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- CA6: State officer’s arrest for violation of federal MJ law likely wouldn’t violate 4A
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- VI: Smell of MJ no longer PC in VI since legalization
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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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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
CA1: Officers lacked sufficient info def was in girlfriend’s apt to enter on arrest warrant
Officers lacked sufficient information on the totality defendant would be found at his girlfriend’s apartment when they entered on an arrest warrant. Most of the information was from a CI that it was logical he was there and he hadn’t … Continue reading
W.D.Ohio: Factual basis for stop overcomes pretext
There was a factual basis for the stop, so the pretext argument fails. United States v. Diaz-Cordova, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 91591 (N.D.Ohio July 14, 2016). It appears that the U.S. Marshals had objectively reasonable belief that defendant was where … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Listening devices in a public place overcame any reasonable expectation of privacy; 1984 was not just a book — it’s here
The FBI planted recording devices outside two courthouses in Northern California to catch conversations on the street between their targets. The devices were planted in a light fixture, a bus stop, and on a parked vehicle. The court finds no … Continue reading
MO: Officers serving arrest warrant found a house full of gas from a working meth lab and could enter
Officers came to defendant’s house to arrest him on a warrant. When the door was open, there was a cloud of smoke that smelled like a working meth lab. One officer left to get a warrant. Another opened doors to … Continue reading
Columbia Journalism Review: A reporter’s arrest is just the latest reason to worry about press freedom in Missouri
Columbia Journalism Review: A reporter’s arrest is just the latest reason to worry about press freedom in Missouri by Doran Lee:
ID: Michigan v. Summers on detention of bystanders can apply to arrest warrants, too
Summers rationale of detaining bystanders when executing a search warrant can apply to arrest warrants. Here, the target of the arrest warrant fled, and that justified the officers in detaining the others just in case of a risk of a … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: When def saw police at door, he stepped back, and that justified their coming in to arrest him on a warrant
Defendant’s arrest with a warrant inside his apartment was valid, and the constitution didn’t required he be pulled outside to arrest. He stepped back when he saw the officers and they came in and arrested him. A limited protective sweep … Continue reading
CA3: Officers had PC to believe ptf was in a motor home for entry to arrest
Plaintiff was calling police dispatch from a cell phone. Dispatch was able to trace the cell phone apparently via the 911 system. Officers had an arrest warrant for plaintiff, and they had probable cause to believe that she was in … Continue reading
OH8: Working meth lab found on execution of arrest warrant was exigency
Officers at defendant’s house to execute an arrest warrant had exigent circumstances when they found a probable working methamphetamine lab. State v. Maust, 2016-Ohio-3171, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS 2101 (8th Dist. May 26, 2016). Defendant’s stop was justified by his … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Under Payton, there’s a difference between where an arrestee “could be found” and “would be found”
Just because PRPD had two addresses for defendant as places he’d lived before didn’t give reason to believe he was there at the time they entered with an arrest warrant. That it “could be” a place he’d be found doesn’t … Continue reading
CA2: When the subject of of an arrest warrant is in a third party’s house, Payton governs the entry as to him and Stegald as to the resident
When the subject of of an arrest warrant is in a third party’s house, Payton governs the entry as to him and Stegald as to the resident. This entry satisfied Payton, and the suppression order is reversed. United States v. … Continue reading
CA3: USM had PC to believe decedent at home to enter to arrest despite his mother’s denials
Despite decedent’s mother’s apparent denial decedent was in the house, U.S. Marshals entered with an arrest warrant for him and probable cause to believe he was there. He died from a gunshot to the head, but the only evidence available … Continue reading
CA6: Clerk issued arrest warrant without judicial authority; not unreasonable unless no PC
That court clerks issue arrest warrants, but not acting as a neutral and detached magistrate, is not a constitutional violation unless the arrest was without probable cause. Plaintiffs, given four amendments to the complaint, never show that the arrest was … Continue reading
CA3: Payton’s “reason to believe” language from Payton/Steagald amounts to probable cause, noting conflict
Payton’s “reason to believe” language from Payton/Steagald amounts to probable cause, such that officers who have an arrest warrant for a suspect have to show “probable cause” that the suspect resides at or is present at a particular address before … Continue reading
W.D.Okla.: Ping order not subject to exclusionary rule under ECPA
A cell phone ping order allegedly in violation of ECPA was not subject to suppression. The warrantless entry into the house was justified by exigent circumstances. United States v. Banks, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 53876 (W.D.Okla. April 22, 2016). The … Continue reading
FL: Moran v. Burbine rejected under FL const.; due process right to have lawyer who showed up admitted for questioning
A person being questioned at the police station has a state due process right to know that a lawyer has shown up on his or her behalf, and the police have to let the lawyer in. Moran v. Burbine rejected … Continue reading
CA1: Prior arrest warrant and public records put subject of arrest warrant at address; sufficient under Payton
The police had good reason under Payton to believe that a man wanted in an arrest warrant would be found at defendant’s house: An outstanding arrest warrant listed that address, postal records showed he got mail there, and other public … Continue reading
CA8: Protective sweep of a camper was reasonable because another was inside when def was arrested
Defendant was supposed to sell methamphetamine from his camper at a campsite to an undercover officer, but he declined, so the officer attempted to arrest him outside the camper on an outstanding warrant and he fled. He went to the … Continue reading