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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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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
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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
CO: Smell of MJ can still be factor in PC on totality, despite 1 oz being legal
OH11: Four hour delay to go to reported meth lab then smelling nothing meant no exigency
Officers received word that defendant had a meth lab at his house. They waited four hours to go there, and, when they did, they smelled nothing. Thus, there was no exigent circumstances. State v. Link, 2016-Ohio-4597, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Asking a question about a debit card during a plain view not unreasonable
The police were called to defendant’s apartment by a “scream filled 911 call” needing an ambulance. Once inside, in plain view, officers saw a debit card with a name that didn’t belong to the occupants. Asking about it did not … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Plain view doesn’t apply to a cell phone where the officers had to turn it on to make their view
Plain view doesn’t apply to a cell phone where the officers had to turn it on to make their view. United States v. Ramirez, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 190665 (D.Kan. March 26, 2013):
E.D.Mo.: 911 call of burglary in progress and open door with blood justified entry
911 received a burglary in progress report, and officers responded finding the door open and damaged, blood on the broken window, and the home alarm going off. Exigent circumstances permitted the entry because it was reasonable to infer that the … Continue reading
CA7: Excessive lighting at a traffic stop (which this really wasn’t) isn’t excessive force in a high crime area at night
Defendant’s car was parked within 15′ of a crosswalk, a violation of state law unless passengers were getting out. The officers saw no driver and nobody getting out, so they pulled up on the car and shined a light and … Continue reading
NJ: A rifle case on a felon’s porch seen in a protective sweep qualifies for plain view; its incriminating nature is immediately apparent
Defendant was arrested in his house, and a protective sweep of the porch was valid. In plain view was a rifle case, and defendant was a felon in possession. It was reasonable to seize the rifle. State v. Cope, 2016 … Continue reading
TN: GFE for McNeely issues has to come from state supreme court
Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals again declines to adopt a good faith exception for failure to comply with McNeely–that’s the state supreme court’s job. State v. Wilson, 2016 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 302 (April 21, 2016) (dissent).* An infant, through … Continue reading
CA3: Handle of a gun satisfies “immediately apparent” requirement of plain view
Defendant was stopped because the officer already knew that defendant was driving without a license. The search of the car was justified by the handle of a gun being in plain view sticking out from under the seat, and it … Continue reading
RI: Stop was pretextual; court doesn’t believe that officer smelled MJ
Defendant’s car was stopped on the RI turnpike for no seatbelts after being noticed at a toll booth. The stop was valid. The officer saw a pill bottle in a mesh holder on the driver’s door, and then he announced … Continue reading
OH11: Officers had reason to believe def at home; entry and plain view valid
Officers had an arrest warrant for defendant and knocked at her apartment door saying only “Sheriff’s Office.” A falsetto voice said “Ashley’s not here.” Officers responded “How do you know we’re looking for Ashley?” They were let in, and they … Continue reading
D.N.J.: Burden on motion to reconsider high because it leads to endless litigation; even so, def would lose on merits [just to avoid an IAC claim]
Defendant doesn’t show “new evidence, no change of law, and nothing the Court overlooked in denying the prior motion for suppression.” On the off chance that this could lead to a potential ineffectiveness challenge against former defense counsel, the court … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Def was a potential suspect in a series of robberies, and he gave cause for an exigent circumstances into a hotel room after he kicked in the door; plain view sustained
An Hispanic male wearing somewhat distinctive clothing committed four robberies around Tampa. Surveillance video put a vehicle at one of the robberies, and officers found it and surveilled it at a motel parking lot. A couple was around the vehicle … Continue reading
OH2: Police following you may be intimidating, but it’s not a seizure
Police following defendant may have been intimidating, but it wasn’t a seizure. He abandoned the drugs on him. State v. Ramey, 2016-Ohio-607, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS 689 (2d Dist. Feb. 19, 2016).* A convenience store clerk who called the police … Continue reading
NY: Seizure of bag of clothes at ER lacked any belief of connection to def’s shooting
Defendant came to a hospital ER with a gunshot wound, and the police were called. Defendant’s clothes were put in a clear plastic bag. Without any information about entrance or exit wounds and whether the clothes were evidence of a … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Cell phone likely had evidence on it and police saw it in plain view and could seize it to get SW
Defendant and his wife had an argument about him communicating with underage girls, and he left the house and she called the police. The phone was in plain view in the house, it had apparent evidence on it, and it … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Threshold arrest led to plain view and risk of destruction of evidence justifying entry
Officers had probable cause to arrest defendant at his house without a warrant, and they only crossed the threshold after seeing drug evidence in plain view when the door was opened, and defendant hesitated like he was going back in. … Continue reading
Fed.Cir.: Court of Federal Claims has no jurisdiction over challenges to criminal convictions
The Court of Federal Claims only has jurisdiction over money mandating provisions. It does not have jurisdiction over challenges to a criminal conviction. Thus, with no jurisdiction, there is no right to counsel on appeal. Omran v. United States, 2015 … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: No REP in CSLI
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his banking records and even in his CSLI. “Finally, Defendant cites persuasive authority holding that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in CSLI. See D.E. 51 at 29. However, none of … Continue reading