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- USA Today: Cell phone SW for cause of crash
- Treatise on sale to 11/1
- 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
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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: Plain view, feel, smell
VI: Smell of MJ no longer PC in VI since legalization
Since marijuana is legal in the Virgin Islands, the smell of marijuana from a car is no longer probable cause for a search. People v. Thomas, 2026 V.I. LEXIS 44 (Super. Ct. Oct. 6, 2026). Petitioner does not get a … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Second SW for cell phone data retained by govt was valid
This is a second motion to suppress a cell phone search, the first having been denied. A copy of the phone remains with the government, the phone having been returned. The first warrant to review the contents was for human … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Rule 41(g) petition for return of property granted; original seizure in NYC and Louisiana investigation hasn’t concluded
This is a Rule 41(g) petition for return of electronics seized by HSI in NYC on a Louisiana warrant for a Louisiana investigation, but no charges yet. HSI doesn’t support the basis for the seizure and hasn’t produced the warrant … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Car in driveway was on curtilage and plain view prohibited
Defendant backed into his driveway and that was curtilage. The police had neither a warrant nor exigent circumstances to come and look at his car to justify a plain view of an open container than led to finding a gun. … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: Warrantless arrest at door for CSAM didn’t support plain view seizure of cell phone
Officers came to defendant’s house without an arrest or search warrant to arrest him for a CSAM offense. He answered the door in his underwear. They asked about cell phone and saw it and seized it. Payton applies, and the … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Odor of burnt visible MJ is sufficient under federal law to establish PC
The odor of burnt marijuana and visible marijuana is sufficient under federal law to establish probable cause. United States v. Brewer, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 197712 (E.D. Mich. Sep. 1, 2026). Defendant’s Franks challenge that the CIs were liars fails–the … Continue reading
CA10: Def’s BO suggesting heroin abuse added to RS
The officer here detected defendant’s body odor as coming from heroin use, despite his lack of specific training. That was enough to order defendant out of the car and reasonable suspicion developed. United States v. Marshall, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Obtaining def’s juvenile records by subpoena is not a “search”; no REP
The government’s subpoena for defendant’s juvenile case records is granted. The government can show relevance and admissibility at trial. Defendant focuses on his Fourth Amendment claim which is rejected. No case says there is a reasonable expectation of privacy against … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Possibility of co-conspirators in mass murder justified emergency disclosure request to Apple, Verizon, and Facebook
In the Buffalo Tops Grocery mass shooting, the emergency disclosure request to Apple, Facebook, and Verizon was based on the possibility there were coconspirators. Even though defendant’s manifesto said he was acting alone, investigators didn’t have to take that at … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: Looking over ptf’s fence violated no REP
Looking over a fence into plaintiff’s yard violated no reasonable expectation of privacy. Henry v. Pinal Cty. Cmty. Coll. Dist., 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 97301 (D. Ariz. May 4, 2026). Defendant was arrested on an outstanding murder warrant, and the … Continue reading
CA3: Smell of MJ but none found can still be PC
The smell of marijuana is probable cause even if none is found in the subsequent search. The absence of marijuana only mitigates the probable cause, not eliminate it. United States v. Loveings, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 17330 (3d Cir. June … Continue reading
MA: When a likely Franks violation comes out at trial, def gets to reopen the suppression issue
When a likely Franks violation comes out at trial, defendant gets to reopen the suppression issue. Here, the officer’s false statement he was present for a third controlled buy satisfied Franks and was excised. Defense counsel showed that it couldn’t … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: No constitutional obligation for officers to keep investigating past having PC
“To the extent that Plaintiffs’ claim is based on Defendant Pelham’s failure to conduct a more thorough investigation before seeking a warrant, it likewise fails. Plaintiffs allege that Defendants ‘failed to undertake minimally adequate investigative steps before seeking a warrant[.]’ … Continue reading
CA10: Officer’s peering through 1″ gap in curtains from outside was plain view
Denial of rehearing en banc: United States v. Watkins, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 13495 (10th Cir. May 11, 2026),* denial of rehearing en banc from United States v. Watkins, 156 F.4th 1049 (10th Cir. 2025):
D.D.C.: PO’s alleged violation of probation regulations doesn’t warrant suppression if a reasonable mistake
Even if GPS monitoring by a Community Supervision Officer under D.C. law violated regulations, a reasonable mistake of law (Heien) overcomes the violation, and it is not suppressed. United States v. White, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 92214 (D.D.C. Apr. 27, … Continue reading
E.D.Okla.: Plain view of firearms under protective sweep sustained under Buie’s first prong
The plain view of firearms occurred under Buie’s first scenario, but not the second because it involved a search for a person and continued thereafter. Still, it’s sustained. United States v. McCary, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 91328 (E.D. Okla. Apr. … Continue reading
IA: Bodycam and dashcam videos undermined claim of plain view
The bodycam and dashcam videos show that the officer could not have made the plain view he claims he did of a portion of a gallon-sized Ziplock bag in defendant’s waistband. A clear video can even undermine trial court credibility … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: No IAC for not challenging search without standing
“In view of Dunnigan’s self-professed lack of any interest in or connection to the premises searched, Dunnigan’s attorney cannot be faulted for failing to challenge a search for which his client lacked standing to challenge.” United States v. Dunnigan, 2026 … Continue reading
AL: No RS for pulling up behind legally parked car with blue lights on to inquire; smell of MJ suppressed
There was no reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop in a residential neighborhood when he was lawfully parked and doing nothing wrong. The officer pulled behind him with emergency lights on. That’s not always a seizure, but here it was. When … Continue reading