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- CA6: State officer’s arrest for violation of federal MJ law likely wouldn’t violate 4A
- D.N.M.: Shared driveway outside of fence and gate was not curtilage
- CA6: Knowing passcode to cell phone shows common authority over it to consent
- VI: Smell of MJ no longer PC in VI since legalization
- Reason: 3 Charlotte Cops Resign After Group Chat Reveals Competition To Arrest the Most Black People
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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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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: Arrest or entry on arrest
CA6: LEO’s conviction for criminal civil rights violation for wrongful entry to arrest affirmed
Defendant was a police officer and he’s convicted here of cirminal civil rights violation for wrongful entry into the victim’s house. The event started when the victim came home to his apartment building, found defendant parked in his parking spot, … Continue reading
CA4: Handcuffing a compliant child at school violated 4A, but officer gets QI
A police officer’s handcuffing a compliant child after a discussion in the school office violated the child’s Fourth Amendment rights. The event was long past with no risk of violence being shown by the child by the time that happened. … Continue reading
ME: Nondeadly force can’t be used on a LEO arresting def in def’s own home
“This means that pursuant to section 108(1-A), French was not entitled to use nondeadly force against Ferland—who was trying to arrest her—for the purpose of defending her premises, regardless of the lawfulness of Ferland’s entry into the residence or his … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Def’s admission he hadn’t used phone in a year when he left it where he last lived supported finding abandonment
During a knock-and-talk, defendant admitted that he had not used a particular cell phone in over a year because it had a cracked screen. He was kicked out of a house and he left it behind with other belongings. Based … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: The stairwell of a hotel was a public place for arrest purposes
The government had detailed facts connecting defendant to a bank robbery and traced his movements, some with surveillance video. This was probable cause, and his arrest was in a public place, the stairwell in a hotel. United States v. Peeples, … Continue reading
NYTimes: New York Detective Guilty of Lying About Drug Arrest
NYTimes: New York Detective Guilty of Lying About Drug Arrest by Joseph Goldstein and John Surico: A Queens jury on Wednesday convicted a detective of lying under oath in a trial that raised troubling questions about the prevalence of false … Continue reading
The Atlantic: Can Government Officials Have You Arrested for Speaking to Them?
The Atlantic: Can Government Officials Have You Arrested for Speaking to Them? by Garrett Epps The Supreme Court faces a test of the authority of politicians to use police to silence their critics.
NC: Officer’s reasonable but mistaken belief that def’s picture was in a database of wanted persons made the arrest valid
The officer’s reasonable but mistaken belief that defendant’s picture was in a database of wanted persons made the arrest valid. “Additionally, the seizure of a person based on a reasonable mistake as to that person’s identity is constitutional. State v. … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: ICE detainer signed by ICE officer on PC doesn’t violate 4A
An ICE detainer signed by an ICE officer authorizing a hold for up to 48 hours on top of state charges was not a violation of the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Gomez-Robles, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 211348 (D. Ariz. … Continue reading
MN: Roadside FST and PBT are not searches
Roadside field sobriety testing and then a PBT with probable cause is not a search under the Fourth Amendment. Vondrachek v. Comm’r of Pub. Safety, 2017 Minn. App. LEXIS 318 (Dec. 18, 2017). The officer’s observations of defendant was independent … Continue reading
CA11: It’s reasonable to assume the person named in an arrest warrant is home at 11 pm
Officers had an arrest warrant for plaintiff and a reasonable belief he’d be at home at 11 pm in February when it would be presumed one would be home. He’d listed that place as his address during a prior arrest, … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Facebook SW was valid when issued, but later case law said it would have been overbroad; valid by GFE
The Facebook warrant here was overbroad, but it was consistent with case law at the time. Later case law said that it would have been overbroad. Nevertheless, reliance on case law at the time the search warrant was issued is … Continue reading
IL: When lack of PC for arrest is raised, the state can rely on hearsay to establish it
When the defendant challenges probable cause for arrest, hearsay is admissible to show it. People v. Horine, 2017 IL App (4th) 170128, 2017 Ill. App. LEXIS 743 (Dec. 5, 2017):
CA6: Moving to withdraw plea after three months because “there were technical issues with his arrest warrant” is denied; not a ground for relief
Defendant moved to withdraw his plea three months later because “there were technical issues with his arrest warrant.” “Further, Miller never asserted his innocence, which also weighs against granting the motion. He argued only that he should be permitted to … Continue reading
CA9: Police can enter suspect probationer’s parent’s house where she lived looking for her
Police could enter a commonly used residence to look for a probationer they had probable cause to believe committed a violent crime, over the protests of the primary occupant, her mother. They entered over the mother’s objection but didn’t find … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Threshold arrest of defendant in his underwear justifies a protective sweep
A threshold arrest of defendant in his underwear justifies a protective sweep because he’d have to get his clothes. United States v. Rodriguez-Madera, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 196636 (D. P.R. Nov. 28, 2017):
KUOW: 10,000 warrants in Seattle: Here’s a chance for some to avoid arrest
KUOW: 10,000 warrants in Seattle: Here’s a chance for some to avoid arrest by Patricia Murphy:
CA3: Citation or summons is not an “arrest” in common usage or in the single arrest situations in application of the U.S.S.G.
A citation or summons is not an “arrest” in common usage or in the single arrest situations in application of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. United States v. Ley, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 23637 (3d Cir. Nov. 22, 2017). Defendant didn’t … Continue reading
OR: Exigency-based entry into house for DUI arrest requires proof of exigency, and here it was lacking
Here the officer entered defendant’s home in a DUI case to seize him for evidence of his intoxication. Exigency can permit an entry, but the state has the burden of proof on exigency, and here it failed to prove the … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: NY arrest warrant executed in GA violated NY law but not 4A, and suppression of gun found on arrest would not be granted
There was a New York local court arrest warrant for defendant, and he was arrested on it in Georgia, and then indicted in federal Georgia for being a felon in possession. The government conceded that the arrest violated New York … Continue reading