudson not followed
Violation of the state knock-and-announce statute required suppression. Officers entered with haste and didn’t give defendant the chance to surrender peaceably to the search. The statute is a century old, and it serves important privacy interests. The state’s claim that … Continue reading
TX2: No SW needed to get IMEI number of an abandoned cell phone to trace the owner
“Officers may open a cell phone abandoned at a crime scene to view non-electronic identifying information, such as the phone’s international mobile equipment identification (IMEI) number, and then use that identifying information to obtain a search warrant for the phone’s … Continue reading