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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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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (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
MA: Removing paint chips off a car under the automobile exception was reasonable
There was probable cause that defendant’s car was involved in a shooting such that its stop and search was reasonable under the automobile exception. That included removing paint chips from it when it had been removed to the police station. … Continue reading
Reason.com: Volokh Conspiracy: Collins v. Virginia and “the Conception Defining the Curtilage”
Reason.com: Volokh Conspiracy: Collins v. Virginia and “the Conception Defining the Curtilage” by Orin Kerr: A familiar idea “easily understood from our daily experience” — or is it?
SCOTUS: “The automobile exception does not permit the warrantless entry of a home or its curtilage in order to search a vehicle therein.”
The power of curtilage: Collins v. Virginia, 2018 U.S. LEXIS 3210 (May 29, 2018) (8-1, Alito dissenting):
KS: Car search had PC, so trial court erred in suppressing
The trial court erred in suppressing the search of the car. There was probable cause for a search for drugs, and that allowed the officer to search anywhere drugs would be found. State v. Knight, 2018 Kan. App. LEXIS 28 … Continue reading
CA5: Automobile exception applied; although def was handcuffed, wife showed up acting somewhat belligerently
Defendant was in custody, handcuffed and on the ground, but his wife showed up acting somewhat belligerent. Her presence satisfied exigency for the car search. United States v. Beene, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 11400 (5th Cir. May 2, 2018). Defense … Continue reading
MO: Warrantless seizure of black box data from semi violated 4A; automobile exception didn’t apply
After an accident, the information off the data recorder on defendant’s semi was seized and then searched by the police without a search warrant. The trial court suppressed, and the state filed an interlocutory appeal. Only three of its six … Continue reading
W.D.N.C.: 2255 is not the place to first litigate a suppression motion
2255 petitioner can’t raise his search and seizure claim via post-conviction relief where there was no effort to pursue the issue in the case on the merits. Even if he could, he’d lose on the merits of the search because … Continue reading
NJ: When driver can’t or won’t produce registration, a limited search for it is permissible
“Sufficient credible evidence supported the trial court’s determination that defendant was given an adequate opportunity to present the vehicle’s registration before the search commenced. When a driver is unwilling or unable to present proof of a vehicle’s ownership, a police … Continue reading
CA10: Carelessly unloading watermelons from a box truck away from a loading dock and in middle of night with “nonsensical” answers was PC
Officers had probable cause to search defendants’ box truck. They were unloading watermelons in the middle of the night on wet grass and not at some loading dock coupled with all the unusual, vague, and even “nonsensical” excuses for why … Continue reading
CA6: Def’s car was still “mobile” for automobile exception despite the fact he was in jail
Defendant’s car was still “mobile” for Fourth Amendment purposes under the automobile exception despite the fact he was in jail. Thus, the defective search warrant is moot. United States v. Spillman, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 6950 (6th Cir. Mar. 19, … Continue reading
LA5: Scope of auto exception search is the PC that authorizes it
Defendant’s car was subject to the automobile exception because it was mobile, despite being parked and not running. “The scope of the warrantless search of an automobile is not defined by the nature of the container in which the contraband … Continue reading
VI: Govt couldn’t rely on inventory to justify search when the vehicle wasn’t impounded
Officer’s knowledge that defendant possessed a firearm was not reasonable suspicion in itself because one could possess a firearm in the VI, albeit with a license. When officers observed bullet holes in the car and defendant was nervous and evasive, … Continue reading
AR: Search of def’s wallet in a frisk was unreasonable
The officer made a drug arrest in the park, and defendant was around and fidgeting with his hands repeatedly going in and out of his pockets. A frisk of defendant for a weapon was reasonable, but a search of his … Continue reading
SCOTUSblog: Argument analysis: Rental cars, reasonable expectations of privacy and property rights
SCOTUSblog: Argument analysis: Rental cars, reasonable expectations of privacy and property rights by Amy Howe. Transcripts: Byrd & Collins
SCOTUSBlog: Argument preview: Justices to consider scope of Fourth Amendment’s “automobile exception”
SCOTUSBlog: Argument preview: Justices to consider scope of Fourth Amendment’s “automobile exception” by Amy Howe:
OR: Mobility is all that’s required for auto. exception under state const. too
As long as the vehicle was mobile and there was probable cause, the automobile exception applies. “In sum, the automobile exception applies in this case because defendant’s car was mobile when officers encountered it in connection with defendant’s felony arrest … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Driving unlicensed vehicle not ground for search under search incident or automobile exception
Driving an allegedly unlicensed vehicle doesn’t support a search incident for paperwork on the vehicle. The automobile exception didn’t support a search either because there was no probable cause. After defendant was handcuffed and away from the vehicle, a Long … Continue reading
TX: Mere furtive gesture not enough for PC
Defendant went into a bar known for drug activity, stayed a few minutes, came out to his car, and drove off. There was a traffic offense and furtive gestures toward the console. The officer stopped him and searched the car. … Continue reading