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- VA: Search incident between def’s shorts and underwear was reasonable
- Reason: Border Cops Seize Nurse’s Phone Filled With Psychiatric Patient Information
- MI: Handcuffing uncooperative def at scene of accident wasn’t unreasonable
- S.D.Ga.: Def’s car in driveway next to sidewalk was not on curtilage
- S.D.Ind.: Post search database search of occupants of a place didn’t show SW affidavit was false at time it issued
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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: Plain view, feel, smell
DE: Facebook messages def was reselling MMJ was part of the PC
A medical marijuana provider told police that it appeared that defendant was reselling that which she acquired legally. They messaged her through Facebook as a potential buyer, and she essentially admitted it. The search warrant was issued on probable cause … Continue reading
CT: Seeing sawed off shotgun through van window justified opening it up to seize it
The officers here saw a sawed off shotgun through the windows of defendant’s van, and it was not unreasonable to use the key fob to open the door to seize it. State v. Ortiz, 2018 Conn. App. LEXIS 235 (June … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Gant didn’t bar a plain view of the interior of def’s car when he was handcuffed on ground
Defendant was arrested for drug dealing, and he was handcuffed on the ground near the car. The search of the car here was based on seeing a gun in the car in plain view, so Gant doesn’t bar the search. … Continue reading
NJ: Officer’s purpose in momentarily putting head in window of car was to hear def over road noise was not search; plain smell sustained
The officer momentarily put his head in the window of defendant’s car to better hear him, and then he smelled marijuana. The purpose of the intrusion was benign and not to conduct a search, and it was not unreasonable. State … Continue reading
VA: Gun in plain view left in car was seizable under Long
Defendant fled from a car, and a gun was in plain view in the car. The officer acted reasonably in searching the car to secure the firearm under Michigan v. Long [aside from abandonment of the car] because defendant could … Continue reading
AZ: Trial court didn’t make finding on Strickland IAC prejudice for failure to argue curtilage; remanded
Defense counsel deliberatedly didn’t make a claim officers violated curtilage in their initial entry to defendant’s property. The first search warrant application was rejected by one judge. The affidavit was redrafted with additional facts and presented to a second judge … Continue reading
N.D.Tex.: PV of short-barreled rifle and silencer was valid; incriminating nature immediately apparent
The incriminating nature of a short-barreled rifle and a homemade suppressor was immediately apparent for plain view purposes. United States v. Tidrow, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 81807 (N.D. Tex. May 15, 2018). “Prior to the stop of the vehicle, law … Continue reading
WY: Patdown led to plain feel of drugs in watch pocket
During a patdown, the officer felt what was likely drugs in the “coin pocket” (called a watch pocket) and it was immediately apparent to him. Therefore, plain feel applied. Maestas v. State, 2018 WY 47, 2018 Wyo. LEXIS 49 (May … Continue reading
W.D.Okla.: SW for vehicles and “appurtenances” didn’t include a car and camper 100′ from house off the curtilage
The search warrant for defendant’s dwelling included vehicles and “appurtenances” on the land. Defendant’s vehicle and camper were about 100′ from the dwelling, and the court finds they were not on the curtilage of the dwelling. Moreover, the good faith … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Envelopes seen in plain view during arrest suggested drug proceeds and was valid plain view
Officers had an arrest warrant and took defendant into custody. A protective sweep was done and plain view observations were made, including cash in envelopes. The plain view, but without mention of the cash, was used to get a search … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: A cell phone left in an abandoned car is also abandoned
A cell phone left in an abandoned car is also abandoned. United States v. Green, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75738 (E.D. Ky. May 4, 2018). The police had a search warrant for animal fighting for the dogs and papers for … Continue reading
PA: Def consented to recordings of jail calls, and this is an exception to the state wiretap statute
The trial court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law were completely wrong. Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy concerning his jail calls made over a television monitor and through a computer system. This was a case of consent … Continue reading
D.Neb.: The gov’t put def on notice standing was an issue, and def didn’t respond with proof; no standing
The government argued no standing. “Despite being on notice that standing was an issue, Defendant did not introduce evidence at the suppression hearing to establish his relationship to the property searched in this case.” Going to the merits anyway, defendant … Continue reading
W.D.N.C.: 2255 is not the place to first litigate a suppression motion
2255 petitioner can’t raise his search and seizure claim via post-conviction relief where there was no effort to pursue the issue in the case on the merits. Even if he could, he’d lose on the merits of the search because … Continue reading
MS: “Catch all” phrase in SW that permitted seizure of that which was found in plain view was merely a restatement of the plain view doctrine
A “catch all” phrase that permitted seizure of that which was found in the course of a valid search was merely a restatement of the plain view doctrine, and that doesn’t justify suppression. Defendant’s other scope of search claim was … Continue reading
AF: Inevitable discovery validated finding CP while looking for text messages with minor
The search authorization was valid for text messages between defendant and a supposed 14-year-old girl. The AFOSI investigator found child pornography in what was thus found to be plain view. Even if, arguendo, the officer was looking for child pornography, … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: SW was for drugs; a gun found was in plain view
The search warrant was for drugs and a gun was found. Guns are instruments of the drug trade. The warrant otherwise being valid, the finding of the gun was essentially in plain view. United States v. Pizarro, 2018 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
OH12: 911 call about OD permitted seizure of drugs and paraphernalia in plain view
Officers responded to a 911 call about an overdose. When they got in the house, drugs and paraphernalia were in plain view, and they could be seized. State v. Pettiford, 2018-Ohio-1015, 2018 Ohio App. LEXIS 1073 (12th Dist. Mar 19, … Continue reading
TN: After def’s arrest for assault with a knife, the apparent weapon was seen in plain view in def’s car
Defendant had been arrested after a stop for aggravated assault with a knife. When the officer looked in the car to secure it, he saw a knife in plain view, and its seizure was reasonable. State v. Stanley, 2018 Tenn. … Continue reading
OH8: A pill bottle search wasn’t plain view during execution of SW for firearms
The police had a search warrant for firearms, and, during execution of the warrant, the officers looked in a pill bottle. The state’s plain view argument is unavailing because it wasn’t immediately apparent to the officers. “We further find little … Continue reading