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- MD: Hot pursuit can be days later, here exigent CSLI to find him
- D.D.C.: Alleged illegal arrest doesn’t void DNA SW
- S.D.Fla.: Inventory that omitted “miscellaneous personal items” was not unreasonable
- CA4: That ptf charged with witness intimidation didn’t do it again wasn’t material for Franks
- CO: Not 4A or state constitutional violation for govt to access def’s computer via peer-to-peer sharing with BitTorrent software
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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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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: Automobile exception
S.D.Miss.: Plain view of alleged drug residue was apparently false and a “comedy of errors”
Plastic wrappers or containers in cars are ubiquitous. The officer [almost obviously] made up a claim there was drug residue in a wrapper. First it was ecstacy, then it was cocaine. It’s all on bodycam. This was a “comedy of … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: The Rodriguez question is: Did the use of the dog prolong the stop
“The answer to this question doesn’t hinge on ‘whether the dog sniff occurs before or after the officer issues a ticket’ but whether the dog sniff ‘prolongs’ the stop. [Rodriguez] at 357. The answer today is undoubtedly no. Deputy Samuelson, … Continue reading
CA6: Def counsel not ineffective for not challenging car search on curtilage from 2008 under Jardines and Collins
Defense counsel considered and chose not to file a motion to suppress. At the time (2008) the law was less clear than now about automobiles on the curtilage and computers in the car as a “container.” Jardines and Collins came … Continue reading
CA10: High speed chase justifies search under automobile exception
A high speed chase justifies an automobile exception search of the car when it’s finally stopped. Here there was a dog alert before. United States v. Chavez, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 29287 (10th Cir. Sept. 28, 2021). The rules of … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: Need for Spanish speaking officer contributed to reasonable extension of stop
Defendant’s traffic stop was reasonable to begin with, and the fact it took 50 minutes before the dog alert was justified under all the circumstances, including getting a Spanish speaking officer to the scene. United States v. Hernandez, 2021 U.S. … Continue reading
CA4: Where the vehicle was seized with PC, the fact it took 13 days to search it in the impound lot wasn’t a 4A violation
“Additionally, when a warrantless search of a vehicle could have been conducted on the scene pursuant to the automobile exception, a warrantless search is also justified after the vehicle has been impounded and immobilized as long as probable cause still … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Lev Parnas can’t get discovery of Rudy Giuliani search for his own emails
Lev Parnas seeks discovery of Rudy Giuliani’s later search warrant return for his own emails. Denied as cumulative. He already has them. United States v. Parnas, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 131253 (S.D. N.Y. July 14, 2021).* Officers conducting the stop … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: “Hot watch” order for real time travel information isn’t disclosable yet; matter still under investigation
The government made an “Application request[ing] an order compelling Sabre, a travel technology firm, ‘to provide representatives of the FBI complete and contemporaneous ‘real time’ account activity’ for an individual subject to an arrest warrant—what the government refers to as … Continue reading
CA8: A car with a flat tire is still inherently mobile for automobile exception
“The officers indisputably had probable cause to search Short’s vehicle, and an easily repairable flat tire did not cause the vehicle to lose its inherent mobility.” United States v. Short, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 19242 (8th Cir. June 29, 2021). … Continue reading
ID: Automobile exception doesn’t apply to purse that used to be in car before PC developed
Defendant’s purse was not in the car at the time probable cause arose for the automobile exception to apply. Therefore, it did not apply to her purse. State v. Maloney, 2021 Ida. LEXIS 117 (June 28, 2021). “It is unnecessary … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: There is a REP in a wheelchair as an “effect”
Defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his wheelchair where he’d hidden a gun. The automobile exception doesn’t apply to wheelchairs, and neither does Chadwick on the locked footlocker. The gun was seen by Walmart employees who called the … Continue reading
OH10: Not challenging SW was strategic choice in self-defense case
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not objecting to the search warrant because it would contradict his claim of self-defense. State v. Messenger, 2021-Ohio-2044, 2021 Ohio App. LEXIS 2017 (10th Dist. June 17, 2021) (see § 60.19) The issue here is … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Videos referred to in criminal complaints in Capitol Riot Cases presumptively public records
The videos referred to in criminal complaints in the Capitol Riot Cases are presumptively public records. In Re: Press and Public Access to Video Exhibits in the Capitol Riot Cases, Misc. Action No. 21-46 (BAH) (D.D.C. May 14, 2021). A … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Officer’s reach into car was search, but justified by automobile exception
The reach into defendant’s car was a search, but it was justified by the automobile exception. United States v. Joyner, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68324 (E.D. N.C. Mar. 15, 2021). Defendant’s stop wasn’t unreasonably extended. “Although Officer Hambrock walked back … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Franks applies to court orders to remove children from home
In a child in need of services case, a well pled Franks violation can state a claim, but this one wasn’t. Grullon v. Administrator for Children’s Services, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49614 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 16, 2021) (recognizing rule; citing Estiverne … Continue reading
M.D.Tenn.: Def failed to show parole search was unreasonble
This parole search wasn’t shown to be unreasonable. “As discussed in the above cited case law, there is a significant government interest in combating recidivism and thwarting illegal drug activity by parolees. Defendant has failed to point to any direct … Continue reading
CA7: Showing up for a controlled buy justifies automobile exception search
A prior controlled buy with defendant showing up for another one justifies a vehicle search under the automobile exception. United States v. Smith, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 6166 (7th Cir. Mar. 3, 2021). The trial court credited the officer’s testimony … Continue reading
LA1: Automobile exception search is just as broad as permitted by SW
“Police officers who have legitimately stopped an automobile and who have probable cause to believe that contraband is concealed somewhere within it, may conduct a warrantless search of the vehicle as thoroughly as a magistrate could authorize. The scope of … Continue reading
CA3: Warrant for roving wiretap didn’t have to call device a “cell site simulator” when it fully described it
The government obtained a roving wiretap for defendant’s cell phone with a cell site simulator. In the warrant application, they described in detail what a cell site simulator was, but it never said the words “cell site simulator.” It doesn’t … Continue reading