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- D.D.C.: Placing firearm on wheel of parked car was abandonment
- MD: Hot pursuit can be days later, here exigent CSLI to find alleged murderer on the run
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- 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
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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
CA5: No factual findings of exigency for automobile exception applies; remanded
Defendant was followed to his house from a bank robbery, and his car was searched in the driveway. However, “[i]n this case, the district court did not make factual findings about whether exigent circumstances were present sufficient to justify a … Continue reading
UT won’t require warrant under automobile exception
“Rigby contends that the Utah Constitution provides its citizens greater protection against unreasonable searches than the United States Constitution because Utah courts have required police officers to have both probable cause and exigent circumstances when performing a warrantless search under … Continue reading
IL: Warrantless blood draws pre-Neely are valid under GFE
Illinois law before McNeely permitted warrantless blood draws, and pre-McNeely searches would be valid under Davis good faith. People v. Harrison, 2016 IL App (5th) 150048, 2016 Ill. App. LEXIS 73 (Feb. 18, 2016). A 2254 petitioner gets a COA … Continue reading
NY3: Nighttime search was justified, and defendant wasn’t even home
Police justified a nighttime search warrant at defendant’s house. He was a suspect in a robbery with a knife to the victim’s throat where the victim was forced into an apartment. In the ensuing struggle, the victim said the suspect … Continue reading
OH: “The arrest of a recent occupant of a legally parked vehicle does not, by itself, establish reasonableness to justify a warrantless search of the vehicle the arrestee had been riding in.”
The Ohio Supreme Court today reversed a case where I criticized the court of appeals decision back in June 2014 as wrong. The Supreme Court today held that the arrest of a recent occupant of a car does not ipso … Continue reading
ID: Automobile exception applied to suitcases with suspect MJ removed from a Greyhound bus
The automobile exception here was applied to two suitcases on a Greyhound bus that stopped in Boise. The bus driver was adjusting bags after removing bags for those getting off in Boise, and he could smell marijuana coming from a … Continue reading
SD: A pipe with residue on the person is PC for an automobile exception search
The officer decided to stop defendant who was parked under a “no parking” sign. When he approached the vehicle, an open container was visible between the driver and passenger seats. It turned out defendant’s DL was revoked. While normally a … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: No external signs dwelling was a triplex; search valid under Garrison
This property was under surveillance for seven days, and only defendant and his girlfriend coming and going. Police did an Accurint search about the address and nothing suggested that it was a triplex. Nothing outside said it was, and there … Continue reading
MA: Detailed description of car involved in two robberies near in time and location to when it was seen was PC
The officer had a wealth of information for probable cause to stop and search defendant’s car for two robberies. The fact that six hours elapsed between the two didn’t make the first one stale. Defendant’s argument the officers acted in … Continue reading
OH11: Smell of MJ coming from def’s person during traffic stop justifies search of person
Drifting over the center line was reasonable suspicion for a stop, and the smell of marijuana on the defendant’s person justified a search of the person. State v. Glenn, 2015-Ohio-4832, 2015 Ohio App. LEXIS 4722 (11th Dist. Nov. 23, 2015). … Continue reading
ID: Auto search doesn’t have to stop where items in plain view were seized
Observation of contraband in plain view justified a search of a vehicle. The officer did not have to stop when he seized that which was first seen. State v. Anderson, 2015 Ida. App. LEXIS 118 (Nov. 17, 2015). Defendant was … Continue reading
OR: Passenger’s backpack in car was subject to automobile exception
Passenger’s backpack in the vehicle at the time of the stop was subject to the automobile exception. State v. Furrillo, 274 Ore. App. 612, 2015 Ore. App. LEXIS 1291 (Nov. 4, 2015). Defendant’s admission during a stop on reasonable suspicion … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Parolee with traffic warrants fleeing from car and tossing keys justified parole search of car
Las Vegas officers were randomly running license plates and they ran a Saturn’s plates on a Walgreen’s parking lot after the occupant went into the store. It showed that the owner had outstanding traffic warrants and was on parole. The … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Backseat passenger of driver doing hand-to-hand transactions subject to frisk
The driver of the car defendant was a backseat passenger in conducted hand-to-hand transactions, and that give probable cause for a search of the car by the automobile exception. The search of the backseat passenger was valid as a frisk … Continue reading
C.D.Ill.: Before and after a CI does a controlled buy, there is no constitutional requirement that the CI be subjected to a body cavity search
Before and after a CI does a controlled buy, there is no constitutional requirement that the CI be subjected to a body cavity search. United States v. Sidwell, 440 F.3d 865, 869 (7th Cir. 2006); United States v. Garcia, 983 … Continue reading
N.D.W.Va.: Correcting a date in affidavit for SW in front of USMJ was hardly improper, particularly when the correct date was put in
Three month old information about an IP address in a child pornography case wasn’t stale. Also, the warrant wasn’t issued without probable cause just because the warrant was amended in handwriting before the magistrate, particularly because the correct date was … Continue reading
OR automobile exception requires vehicle must be mobile when first encountered in connection with a crime
To justify the automobile exception in Oregon, the vehicle must be mobile when first encountered in connection with a crime. If parked, a warrant must be sought. State v. Belander, 274 Ore. App. 167, 2015 Ore. App. LEXIS 1175 (September … Continue reading
W.D.Ark.: Warrantless DNA sample 16 days after arrest was unreasonable
Warrantless taking a DNA sample from an arrestee under state law but 16 days after his arrest violated the Fourth Amendment. If it was at the time of booking, it would have been reasonable. Nominal damages awarded. Lewis v. Brazell, … Continue reading
WaPo: The Fourth Amendment shuffle
WaPo: The Fourth Amendment shuffle by Radley Balko: New Jersey was one of the last states to require police to obtain a warrant before searching your vehicle during a traffic stop. No more. The state’s highest court has ruled that … Continue reading