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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)
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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
IN: DRE exam requires warning of right to counsel under state const.
The Indiana Constitution recognizes a right to warning that counsel may be consulted of a person in custody before a consent search is sought in Pirtle v. State, 323 N.E.2d 634 (Ind. 1975). That has been held not to apply … Continue reading
OR: Mobility is all that’s required for auto. exception under state const. too
As long as the vehicle was mobile and there was probable cause, the automobile exception applies. “In sum, the automobile exception applies in this case because defendant’s car was mobile when officers encountered it in connection with defendant’s felony arrest … Continue reading
WA: Shareholder or officer of closely held corp has no personal privacy interest in corporate records under state constitution
“Paul Chase, shareholder and principal officer of Red Leaf Construction Inc., appeals the trial court’s partial denial of his motion to suppress Red Leaf’s bank records. A commissioner of this court granted discretionary review. We consider, as a matter of … Continue reading
NY4 declines to extend state const. and warrant requirement to CSLI
The state used CSLI and cell records on less than probable cause to connect defendant to a robbery victim. These are business records, and the court declines to extend a higher state constitutional standard to CSLI but recognizing that other … Continue reading
IN: Officers jumping over a locked gate to investigate a noise complaint was unreasonable under Indiana Constitution
Defendant was at a conservation club he was a member of, and, during a party at the club, members were shooting at a pizza box made into a target. Because it was a weeknight and late, a neighbor was disturbed … Continue reading
PA: Nexus not shown for house, and no GFE under state law: def arrested blocks from home with firearm, and that doesn’t mean more at home
Defendant shot at a cop and committed other felonies. He was sentenced to 66-132 years. He was arrested as a prohibited person with a firearm blocks from his home. The state showed no nexus to the house for other evidence … Continue reading
NJ: Failure of affidavit for SW to say which apartment was def’s was fatal error under state const.
There was a reasonable basis for finding probable cause that drug sales were occurring from defendant’s house, but the affidavit for the warrant failed to show which apartment in a 30 unit complex was his. Since New Jersey doesn’t recognize … Continue reading
PA: No REP in CI recorded video in def’s car during drug transaction; also, motion was out of time and should have been denied on that ground alone
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his car under the state constitution from a surreptitious silent video recording of a drug transaction. The trial court erred in granting it. Indeed, the filing of the motion to suppress on … Continue reading
HI: Fly-over of curtilage at 420′ violated REP under state constitution
Three fly-overs over the curtilage, one at 420′, was a violation of the Hawai’i Constitution, following the California Supreme Court in People v. Cook (1985). The Hawai’i Supreme Court differs from the Intermediate Court of Appeals on its analysis going … Continue reading
OH4: Knock-and-announce is not a 4A exclusion issue, and no justification shown for state const. to have different result
Failure to knock-and-announce was not a Fourth Amendment violation, and defendant gave no justification for extending the state constitution. State v. Robinson, 2017-Ohio-8274, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 4658 (4th Dist. Sept. 27, 2017). Defendant waived his knock-and-announce claim by not … Continue reading
PA: One def pleads state constitution and wins, one doesn’t and loses
Birchfield came down after the blood draw in this case. Defendant only pled the Fourth Amendment and did not cite the state constitution. There is no good faith exception to the Pennsylvania exclusionary rule, but there is to the federal, … Continue reading
OH follows Hudson on knock-and-announce under state constitution
The Ohio Supreme Court follows Hudson under the state constitution and holds that a violation of knock-and-announce does not justify suppression of the search. The state constitution has been applied more broadly than the Fourth Amendment on occasion, but not … Continue reading
WA: Homeless man had REP in his tent camping in park after hours
A homeless man camping in a tent in Vancouver, WA had a privacy interest in his closed tent even though he was camping after hours. State v. Pippin, 2017 Wash. App. LEXIS 2365 (Oct. 10, 2017):
Idaho rejects Heien mistake of law under state constitution
Idaho rejects Heien mistake of law under state constitution. State v. Pettit, 2017 Ida. App. LEXIS 75 (Sept. 29, 2017):
OR: Vehicle didn’t have to be seen moving before stop for automobile exception to apply (state constitution)
Defendant’s car didn’t have to be seen moving at the time of the stop for the automobile exception to apply. State v. Von Flue, 287 Ore. App. 798, 2017 Ore. App. LEXIS 1088 (Sept. 20, 2017)* (state constitution):
OR: Testing for semen in 9 yo girl’s underwear obtained by private search required a SW (under state constitution)
Defendant’s housekeeper’s finding likely semen in his 9 year old daughter’s underwear and turning it over to the authorities was a private search. “[T]esting of the underwear for semen was a ‘search’ under the Fourth Amendment because it significantly expanded … Continue reading
CA10: That search violated CO Const. was not an issue for federal court (on habeas)
Petitioner’s habeas argument that the search of his home violated the Colorado Constitution has nothing to do with a federal conviction where the search complied with the Fourth Amendment. In any event, he already lost on that issue in the … Continue reading
MA: Riley applies under state const. to digital cameras
A digital camera, like a cell phone, can be seized incident to an arrest, but it can’t be searched without a warrant. While SCOTUS hasn’t applied Riley to digital cameras, the state constitution here affords the same protection to digital … Continue reading
CO: In this recreational MJ use state, a dog sniff is a “search,” and a positive alert isn’t PC a crime is occurring
Use of a drug dog on a car is a “search” in marijuana recreational use Colorado, and a dog alert which could be of either legal or illegal substances is not probable cause. People v. McKnight, 2017 COA 93, 2017 … Continue reading