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- FL5: State failed to show justification for delay for dog sniff
- TechCrunch: US accuses American of allegedly wiping his phone using a ‘duress’ password during border search
- MI: Possession of MJ that’s only a civil infraction doesn’t justify search of car under automobile exception
- NY1: 911 call about shooting in apartment building led officers to def’s apartment and exigency justified entry
- UT: Failure to include nighttime search request in SW in violation of rule didn’t require suppression
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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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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
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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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (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.S.D.: Tribal officers governed by 4A and Indian Civil Rights Act
“The Fourth Amendment, not ICRA, applies here. For one thing, BIA officers are federal officers empowered by federal statute to act. For another, even if Dillon and Flute subjectively believed they were enforcing tribal law—which the Court is convinced of—they … Continue reading
D.Minn.: The fact a gun wasn’t found in def’s car doesn’t mean there wasn’t PC to search
“Defendant’s flight from law enforcement is, however, not the only basis to support the existence of probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime or contraband would be found in the Jeep. The probable cause to search the Jeep … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: The alleged illegality of the later arrest doesn’t undo def’s abandonment in flight
Defendant fled, he said, in fear of his life, not knowing that it was the police. He abandoned property in flight. The fact the later arrest might turn out to be invalid doesn’t undo the abandonment. United States v. Ross, … Continue reading
FL5: Dog alert on MJ before case law said it wasn’t PC anymore was in good faith
Newer cases hold that a drug dog can’t differentiate between legal and illegal marijuana, so a dog alert doesn’t provide probable cause. Where the dog sniff occurred before that holding, however, it was reasonable under the good faith exception. Ford … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: Suppression not remedy for knock-and-announce violation
Suppression is not the remedy for a knock-and-announce violation. United States v. Bello, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 236255 (E.D. Tex. Dec. 19, 2024),* adopted, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2332 (E.D. Tex. Jan. 7, 2025).* Defendant had no standing to question … Continue reading
CA7: Concession of PC in USDC bars this claim
“On appeal, Birkley does not contest the district court’s reasons for dismissing the case, including its rationale that Birkley failed to state a claim because he conceded at his preliminary hearing that the police had probable cause for their actions. … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Honest mistake in affidavit attempted to be corrected but no Franks violation here
The search warrant was in the S.D. Tex., and the affiant found a mistake before it was finalized that he communicated to the AUSAs involved. The correction, however, wasn’t made before he signed it, and he didn’t notice it. When … Continue reading
PA: Arrest on a warrant requires the warrant be proved to exist
When an arrest warrant is served, it disappears from the system. Its existence can still be proved by someone with knowledge, but here it wasn’t. Therefore, the fruits of the arrest are suppressed for lack of proof of a valid … Continue reading
M.D.Ga.: Riverside/Gerstein violation doesn’t justify suppression of evidence seized on arrest
A Riverside/Gerstein violation of not timely presenting probable cause to a magistrate doesn’t justify suppressing the evidence from the arrest. United States v. Jackson, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 234511 (M.D. Ga. Dec. 31, 2024):
NY Monroe Co.: The constitution doesn’t apply to citizen’s arrest
In a citizen’s arrest, if the citizen, not a law enforcement officer, violates the constitution or statute, the arrest will not be suppressed for that reason alone. His statement to an officer captured on video will not be suppressed because … Continue reading
AR: LA judge could issue SW for LA medical records for AR crime
After an accident in South Arkansas, defendant was airlifted to a hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana. A search warrant in Louisiana was issued for his medical records. There was no requirement that an Arkansas judge issue a warrant first, just so … Continue reading
CA6: Arrest based on unreliable eyewitness violates clearly established law
“Our precedent holds that it was clearly established that an officer may not arrest an individual based solely on an eyewitness account that is untruthful or unreliable. That is exactly what happened here when Officer Wieber learned that the prior … Continue reading
CA8: Car on car hauler’s tractor trailer still mobile for automobile exception
Defendant shipped a car on a car hauler paying in advance. All things considered, the hauler suspected drugs were involved because it had happened to him before. He called HSI which came to investigate. On the totality, there was probable … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Opening car door during stop requires RS
Opening a car door during a traffic stop requires reasonable suspicion and is governed by Terry. On the totality, officers had it based on a detailed BOLO. United States v. Crumbley, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 189567 (N.D. Ga. Oct. 18, … Continue reading
IA: A brief detention at the scene is not “arrest” for speedy trial purposes
“Arrest” for speedy trial purposes doesn’t include a brief detention at the scene before the actual arrest. State v. Harris, 2024 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 79 (Oct. 4, 2024). Defendant satisfied his first Franks burden of a substantial preliminary showing of … Continue reading
OH1: “Suspicious vehicle” report didn’t justify stop when it drove off as officers were looking at it
Officers had a report of a suspicious vehicle on an apartment complex parking lot. They stopped and shined lights on it and looked. After about a minute, the vehicle drove off. The stop was without reasonable suspicion and was a … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: A state court dispute over return of seized property held by feds heading toward contempt was removable to federal court
Defendant’s property was seized under a state search warrant. Defendant sought return in state court, but it had been transferred to federal officers. They refused return. Contempt was sought against the federal officers in state court and this was removable … Continue reading
D.P.R.: REP in workplace isn’t automatic; here there wasn’t any in a postal sorting area
A reasonable expectation of privacy in one’s workspace is not automatic. Here it was a postal worker in a sorting area, and that wasn’t private. United States v. Alarcón-Rodríguez, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 175916 (D.P.R. Sep. 25, 2024).* “Because a … Continue reading
D.Minn.: A cell phone tracking order was permitted where there was an arrest warrant for defendant
“Despite a dearth of binding precedent, this Court is satisfied that the existence of an active arrest warrant provides a sufficient basis for a magistrate judge to find probable cause to issue a tracking warrant allowing law enforcement to monitor … Continue reading