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- D.Utah: Minor time detours to writing up a traffic ticket didn’t unreasonable extend this stop; the dog was quickly on its way
- KY: Despite lack of nexus, SW sustained under GFE
- CO: DNA could be seized from trash
- CA8: Nebraska statute allowing SWs to cross state lines doesn’t violate 4A
- WA: Sweat patch as condition of release violated state constitution’s privacy provision
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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)
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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: Drug or alcohol testing
PA: Reasonableness inquiry always required for warrantless blood draw
Trial court failed to make a reasonableness inquiry of whether the warrantless search of defendant’s blood was objectively reasonable. Reversed and remanded. Commonwealth v. Trahey, 2018 PA Super 72, 2018 Pa. Super. LEXIS 276 (Mar. 26, 2018):
CA10: Carelessly unloading watermelons from a box truck away from a loading dock and in middle of night with “nonsensical” answers was PC
Officers had probable cause to search defendants’ box truck. They were unloading watermelons in the middle of the night on wet grass and not at some loading dock coupled with all the unusual, vague, and even “nonsensical” excuses for why … Continue reading
OH12: Father’s admission of using heroin justified hair follicle testing in custody matter
The juvenile court did not abuse its discretion in ordering hair follicle testing of the father because of his admissions he’d used heroin. Hatfield v. Cornell, 2018-Ohio-798, 2018 Ohio App. LEXIS 840 (12th Dist. Mar. 5, 2018). Defendant’s Franks challenge … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Officers’ one minute discussion about def deciding what to do wasn’t being undiligent in pursuing their investigation
The officer here had reasonable suspicion defendant was carrying drugs, and the fact that another officer arrived and they talked about defendant for one minute didn’t show that they weren’t diligently following up in their investigation. United States v. Green, … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Protective sweep was unjustified and suppressed
The protective sweep here was unreasonable because the officers had no articulable facts at all that there was potentially anyone inside before entering. United States v. Rucker, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 33607 (W.D. N.Y. Mar. 1, 2018). “Mr. Huffman had … Continue reading
SD: Search incident doctrine doesn’t apply to driver’s urine samples
A urine sample can’t be taken from a suspect incident to an arrest. Nothing about the search incident doctrine of officer safety and destruction of evidence applies to urine samples. State v. Lar, 2018 SD 18, 2018 S.D. LEXIS 26 … Continue reading
OH5: Exigency for blood draw from accident at 1:30 am and hospitalization
Exigent circumstances existed which justified the warrantless draw of defendant’s blood. “The accident occurred at approximately 1:30 a.m. on May 8, 2016. After his initial contact with Appellant, Officer Lewis was unable to investigate further due to Appellant’s condition. Emergency … Continue reading
TN: Where BAC forensic testing budget depends on convictions, due process violated
A state fee for forensic testing of BAC in the TBI that depends on convictions is essentially a contingent fee for conviction. The TBI forensic team are not adjudicators in the Tumey–Ward due process analysis, but it is clear that … Continue reading
HI: Defendant could properly be prosecuted for refusing a breath test, but not a blood test
Defendant could properly be prosecuted for refusing a breath test, but not a blood test. State v. Wilson, 2018 Haw. App. LEXIS 25 (Jan. 26, 2018).* Defendant was a mere passenger in the car searched, and he lacks standing to … Continue reading
FL3: Warrantless blood test justified by exigency where it was 4:22 am Sunday and it would take 4 hours to get SW
Exigent circumstances justified a warrantless blood test because defendant’s accident occurred at approximately 4:22 a.m. on a Sunday, the accident was serious, resulting in an instantaneous death, defendant himself was seriously injured, taken to a hospital for treatment, and induced … Continue reading
TX13: The natural dissipation of alcohol in the blood alone is not exigency for a warrantless taking of blood
The natural dissipation of alcohol in the blood alone is not exigency for a warrantless taking of blood. State v. Ruiz, 2018 Tex. App. LEXIS 302 (Tex. App. – Corpus Christi – Edinburg Jan. 11, 2018). Defendant didn’t object to … Continue reading
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: High costs for refusing breathalyzer test among new Pennsylvania laws for 2018
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: High costs for refusing breathalyzer test among new Pennsylvania laws for 2018 by Matthew Santoni:
MN: Birchfield not retroactive
Application of Birchfield in Minnesota was determined to be procedural rather than substantive for purposes of retroactive effect. Johnson v. State, 2018 Minn. App. LEXIS 10 (Jan. 2, 2018). Defendant’s detention was with reasonable suspicion. “Considering the totality of the … Continue reading
OH6: Warrantless blood draw from believed to be dying motorcyclist valid
A warrantless blood draw from defendant was reasonable where, at the scene of his motorcycle accident on I-75 hitting the rear of a car when it was travelling approximately 102 in a 65 and killing his passenger throwing her 450′ … Continue reading
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
IL: ER dr. ordered forced catheterization from combative female for urine sample; wasn’t state action because two police officers helped hold her down
Defendant was involved in a vehicle accident and hospitalized. The ER doctor needed to know whether she was on drugs, and he ordered forced catheterization to get urine since defendant was combative. Two officers who also wanted to know whether … Continue reading
KS: PBT is a search subject to 4A
PBT is a search subject to the Fourth Amendment. State v. Robinson, 2017 Kan. App. LEXIS 89 (Dec. 22, 2017):