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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
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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)
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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: Informant hearsay
IL: Franks falsity applies to the officer, not the CI; also, the CI testified before the issuing magistrate, and that bolsters credibility
“The deliberate falsity or reckless disregard of the truth applies only to the affiant—here, Officer Ramirez—and not to any nongovernmental informant like Rodriguez. … What is more, we note that both Officer Ramirez and Rodriguez appeared before the issuing judge, … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Def objection to new saliva sample by SW denied
Defendant pro se opposed the taking of a new saliva sample. For some reason, the government applied for and obtained a new warrant for saliva having determined that the prior sample was too old or insufficient. The taking of the … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Citizen informant pointing out def face-to-face presumptively reliable
A citizen informant pointing out defendant as having a gun, right in front of him, is entitled to presumptive credibility because she exposed her knowledge to defendant and risked retaliation. United States v. Slone, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38515 (E.D. … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Pictures on def’s Instagram account corroborated CIs
Defendant’s Instagram pages allowed agents to see photographs of firearms and bottles of promethazine with codeine (“molly”) and marijuana. Defendant was already a suspected molly distributor with two prior cocaine convictions, and that substantially helped show probable cause for a … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Not subpoenaing drug dog’s records not shown to be IAC for lack of prejudice
Defense counsel not subpoenaing the drug dog’s records wasn’t prejudicial where defendant can’t show that the drug dog’s use would be disallowed in the case. “There is no reason to believe that any additional information would have altered the probable … Continue reading
D.Nev.: No RS for patdown; result of patdown and car search excised from SW affidavit and remainder lacks PC because informant uncorroborated
Defendant was stopped for speeding in a residential area, and he could be ordered out of the vehicle. His patdown, however, was unreasonable because there was no reasonable suspicion for it either by his word or actions or bulges in … Continue reading
PA: SW for house permitted search of guest’s pants that were on floor when the police arrived
Police came with a drug search warrant into the house of another where defendant was sleeping with a woman, and told him to get up. He reached for his nearby pants, and they took them and searched them finding his … Continue reading
W.D.La.: Deciding against def after remand on suppression motion on different ground didn’t violate mandate
On remand from reversal of denial of defendant’s suppression motion, the court analyzed the evidence anew, albeit from a different perspective, and it denies the motion to suppress on different grounds. This does not violate the Fifth Circuit’s mandate. Defendant … Continue reading
MA: Anonymous tip only corroborated on obvious details not sufficient
The state failed to corroborate at all the basis of knowledge or reliability of the anonymous source. The described car showing up at the appointed time isn’t enough. Commonwealth v. Pinto, 2017 Mass. LEXIS 21 (Jan. 23, 2017):
KY: Blood and debris trail to def’s open door and his refusal to talk about who was inside or what happened justified entry
Exigent circumstances justified the officers’ entry into defendant’s home. There was a blood trail that did not go all the way back to his apartment, but there was a debris trail, too, he was badly hurt and bleeding, and he … Continue reading
Two on informant hearsay
The CI provided detailed information that all proved to be true involving a shipment of drugs, down to the packaging. While the automobile exception would have supported the search, the police obtained a warrant on the probable cause from the … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: 911 caller stayed on phone and gave a “play-by-play” of what the defendant was doing that was quickly corroborated by the police
911 caller stayed on phone and gave a “play-by-play” of what the defendant was doing that was quickly corroborated by the police. That was reasonable suspicion. United States v. Jeanes, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 181601 (N.D.Ind. Nov. 29, 2016), adopted, … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: 911 caller’s info was transmitted and she revealed enough about herself to not be an anonymous CI
911 calls aren’t always truly anonymous. A 911 caller, whose number was captured by the system, called about a man pacing in a motel parking lot with a gun in hand. The caller gave enough information about herself that she … Continue reading
D.P.R.: PC permits a warrantless arrest for a felony; no right to arrest at earliest possible time
If there is probable cause for an arrest without a warrant, it doesn’t matter that officers had time to get an arrest warrant and didn’t or that they didn’t arrest at the earliest possible time. An arrest warrant is not … Continue reading
Orange County Register: Editorial: DEA must end its informant program now
Orange County Register: Editorial: DEA must end its informant program now: The DEA and other law enforcement agencies face skewed priorities when they can search and seize property — and then keep the proceeds — without so much as probable … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: CI with good track record isn’t less believable because she had a relationship with the def which “soured”
The CI in this case had a track record. Then she was involved with defendant, and then she set defendant up, too. The fact their relationship “soured” didn’t undermine her credibility on the question of probable cause. United States v. … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Def’s going home after a drug deal shows nexus for SW for house
“Here, the affidavit provides that the confidential informant had been providing information to the task force for 11 months, he had no criminal convictions, and his information has never been found to be false or misleading. (Aff. ¶ 13.) This, … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: SW affiant doesn’t need to include CI’s criminal history, too, if it otherwise passes muster
The search warrant affiant wasn’t required to include the CI’s criminal history as a possible indicator of lack of credibility. The key is past information that has proven truthful or detailed or corroborated current observations that bespeak credibility. United States … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: CSLI warrant didn’t show PC on informant information or timeliness; GFE did not apply
The prospective CSLI warrant failed to show probable cause on the facts of informant hearsay or overcome staleness, and the motion to suppress is granted. (Also, the owner of a cell phone has standing to challenge GPS tracking of his … Continue reading