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- W.D.Pa.: Def can’t repackage a losing 4A standing claim into a due process claim
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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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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)
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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
IA applies special needs doctrine to parole searches for first time
Iowa applies the special needs doctrine to parole searches for the first time. It alluded to something like that in 1970, but the special needs doctrine hadn’t developed then. This parole search was reasonable under Griffin and the special needs … Continue reading
NH: Protective sweep applies to vehicles
Because defendant was known to have weapons and associated with violent persons, a protective sweep of his SUV was permissible under the Fourth Amendment and the state constitution. State v. Francis, 2015 N.H. LEXIS 38 (May 12, 2015). Hand-to-hand drug … Continue reading
OR: PC for the automobile exception is not the same argument as car wasn’t mobile, so it’s waived for appeal
Defendant’s argument that there was not probable cause for the automobile exception is different from the issue of the automobile exception does not apply because the car was not mobile. Thus, it is not preserved for appeal. State v. Brock, … Continue reading
MO: Trial court erred in suppressing car search incident without also considering automobile exception
The trial court erred in applying the search incident doctrine to defendant’s vehicle search and suppressing when the state also argued the automobile exception. Remanded for consideration of that issue, too. State v. Walker, 2015 Mo. App. LEXIS 501 (May … Continue reading
D.S.C.: Nexus shown simply by drug dealer going home after the sale
The affidavit here was short, but not “bare bones.” Also, nexus is shown because defendant left the drug deal and went home. United States v. Hooks, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 183573 (D.S.C. April 21, 2014). 2255 petitioner did not show … Continue reading
NJLJ: NJ Court Mulls Easing Rules for Warrantless Auto Searches
NJLJ: NJ Court Mulls Easing Rules for Warrantless Auto Searches by Michael Booth: The New Jersey Supreme Court on April 14 heard arguments over whether it should scrap its six-year-old ruling that governs the standards police must follow when conducting … Continue reading
The automobile exception turned 90 this month. Thank you, Prohibition
We missed it: The automobile exception turned 90 years old on March 2. Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132 (1925) (7-2). The justification for the search was the Volstead Act (Prohibition) and the statutory authority given to Prohies to … Continue reading
OR: Probable cause for arrest for burglary and furtive movements toward backpack made its search subject to search incident
The officer had objective evidence that the juvenile was involved in a burglary and a theft of an Xbox. When confronted he acted furtively and seemed like he was distancing himself from a backpack. That justified a search of the … Continue reading
IN: Transporting to stationhouse is a seizure
Transporting a juvenile down to the station was a seizure requiring probable cause, and here it was lacking. The patdown was unreasonable. D.Y. v. State, 2015 Ind. App. LEXIS 147 (March 11, 2015). Officers had probable cause for the search … Continue reading
D.Me.: Car with windows covered by curtains wasn’t the same as a home
2255 petitioner can’t show that he’d prevail on the merits of the search issues that counsel waived by not filing a motion to suppress. His car with windows covered by curtains wasn’t the same as a home, and it was … Continue reading
CA11: Automobile exception applied, so Gant argument moot
Defendant’s Gant almost hypertechnical search incident argument fails because the automobile exception applied in any event, so the search was good. United States v. Alston, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 2367 (11th Cir. February 17, 2015). Officers in Memphis were saturating … Continue reading
IA: Riley applied to a cell phone search from 2010
Defendant’s cell phone was searched in 2010, well before Riley, but a motion to suppress was filed and denied pre-Riley. The state concedes on appeal that Riley controls and attempts to get the contents of the phone in under exigent … Continue reading
IA: Burnt aluminum foil in plain view in a car is probable cause for a search
Burnt aluminum foil in plain view in a car is probable cause for a search. State v. Johannes, 2015 Iowa App. LEXIS 25 (January 14, 2015). Officers assembled outside a hotel room after neighbors complained that there was yelling and … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Germany’s search of defs’ apartment there was independent of U.S. investigation
German investigators were independently investigating defendants for money laundering, and the FBI was informed because they were Americans. The German authorities coordinated with the U.S. authorities, and a search of the defendants’ German property was conducted as they were being … Continue reading
LA3: Invited in CI videoing drug transaction is not Fourth Amendment violation
There is no constitutional impediment to a wired CI coming into the defendant’s house to video record a drug transaction. He was invited in. State v. Montgomery, 2014 La. App. LEXIS 2974 (La. App. 3 Cir. December 17, 2014). The … Continue reading
CA5: Finding drugs in a car was probable cause to search other containers in the car
Finding drugs in a car was probable cause to search other containers in the car, here a bag. United States v. Leal, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 23777 (5th Cir. February 7, 2014).* Defense counsel was not ineffective for withdrawing a … Continue reading
CA9: Cell phone is not a “container” under the automobile exception
In a cell phone search case submitted pre-Riley, the Ninth Circuit applies Riley and also holds that the proffered exigencies of the automobile exception and search incident do not apply to a search of the photographs and text messages on … Continue reading
KS: Torn or knotted plastic baggie was PC for drugs in the car
A torn or knotted plastic baggie was probable cause for drugs in the car, although the question here is admittedly close. The officer’s experience was what made the difference. Plastic bags alone are meaningless. State v. Howard, 2014 Kan. App. … Continue reading