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- M.D.Fla.: Unidentified pills in driver’s lap may have been RS but it wasn’t PC for arrest
- D.C.Cir.: It was reasonable for officers to conclude that evidence or instrumentalities of the crime would be found in the car used in a robbery
- CA7: Officer’s warrantless view of CSAM flagged by hash value was not unreasonable
- 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
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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
MA: No reasonable expectation of privacy in sneakers defendant allowed to keep in jail
Defendant was allowed to keep his sneakers when he was checked into the jail, but there was no right to keep them. The police showed up with a search warrant for his clothing in jail property. That included the sneakers. … Continue reading
Search warrant is not required for a DUI breath test
A search warrant is not required for a DUI breath test. United States v. Millner, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72645 (D.Md. June 3, 2015); Williams v. State, 2015 Fla. App. LEXIS 8566 (Fla. 5th DCA June 5, 2015).
TX1: A police officer contemplating a blood draw by search warrant is not obligated to inquire into the medical history of the suspect to predetermine reasonableness
A police officer contemplating a blood draw by search warrant is not obligated to inquire into the medical history of the suspect to predetermine reasonableness. Dromgoole v. State, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 5662 (Tex. App. – Houston (1st Dist.) June … Continue reading
Time: Feds Unveil Technology to Create ‘World Without Drunk Driving’
Time: Feds Unveil Technology to Create ‘World Without Drunk Driving’ by Dan Kedmey: Road safety advocates converged on Congress Thursday to promote a new set of blood alcohol sensors that could prevent drivers from operating their vehicles while intoxicated. The … Continue reading
AR: State implied consent law doesn’t bar SW for blood, following weight of authority
State law on implied consent states that a refusal means “no [other] test will be given” but that does not preclude a search warrant for blood, following the weight of authority. Metzner v. State, 2015 Ark. 222, 2015 Ark. LEXIS … Continue reading
KY: Defendant who refused consent for blood test and got no breath test has no Fourth Amendment claim that he wasn’t breath tested
Defendant was stopped for traffic offenses and smelled of alcohol. He refused consent to search his blood for his BAC, and the officer did not offer him a breath test. Thus, he had no “standing” because of no injury in … Continue reading
OR: PC for the automobile exception is not the same argument as car wasn’t mobile, so it’s waived for appeal
Defendant’s argument that there was not probable cause for the automobile exception is different from the issue of the automobile exception does not apply because the car was not mobile. Thus, it is not preserved for appeal. State v. Brock, … Continue reading
The Constitution doesn’t stop most legislatures making a point
Texas Tribune: Senate Approves Drug Testing for Political Candidates by Matthew Watkins: Any candidate seeking elected office in Texas would be required to take a drug test when he or she files to run, under a proposal that the state … Continue reading
Nat’l Law Rev.: Florida Governor Settles Litigation Over Drug Testing of State Workers
Nat’l Law Rev.: Florida Governor Settles Litigation Over Drug Testing of State Workers by Roger S. Kaplan: Litigation that began over a 2011 Executive Order (11-58) by Florida Governor Rick Scott requiring drug tests for all prospective employees and random … Continue reading
Inquisitr: Georgia County Will Randomly Drug Test Students
Inquisitr: Georgia County Will Randomly Drug Test Students: A Georgia county will randomly drug test students beginning in the 2015-2016 school year. The move has many asking if it is a constitutional violation. Based on previous Supreme Court rulings, though, … Continue reading
CO: Unconscious def’s impending treatment at hospital was exigency for warrantless blood draw
“In this interlocutory appeal, the People seek review of the trial court’s order suppressing the results of a blood draw taken from the defendant. The trial court found that a warrant was required before the police could order a blood … Continue reading
NC: Open container in plain view permitted a search incident for more evidence
Defendant’s stop led to plain view of an open container. That justified a search incident for more because, after all, the console could hold beer cans, even if the officer could have merely issued a citation. State v. Fizovic, 2015 … Continue reading
E.D.Wash.: SW for taking blood presumes that it will be tested, too, and the warrant doesn’t need to specify
A warrant for taking blood presumes that it will be tested, too, and the warrant doesn’t need to specify. A Washington state case saying otherwise is not followed. In any event, it would be in good faith to have tested … Continue reading
KS: Davis GFE applied to a blood draw process valid at time but later held unconstitutional
Defendant was involved in a head-on accident and was unconscious at the hospital when his blood was drawn. The good faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies because, at the time of the blood draw, it was lawful under state … Continue reading
GA: Implied consent rejected in Georgia under McNeely; actual consent is required.
Implied consent rejected in Georgia under McNeely. Actual consent is required. “Nevertheless, sister states have considered statutory implied consent as an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement in the wake of McNeely, and have reached varying conclusions as to … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Unverified tip didn’t justify a drug test of a public employee
“In this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action, Plaintiff claims that his employer ordered him to undergo a urine drug test without reasonable suspicion that he had used drugs on the job, in violation of his Fourth Amendment right to be … Continue reading