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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)
--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (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
NYTimes Magazine: How a $2 Roadside Drug Test Sends Innocent People to Jail
NYTimes Magazine: How a $2 Roadside Drug Test Sends Innocent People to Jail by Ryan Gabrielson and Topher Sander: Widespread evidence shows that these tests routinely produce false positives. Why are police departments and prosecutors across the country still using … Continue reading
Argus Leader: Police use catheters, force to collect urine samples
Argus Leader: Police use catheters, force to collect urine samples by Mark Walker, Patrick Anderson and John Hult: Practice brought to light in recent case out of Pierre; AG says it’s not illegal Police in South Dakota are collecting urine … Continue reading
IA: Def’s search may have violated “plain feel” when drugs removed, but search incident would have occurred shortly
The search of defendant may have violated “plain feel” because the drugs in his pocket obviously weren’t a weapon, it was inevitably discovered because it was the product of a search incident for finding drugs on the car. Stephen v. … Continue reading
SCOTUS: Birchfield v. N.D.: refusing a blood test cannot result in charges
A breath test may be performed incident to an arrest without a warrant. A blood test requires a warrant or exigency. “Motorists may not be criminally punished for refusing to submit to a blood test based on legally implied consent … Continue reading
VT: Video recording of def’s telephone conversation with defense counsel required suppression of breath test
Defendant was in the room with the breath testing machine, and his telephone conversation with his lawyer was recorded. Recording was accidental, but defendant correctly believed that it was. This requires suppression of the breath test because his consultation with … Continue reading
D.V.I.: Citizen informant’s tip was corroborated by important details and justified stop
The citizen informant’s tip defendant was the person wanted in a carjacking was alone not enough to make a stop, but here it was corroborated by significant details. “Accordingly, considering the totality of the circumstances in this case, the Court … Continue reading
TX13: Suspending a DL for refusal of a blood test doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment
Suspending a DL for refusal of a blood test doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. Rankin v. Tex. Dep’t of Pub. Safety, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 5785 (Tex. App. – Corpus Christi – Edinburg June 2, 2016)*:
WA: DUI probationer’s condition of random UAs was reasonable
A DUI probationer’s probation condition of random UAs was reasonable “to ensure compliance with a probation condition prohibiting the consumption of alcohol, marijuana, or non-prescribed drugs.” Trial court erred in setting the condition aside. State v. Olsen, 2016 Wash. App. … Continue reading
TX: Two cases on exigency for warrantless blood draw for DUI
Cole v. State, 2016 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 84 (May 25, 2016) (dissent), found exigency, reversing the court of appeals. Defendant here drove 110 mph down a city street, ran a red light, and the ensuing accident resulted in a … Continue reading
Two on exigency and DUI blood draws
The record, including medical records from the hospital, support the trial court’s findings that defendant was alert and competent and consented to the blood draw. State’s exigency argument doesn’t need to be addressed. State v. Cooper, 2016-Ohio-3093, 2016 Ohio App. … Continue reading
OH9: Taking def’s purse from car as she’s going to jail and searching it justified by auto exception or inventory
When defendant was arrested, the officer took her purse out of the car so it could go to jail with her. The search of the purse was valid as inventory or under the automobile exception. Also, Ohio recognizes good faith … Continue reading
TX14: Dog sniff at apartment door was curtilage and violated Jardines
The use of a drug dog at defendant’s apartment door violated the Fourth Amendment. Defendant’s garage across the road is a different matter, but it doesn’t have to be decided. Officers showed PC for a search of defendant’s garage in … Continue reading
KS: State gets benefit of GFE in DUI cases in a post-McNeely stop but before state supreme court ruled
While McNeely was decided in April 2013 and defendant’s DWI stop was in September 2013, the state supreme court had not held the implied consent statute unconstitutional until later. Therefore, the good faith exception applied. State v. Kraemer, 2016 Kan. … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Rule 41(g) proceeding can’t be used to relitigate lost forfeiture
Rule 41(g) on return of property cannot be used to relitigate a final forfeiture order. United States v. Varnedoe, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55933 (M.D.Fla. April 26, 2016). Defendant’s warrantless blood draw was unlawful because defendant was presented with the … Continue reading
AZ: Davis GFE saved McNeely blood draw violation
The state failed to show that defendant consented to his blood draw, but Davis’s good faith exception saves the search here. State v. Valenzuela, 2016 Ariz. LEXIS 116 (April 26, 2016), rev’g 237 Ariz. 307, 350 P.3d 811 (App. 2015):
TN: No GFE for warrantless blood draw where no exigency at all
In a warrantless blood draw case under McNeely, the state argued for a good faith exception, analogizing the state’s new statutory good faith exception, which the court finds inapplicable. There simply was no exigent circumstance in this case to dispense … Continue reading
WaPo: Supreme Court hears arguments in drunken-driving cases
WaPo: Supreme Court hears arguments in drunken-driving cases by Robert Barnes: All states to some extent say that motorists suspected of drunken driving can lose their licenses by refusing to submit to an alcohol test. But North Dakota, Minnesota and … Continue reading
reason.com: Today at SCOTUS: Warrantless Drunk Driving Tests and the Fourth Amendment
reason.com: Today at SCOTUS: Warrantless Drunk Driving Tests and the Fourth Amendment by Damon Root: Today the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in three consolidated cases that pose the following question: “Whether, in the absence of a warrant, … Continue reading