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- MD: While protective sweep information made it into SW affidavit, there was PC without it
- N.D.Ga.: A Customs forensic search of a cell phone away from the border was still a border search
- 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
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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Outline of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (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
D.R.I.: Receiving three packages from China over time was not probable cause
Defendant received three packages over time from China and the Postal Inspector admitted there was no probable cause after receipt of the second, and the court finds there wasn’t for the third either. China may be an exporter of controlled … Continue reading
MA: CSLI seized before state law clarified; remanded
CSLI was seized: one defendant five days worth, another seven days worth. State case law all developed after that happened, so remanded to reconsider the CSLI under those cases. Commonwealth v. Tewolde, 2015 Mass. App. LEXIS 156 (October 1, 2015). … Continue reading
FL2: PC to arrest included knowledge of evidence on iPhone, so phone could be seized on exigent circumstances
Police had probable cause to arrest defendant for sex offenses with children, and the PC included the fact that his smartphone contained images of the crimes. When he was arrested, there was exigency for seizing his cell phone pending a … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: When a cotenant with authority consents, the officers do not have to seek out the “target” for his consent
When a cotenant with authority consents, the officers do not have to seek out the “target” for his consent, too. United States v. Morales, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125085 (S.D.Fla. September 18, 2015), R&R 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125086 (S.D.Fla. … Continue reading
IN: A protective sweep was justified when officers were told they were alone in a house and another man was glimpsed
Officers acting on a drug tip conducted surveillance of a home. They finally came for a knock-and-talk and were admitted by somebody with apparent authority. Once inside, officers were told the people they saw in the living room were all … Continue reading
D.P.R.: 6-8 hour old information a fugitive was in a house was too old to be relied upon for entry into home; no exigency
“[T]he officers’ belief that the fugitive was hiding in a home in Trinidad’s neighborhood consists of — to our knowledge — an imprecise, uncorroborated tip from a confidential informant whose reliability this court ignores. In fact, officer Negron readily admitted … Continue reading
CA11: Reaching into a house to effect a Terry stop without exigent circumstances violates the Fourth Amendment; but qualified immunity here
Reaching into a house to effect a Terry stop without exigent circumstances violates the Fourth Amendment. “Dorothy may have said it best when she said, ‘There is no place like home.’ Though we are pretty sure that she was not … Continue reading
IN: Parent can consent to search of minor child’s bedroom
“As a matter of first impression in Indiana, we hold that it is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment for an officer to rely on the voluntary consent of a minor’s parent to search the minor’s bedroom inside the parent’s home.” … Continue reading
ID: Def was arrested twice without a complaint or probable cause for contempt; reversed
Defendant was arrested twice, both times without probable cause or a complaint being filed. For that and other reasons, defendant’s finding of contempt is reversed. State v. Juarez, 2015 Ida. LEXIS 235 (September 9, 2015):
MD: Dragnet search of 21 apts looking for a shooter was unreasonable
For an exigent entry into a dwelling, probable cause is required. Here, police intended to search every apartment in two buildings looking for a shooter, and there was no probable cause as to any particular unit. They searched 21 apartments … Continue reading
M.D.La.: Search incident couldn’t be used to justify search here days after the controlled buy that gave cause
The search incident doctrine can’t be used to justify a search incident to a warrantless arrest days after the event that gave the probable cause. The arrest can’t be manipulated like that. An arrest warrant could certainly have issued, but … Continue reading
M.D.La.: Payton-Steagald violation in entry of def’s home looking for another suppressed
Officers entered a defendant’s home without a search warrant looking for another person. The entry violated Payton and Steagald and it is suppressed. United States v. Harris, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 110292 (M.D.La. August 19, 2015):
TN: Officer outside jurisdiction can still make arrest as a citizen’s arrest
Defendant’s arrest outside the officer’s jurisdiction is still justified by state law permitting citizen’s arrest. State v. Wilburn, 2015 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 672 (August 21, 2015): As a private citizen, Officer Croce was authorized to stop and arrest Defendant … Continue reading
TPM: How New York Ended Up With 1.2 Million Open Arrest Warrants
TPM: How New York Ended Up With 1.2 Million Open Arrest Warrants by Allegra Kirkland:
ME: Sufficient evidence supported searching passengers, too
Based on information that defendants’ car had drugs heading into Maine, the car was stopped and the occupants searched. It was all with probable cause, and Pringle controls the search of the passengers because it was reasonable to believe they … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: Lack of an arrest warrant does not mean they didn’t have probable cause
Officers had probable cause to arrest defendant for child pornography before the search warrant was executed on his place. The lack of an arrest warrant does not mean they didn’t have probable cause. United States v. Ruiz, 2014 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
DC: Persistent questioning for ten minutes without RS was a seizure
Officers entered an apartment building hallway in SE Washington, and the smell of burnt marijuana was pervasive. They’d seen that before in the same building. None of the four they encountered, however, were seen smoking. Defendant was questioned persistently about … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Reaching in def’s door to grab him and pull him out to arrest was based on PC and exigency of threat of violence
Officers received a call about defendant having a sawed off shotgun and pointing it at somebody. They had enough information to be probable cause. They went to defendant’s house to arrest, and defendant came to the door but wouldn’t come … Continue reading