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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: Stop and frisk
VA: RS for a frisk of def just gotten out of car also justified frisk of his car, too, when frisk of person came up empty
Brandishing a gun at another was reasonable suspicion for a stop and frisk of a defendant and then the car. “After the officers found no firearm as a result of their pat down of the appellant’s person, this fact served … Continue reading
IA: Terry stop questioning doesn’t require a Miranda warning until it gets confrontational
Terry stop questioning doesn’t require a Miranda warning until it gets confrontational and adversarial and the detainee isn’t free to leave. State v. Decanini-Hernandez, 2021 Iowa App. LEXIS 172 (Feb. 17, 2021). Defense counsel wasn’t shown to be ineffective for … Continue reading
CA2: The officer’s perceptions were reasonable that entry into defendant’s backyard was necessary
“Nor can we say that Galligan’s enforcement action was clearly unlawful. The undisputed facts of this case demonstrate that Plaintiffs kept a variety of unusual objects in their backyard, causing it to resemble a junkyard. The question is not whether … Continue reading
IL: A stop and a frisk require independent factual bases
Stop and frisk are separate questions in their justification and scope, citing Terry. People v. Baker, 2020 IL App (2d) 180300, 2020 Ill. App. LEXIS 880 (Dec. 22, 2020). Police came for a wellness check on defendant’s mother. The search … Continue reading
CA9: 911 call about man waving a gun justified stop at gunpoint and handcuffing
Officers’ display of firearms and handcuffing defendant in a detention after a 911 call of a man waving a gun was reasonable under Terry. United States v. Hearns, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 37363 (9th Cir. Nov. 27, 2020). Defendant was … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Anticipatory seatbelt violation stop was reasonable and led to valid admission of gun
Stopping car at the scene of a shooting 90 minutes earlier because more people piled in than there were seatbelts for was reasonable. [An anticipatory stop on reasonable suspicion a traffic offense was about to happen. The stop was clearly … Continue reading
CA5: Remanding on other grounds, stop lacked RS and should be reconsidered after a hearing
While reversing on other grounds, the Fifth Circuit directs reconsideration of the stop and frisk as lacking reasonable suspicion on the record it had for lack of a hearing. United States v. McKinney, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 36333 (5th Cir. … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Walking into a Walmart in NV 5½ months after the El Paso Walmart shooting potentially armed with a shotgun was RS
A 911 call that defendant was potentially armed with a shotgun coming into a Walmart in Sparks NV, 5½ months after the El Paso Walmart shooting that killed 23 and injured 23 led to defendant’s stop and frisk. This was … Continue reading
CA5: RS for stop and frisk was lacking based on clothing and location
Defendant’s patdown on the street in San Antonio lacked reasonable suspicion that his clothing suggested gang activity or the place was high crime. The firearm found on him is suppressed. The body camera evidence was used by the defense. The … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: A Terry stop can’t be used to investigate a completed misdemeanor (noting conflicting authorities)
This anonymous tip fails under Navarette because it permits stops on no reliable information at all. Moreover, a Terry stop cannot be used to investigate a completed misdemeanor (noting the circuits to the contrary). United States v. Beasley, 2020 U.S. … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Search of def’s fanny pack wasn’t valid as search incident, but it was valid because he disclaimed it
Defendant’s front license plate being on the dashboard and not affixed to the car was a traffic offense that justified his stop. “Perhaps Giles recognizes that there was probable cause to arrest him after he refused to pull over and … Continue reading
CA9: Bulge in clothing from a firearm justifies a stop-and-frisk in California
A bulge that appears to be a firearm justifies a stop-and-frisk in jurisdictions where concealing a weapon is presumptively a crime, here, California. United States v. Bontemps, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 32227 (9th Cir. Oct. 13, 2020):
The Intercept: Stop-and-frisk Never Really Ended. Now It’s Gone Digital.
The Intercept: Stop-and-frisk Never Really Ended. Now It’s Gone Digital. by Alice Speri (“A federal class-action lawsuit accuses New York police of unconstitutionally detaining people in order to run their IDs.”) If the stop has to be based on reasonable … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Officers’ good faith belief def was a wanted person justified stop and frisk
The officers’ reasonable good faith believe defendant was another wanted person justified his stop and frisk. United States v. Galindo, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 182866 (D. Nev. Aug. 25, 2020):
DC: PC to arrest isn’t necessarily PC to search; Terry stop evolved into PC
Probable cause to arrest is not necessarily probable cause to search. Defendant’s initial detention under Terry was justified and evolved into probable cause. “Mr. Ellison also argues that his pre-arrest detention was longer than permitted under Terry’s rationale permitting brief … Continue reading
IL: Failure to attempt to suppress CSLI was harmless error, even if could have been successful
Failure to make a Carpenter argument was harmless error under the proof. People v. Ayoubi, 2020 IL App (1st) 180518, 2020 Ill. App. LEXIS 664 (Sept. 29, 2020). A stop may be valid under Terry, but the officer still needs … Continue reading
AL: Manipulating object in pocket of person leaving a drug house exceeded Terry
Defendant’s patdown resulted in an impermissible Terry and Dickerson search of her pocket. The state never showed it was apparent that the object being manipulated was a weapon. It was a search for drugs because she was stopped leaving a … Continue reading
MS: Def’s evasiveness during a patdown justified it being more intrusive
Defendant’s evasiveness during a patdown justified it being more intrusive. “Casey’s argument seemingly ignores the circumstances that led to the retrieval of the drugs. First, as Deputy Putnam began his first attempt at a weapons pat-down, Casey suddenly took his … Continue reading
Massachusetts SJC revises and loosens its standard for claiming racial motivation for traffic stops under state constitution
Massachusetts SJC revises and loosens its standard for claiming racial motivation for traffic stops under state constitution. Commonwealth v. Long, 2020 Mass. LEXIS 520 (Sept. 17, 2020):
CA10: EPA subpoena to determine cost of cleanup was within agency jurisdiction and was reasonable
An EPA subpoena to determine whether this mine could pay for the cost of a cleanup was within the agency’s jurisdiction and valid and did not violate the Fourth Amendment. United States v. United Park City Mines Co., 2020 U.S. … Continue reading