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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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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)
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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) -
“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: State constitution
GA: Where state constitution or statute are recognized to be susceptible to a broader interpretation than the 4A, appellant has to show why or how; otherwise, it’s waived
Defendant also relies on the state constitution as well as statute in addition to the Fourth Amendment. “However, Hinkson makes no argument that state law provides a rule substantively different as applied to this case from that of the Fourth … Continue reading
MT: Private actor recording conversation on own didn’t violate state constitution
The Montana Constitution’s more “robust protection from government intrusions” still only protects against state action. A private actor recording a conversation without impetus from the state was not unreasonable. State v. Wolfe, 2020 MT 260, 2020 Mont. LEXIS 2436 (Oct. … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Defense counsel not ineffective for challenging state search under state constitution and not 4A too
Defense counsel was not ineffective for making a state constitutional challenge to his search and not a Fourth Amendment one. If anything, the state challenge would have potentially provided him a better chance at relief, but it ultimately didn’t. If … Continue reading
Massachusetts SJC revises and loosens its standard for claiming racial motivation for traffic stops under state constitution
Massachusetts SJC revises and loosens its standard for claiming racial motivation for traffic stops under state constitution. Commonwealth v. Long, 2020 Mass. LEXIS 520 (Sept. 17, 2020):
WA: Ruse text messages with known contact violated state REP
A ruse police text message exchange with defendant with one of his known contacts violated his reasonable expectation of privacy under the state constitution’s right of privacy. State v. Bowman, 2020 Wash. App. LEXIS 2463 (Sept. 8, 2020):
AK: Aerial surveillance of a residential backyard to photograph it with a telephoto lens violates the state constitution
Aerial surveillance of a residential backyard to photograph it with a telephoto lens violates the Alaska Constitution where the landowner took precautions to protect his privacy at ground-level. McKelvey v. State, 2020 Alas. App. LEXIS 71 (Sept. 4, 2020):
Cal.: Defense SDT for Facebook account of shooting victim remanded for reconsideration under standards of state constitution of victim’s privacy rights
In a California specific holding, a criminal defense subpoena to Facebook for a shooting victim’s Facebook account (private and public) made enough of a sufficient showing of necessity to get a remand for consideration of the factors that justify intrusion … Continue reading
Massachusetts holds long term pole camera surveillance of one’s home can violate REP and state constitution
Long term surveillance of defendant’s homes with pole cameras wasn’t a Fourth Amendment violation but it could violate the Massachusetts Constitution. Two defendants show a reasonable expectation of privacy under a “mosaic theory” which has been recognized in Massachusetts. Remanded … Continue reading
PA: State waived challenge to def’s reliance on state constitution
The state waived its challenge to the defendant’s reliance on the state constitution by failure to litigate it below. Waiver claims have to be applied evenhandedly between the state and defendants. Commonwealth v. Wolfel, 2020 Pa. LEXIS 3797 (July 21, … Continue reading
Law Rev. article: State-Constitutional Departures From the Supreme Court: The Fourth Amendment
LaKeith Faulkner & Christopher R. Green, State-Constitutional Departures From the Supreme Court: The Fourth Amendment, 89 Miss. L.J. _ (2020). Abstract:
NM declines to adopt third-party doctrine in bank records under state constitution
“In this opinion we address whether, pursuant to Article II, Section 10 of the New Mexico Constitution, defendants Ismael and Angela Adame (the Adames) had a reasonable expectation of privacy in personal financial records maintained by their banks. We hold … Continue reading
MI Const. search and seizure provision is not coextensive with 4A
The Michigan Supreme Court sets aside part of a Court of Appeals decision that says that the Michigan Constitution’s search and seizure provision is coextensive with the Fourth Amendment because it’s not. Otherwise, it declines review of the decision. People … Continue reading
TX14: Vehicle coming back as “no record” in database check is RS for stop
The fact defendant’s vehicle came back as “no record” from the Texas law enforcement databases was reason for a stop as unlicensed. After the valid stop, defendant consented. Villarreal v. State, 2020 Tex. App. LEXIS 3180 (Tex. App. – Houston … Continue reading
OR: Asking about drugs in car during an “unavoidable lull” in traffic stop was unreasonable under state constitution
Asking about drugs in the car during an “unavoidable lull” in the stop was unreasonable under the state constitution under Arreola-Botello. State v. McBride, 303 Ore. App. 292, 2020 Ore. App. LEXIS 433 (Apr. 1, 2020), on remand from 366 … Continue reading
FL2: Anonymous calls about a pick-up truck driving slowly around the block in the middle of the night in a residential low crime area wasn’t RS
Officers received two anonymous calls about a dark pickup truck with a loud muffler on a residential street in the middle of the night. Once it stopped in the street for a few seconds and then pulled off and turned … Continue reading
KY declines to reject Hodari D. under state constitution
Kentucky’s state constitution’s search provision is based on Pennsylvania’s. Pennsylvania has rejected Hodari D. under state law. Kentucky declines to do so, too. Hunter v. Commonwealth, 2019 Ky. LEXIS 434 (Oct. 31, 2019). Post-conviction petitioner’s cell phone search issue had … Continue reading
IA: Failure to get ruling on state constitutional claim was waiver
Defendant barely raised the state constitutional claim below and why it should be different than the Fourth Amendment claim and in her briefing, but the issue was not decided below so it wasn’t preserved for review. State v. Lasley-Eakins, 2019 … Continue reading
OH4: Heien good faith mistake of fact doesn’t apply to a stop under a completely inapplicable ordinance
Defendant’s stop was unreasonable, and Heien’s good faith mistake of fact doesn’t apply. The city code provision dealt with turning at intersections, and the officer stopped defendant for turning into a driveway which is not an “intersection.” State v. Ware, … Continue reading