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Recent Posts
- 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: The fact 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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
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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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: Automobile exception
FL1: Def’s car search outside his chain link fence was outside the curtilage
Defendant was stopped for a traffic offense, but he made it to his mobile home and parked outside the chain link fence. The court finds the car was outside the curtilage under Dunn when the stop and dog sniff occurred. … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Mixed motive for traffic stop isn’t 4A violation as long as there is objective basis for RS
Defendant’s argument that the police must show only that they had a motive to investigate a traffic offense and not any criminal offenses that they already know about is foreclosed by Whren. A mixed motive is not unconstitutional. United States … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Drugs don’t have to be forensically tested after a controlled buy for there to be PC
The CI was corroborated and the totality gives probable cause. The fact that the drugs were not tested prior to the search warrant doesn’t undermine the probable cause or good faith because the officer could tell what it probably was. … Continue reading
CA7: Pre-Collins dog sniff of car on property was valid when it happened; GFE applies
A pre-Collins v. Virginia dog sniff of defendant’s car on his property was valid under circuit law at the time it occurred, so the good faith exception requires no suppression. United States v. Velazquez, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 28445 (7th … Continue reading
ID: Open container violation permits automobile exception of passenger compartment search for more
Defendant’s possession of a cool open beer can in his cup holder and an empty can and other full cans in the back seat permitted a search under the automobile exception of the glove compartment for more open containers [like … Continue reading
PA: The automobile exception doesn’t apply in def’s own driveway; PA SCt held that before Collins
The police had a defective search warrant to bring them to defendant’s house to search the car in the driveway. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held the year before Collins v. Virginia that the automobile exception didn’t apply in one’s driveway, … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Impersonating a DEA agent in one’s car justifies automobile exception
Defendant was arrested for impersonating a DEA officer and using his car to do it. That gave probable cause to search the car. Defendant’s argument that there was an unreasonable inventory are off the mark. United States v. Wade, 2018 … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Reconsideration granted of suppression order to admit gun in a murder conspiracy
With apparent reluctance, the court grants the government’s motion to reconsider the grant of a motion to suppress a gun found in a backpack in the trunk of defendant’s car now linked to two homicides. The government could have raised … Continue reading
NC: Car parked on street was not on the curtilage
A car parked on the street next to a house was not on the curtilage as a matter of law. Based on undisputed facts in the record, however, the officer had probable cause to search the car on the street. … Continue reading
OH5: Def’s wallet was placed on roof of car during patdown; after PC developed under automobile exception, it was subject to search, too
When defendant got out of the car during the stop, the officer ordered him to put down his cell phone and wallet that were in his hands, and he put them on the roof. Inside the car, the officer saw … Continue reading
W.D.Ark.: When challenging SW, def has burden of pleading to attach the SW and affidavit to the motion to suppress
When challenging a search warrant, the defendant needs to attach the warrant and affidavit to the motion to suppress. The government did instead. Here, the search warrant wasn’t even needed because there was probable cause for a vehicle search under … Continue reading
N.D.W.Va.: A motion to suppress isn’t moot just because the govt says it won’t use the evidence in its case-in-chief; if it will to impeach, then the issue has to be resolved
Government’s agreeing it wouldn’t use the product of a search in its case in chief does not make it moot unless the government also says it won’t use it in impeachment. Then, it can only be used against the defendant … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: The fact California has legalized recreational marijuana does not make the smell of marijuana in a car no longer PC
The fact California has legalized recreational marijuana for small amounts does not make the smell of marijuana no longer probable cause. Here, there was a strong odor and defendant admitting he was carrying. An ounce or more would be an … Continue reading
MS: No REP in calls from police station
Defendant’s calls from the police station after he was arrested admitted the marijuana in this case was his. The calls were admitted at trial, defense counsel challenging authentication. Defendant pro se argued a Fourth Amendment violation, but that is defaulted … Continue reading
WY: PC existed for vehicle search before dog was called in; legality of stop abandoned
Defendant’s three sentence motion to suppress said it would follow up with authority. The motion and hearing without that authority narrowed the scope of the claim and abandoned the justification for the stop and any state constitutional claim. What developed … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Passenger’s possession of counterfeit drugs didn’t justify search of def’s car
Defendant’s passenger having alleged counterfeit drugs on his person didn’t provide probable cause for a search of defendant’s car under the automobile exception. United States v. Daughtridge, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 115326 (E.D. N.C. July 11, 2018). You can’t relitigate … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Collins v. Virginia doesn’t apply to a shared parking area which is not curtilage
Collins v. Virginia does not apply to shared parking areas which are not curtilage. “United States v. Jones, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 16409 (2d Cir. June 19, 2018), Jones’s vehicle was parked in a parking lot behind the multi-family building … Continue reading
GA: No REP in data in car’s airbag control module
Defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data from his vehicle’s airbag control module, because, while an outside observer cannot ascertain the information regarding the use and function of a vehicle with the same precision, a … Continue reading
CA2: There was no heightened expectation of privacy under Collins v. Virginia in a multi-family parking lot
Collins doesn’t provide a heightened expectation of privacy in a multi-family parking lot. “Jones does not dispute that the Dodge Magnum was inherently mobile. … We hold that the officers had probable cause to search the Dodge Magnum and that … Continue reading
CT: Seeing sawed off shotgun through van window justified opening it up to seize it
The officers here saw a sawed off shotgun through the windows of defendant’s van, and it was not unreasonable to use the key fob to open the door to seize it. State v. Ortiz, 2018 Conn. App. LEXIS 235 (June … Continue reading