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- VA: Body cam video of valid arrest would not be suppressed
- NM: Trial court’s finding of consent is reversed because the court engaged in its own internet investigation beyond what the parties provided
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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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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (2012)
ACLU on privacy
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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
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
NJ goes back to automobile exception and retreats from its 2009 requirement of a telephonic search warrant if at all possible in automobile searches
New Jersey retreats from its 2009 requirement of a telephonic search warrant if at all possible in automobile searches essentially as a failed experiment. Thus, the court goes back to probable cause and exigency and the automobile exception. State v. … Continue reading
D.Haw.: Alleged illegal search by “marshals of the Kingdom of Atooi” wasn’t acquiesced in by federal or state officials
A crate of marijuana was searched by “marshals of the Kingdom of Atooi,” a Polynesian kingdom within Hawai’i not otherwise described. Their search was not at insistence or with the acquiescence of the state or federal government, and it could … Continue reading
CA3: Wiretap provided PC for automobile exception search
A wiretap caught defendant’s conversations and provided probable cause for the search of his car, and that included closed compartments and containers. United States v. Boyd, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 16403 (3d Cir. September 15, 2015). Driving with high beams … Continue reading
CA7: Two 911 calls about a road rage incident led to PC to search defendant’s car
A road rage incident was called into 911 twice by a woman involved who said the other driver was a man blocking her path, beating on her car window and shouting obscenities, and displaying a gun. When police arrived, they … Continue reading
OH12: Where there is PC for automobile exception, drug dog’s failure to alert doesn’t mean no PC
When there is probable cause to search a car, a drug dog’s failure to alert is not proof there is no probable cause. In addition, to be safe, the officers got a warrant and told the magistrate the dog didn’t … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: CSLI in mid-2014 was subject to GFE
The government’s warrantless collection of cell site location data in mid-2014 was not clearly contrary to any established law, so the government’s actions were in good faith. The court also follows the fact they were third-party records. United States v. … Continue reading
FL5: With PC, a vehicle search can occur with or without a warrant
The officer here had probable cause the vehicle contained contraband and he could have searched under the automobile exception. Instead he got a warrant. “See Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 52, 90 S. Ct. 1975, 26 L. Ed. 2d … Continue reading
PA: DUI accident provided PC for automobile exception search
In a DUI accident, the officer had probable cause to search defendant’s vehicle for evidence of the impairment under the automobile exception. Commonwealth v. Best, 2015 PA Super 151, 2015 Pa. Super. LEXIS 409 (July 16, 2015).* The officer’s participation … Continue reading
NY3: Car on impound lot could be searched under automobile exception hours after the seizure where there was PC
The search of a car on a police impound lot hours after it was involved in an accident was proper under the automobile exception. People v. Hoffman, 2015 NY Slip Op 05976, 2015 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 5844 (3d Dept. … Continue reading
ID: Def’s purse was in car at time of dog alert, so it was subject to search under automobile exception
Defendant’s purse was in her vehicle when a dog alerted on it. By the time the police were going to search her car, the purse was in her hands. The purse could be searched under the automobile exception because it … Continue reading
MA: Def’s statement during allegedly illegal entry into his house was spontaneous and attenuated
Police turned a snitch who said he just bought cocaine from defendant. Police determined defendant was on probation and had a prior federal trafficking conviction. They lured him out of the house, and they entered for a sweep. Even if … Continue reading