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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
ME: Officer’s crossing city limits in pursuit, even if a violation of statute, didn’t violate 4A
Even if the officer violated state law on his territorial jurisdiction, following defendant across the city limits into another town to make a traffic stop didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment and there is no reason to apply the exclusionary rule. … Continue reading
OH10: Extraterritorial arrest didn’t violate state statute
Defendant’s extraterritorial arrest within the state did not violate state law. Remanded and the state constitutional question can be raised again. State v. Roby, 2017-Ohio-7331, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 3622 (10th Dist. Aug. 24, 2017). “In this case, Mincey does … Continue reading
CA6: Arrest warrants don’t get stale like SWs
Application for a COA on a 2255 appeal for failing to timely file a motion to suppress is denied. Arrest warrants don’t get stale like search warrants, and such a staleness argument would fail. Also, the record shows that the … Continue reading
CA5: Ptf in a 4A § 1983 case has to plead violation of a “clearly established right” to get over QI in complaint
Although an arrestee adequately alleged that members of a parish council and sheriff’s office maliciously conspired to prosecute him under an unconstitutional statute in retaliation for online comments about council members, his right was not clearly established because there was … Continue reading
OH6: Stop and arrest outside officer’s territorial jurisdiction does not violate state constitution
The officer knew he was outside his territorial jurisdiction when he made a stop of a suspect DUI, but this doesn’t violate the Ohio Constitution. State v. Curran, 2017-Ohio-7008, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 3130 (6th Dist. July 28, 2017). Lack … Continue reading
CA10: Not clearly established that even minimal force can be used to resist alleged unlawful search
Plaintiffs were involved in a domestic dispute outside their trailer that had started to cool down, or so they said. One wanted to go into the house to retrieve shoes, but the officer insisted on following to be sure there … Continue reading
CA3: Being taken to a police station interrogation room in handcuffs was a de facto arrest
Defendant was de facto arrested when he was taken in handcuffs from the place of his seizure to a police station and placed in a holding cell for interrogation. United States v. Wrensford, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 13894 (3d Cir. … Continue reading
SMU Law Review: Reaching Across the Threshold of the Fourth Amendment — Why Payton v. New York Should be Interpreted Broadly
SMU Law Review: Reaching Across the Threshold of the Fourth Amendment — Why Payton v. New York Should be Interpreted Broadly by Caroline Hunt, 70 SMU L. Rev. 189 (2017)
CA8: Code inspectors’ entry into common areas of rental property wasn’t 4A violation
City code inspectors’ entries into the common areas of plaintiff’s “historically unmanageable rental properties” did not violate the Fourth Amendment for lack of a reasonable expectation of privacy in those places. His claims as to allegedly protected areas was waived. … Continue reading
IL sustains arrest for firearm where statute authorizing arrest was later declared unconstitutional
Defendant was stopped under a statute later declared unconstitutional. Distinguishing prior authorities applying state law, the court holds that the “void ab initio” doctrine does not apply here, and the arrest, valid at the time, did not require suppression of … Continue reading
D.Vt.: Payton doesn’t require an arrest warrant come with a SW
Payton does not require that an arrest warrant also be obtained to arrest a suspect during the execution of a search warrant on his premises. Defendant was lawfully arrested in the house when the search warrant was executed. United States … Continue reading
OH7: Bounty hunters have no license to enter as police officers do under state statute
While LEOs have the authority to break and enter to arrest a fugitive when they have an arrest warrant, state law grants no such power to bondsman. Conviction for criminal damaging affirmed for kicking in two doors, and the fugitive … Continue reading
CA8: Def retreating from a threshold arrest creates exigency
Defendant came to the doorway of his camper to be arrested, but he “retreated” and turned to go back inside with the officer still holding on to him. A look for a gun, finding one, was reasonable under Santana. United … Continue reading
CA1: Police had good reason to know drug dealing before knock and talk; they knocked, heard running, and door was sealed; breaking in was reasonable
Prior to the police coming to the door, they knew that six figures in cash had been removed from the place in a plastic bag. When they knocked, they heard running and the door was sealed shut. “Given the totality … Continue reading
VA: PC for stop for reckless driving didn’t get stale in 3 hours
The officer saw defendant recklessly driving, but wasn’t able to stop him. Staleness for arrest for that did not dissipate within three hours before he saw defendant again. Hairston v. Commonwealth, 2017 Va. App. LEXIS 99 (April 11, 2017) (see … Continue reading
WV: Smell of burning MJ coming from def’s house was justification to enter
Officers approaching defendant’s house could smell marijuana. When the door was opened, the smell got stronger, and that justified a warrantless entry. State v. Ott, 2017 W. Va. LEXIS 256 (April 10, 2017) (memorandum). The CI never said he was … Continue reading
IL: Def’s statement after illegal arrest when confronted with bogus GSR test was not attenuated
Defendant’s statement six hours after his illegal arrest when confronted with a bogus GSR test was not attenuated. People v. Hernandez, 2017 IL App (1st) 150575, 2017 Ill. App. LEXIS 206 (March 31, 2017), mod. on den. of rehearing, 2017 … Continue reading
Two on Miranda custody
Asking defendant whether he drove to the place where he was detained was not within the “public safety” exception of Miranda. His car, however, being left in an emergency zone when he was arrested permitted inventory for the gun under … Continue reading
IL: SI on an arrest with PC but made without a warrant removing def from house was valid; SI occurred outside
Defendant was unlawfully arrested inside his home without a warrant. He was taken outside and frisked and a gun was found. The gun will not be suppressed under existing Illinois precedent. “As a result, we find the cases cited by … Continue reading
CA10: The common law “in the presence” requirement for warrantless misdemeanor arrests isn’t mandated by 4A
There was probable cause to arrest defendant when he became combative about being questioned for a theft from a Walgreens two days earlier which resulted in a six month sentence. Plaintiff’s argument that the off-duty officer couldn’t arrest without an … Continue reading