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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
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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: Ohio High School Plans to Drug-Test All Students at Least Once a Year
NYTimes: Ohio High School Plans to Drug-Test All Students at Least Once a Year by Derrick Bryson Taylor (“Research has shown that more than 37 percent of school districts have adopted drug-testing policies, but whether they lead to reduced rates … Continue reading
WI: Uncorroborated informant hearsay was strong enough to credit for probation search on RS
Wisconsin permits warrantless probation and parole searches on reasonable suspicion by any law enforcement officer. Officers had it here based on uncorroborated informant hearsay. The record also supports the trial court’s conclusion that the officer knew of the search condition … Continue reading
MO: Def’s blood draw while he was unconscious was proper under Mitchell
Defendant was unconscious after a single car accident and he smelled of alcohol. There was probable cause and the blood draw did not violate the Fourth Amendment under Mitchell v. Wisconsin. State v. Gray, 2019 Mo. App. LEXIS 1671 (Oct. … Continue reading
WA: Breath for BAC is not subject to search incident doctrine
Defendant was arrested for another reason, and police did a search incident of his breath for DUI. That’s not a proper purpose. City of Vancouver v. Kaufman, 2019 Wash. App. LEXIS 2616 (Oct. 15, 2019). The search warrant appears based … Continue reading
D.Md.: Failure to get a SW for BAC required suppression here; well established procedures were in place
A stop on a U.S. Park property led to a warrantless blood draw which is suppressed because there was no effort to get a warrant despite a well-known procedure in place to do so. “Further, the government’s argument that the … Continue reading
OR: Appeal of order of mother in juvenile case to provide UAs affirmed for an insufficient appellate record
The mother of a juvenile was ordered to give observed UAs as a part of a dependency-neglect proceeding. She didn’t provide a sufficient appellate record to decide whether the trial court’s order violated the state constitution, so it’s affirmed. Dep’t … Continue reading
TX remands blood draw from unconscious motorist under Mitchell v. Wisconsin
“Appellee was charged with felony driving while intoxicated after the State took a blood sample from him without a warrant and while he was unconscious. The trial court granted his motion to suppress his blood test results, and the court … Continue reading
TX3: Phlebotomist’s careless handling of blood draw that didn’t compromise test wasn’t enough to suppress just from alleged risk of infection that didn’t happen
“As the State admits, using a biohazard container as a workstation for a blood draw is not ideal. However, even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling, we conclude that Fikes failed to meet … Continue reading
TX3: State failed to show exigency for dispensing with BAC SW
The trial court did not err by granting defendant’s motion to suppress blood evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The State failed to prove that the warrantless blood draw was justified by exigent circumstances: the collision did not … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Transit worker in safety sensitive position could be drug tested for an “incident” short of an “accident”
The Boston MTA did not violate the Fourth Amendment by requiring a drug test of an employee involved in an “incident” short of an “accident.” The employee was in a safety sensitive position. Cabral v. Mass. Bay Transp. Auth., Boston … Continue reading
PA: Birchfield doesn’t prevent evidence of refusal
“[W]e conclude the ‘evidentiary consequence’ provided by Section 1547(e) for refusing to submit to a warrantless blood test — the admission of that refusal at a subsequent trial for DUI — remains constitutionally permissible post-Birchfield. We therefore affirm the order … Continue reading
PA: Refusal to submit to a test is admissible under Birchfield
“[W]e conclude the ‘evidentiary consequence’ provided by Section 1547(e) for refusing to submit to a warrantless blood test — the admission of that refusal at a subsequent trial for DUI — remains constitutionally permissible post-Birchfield. We therefore affirm the order … Continue reading
MN: Limited right to counsel before blood test doesn’t apply to SW blood draws
“The limited right to counsel established in Friedman v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 473 N.W.2d 828 (Minn. 1991), does not apply when an individual is asked to submit to a blood test pursuant to a warrant.” (Syllabus) State v. Rosenbush, … Continue reading
KS: Random suspicionless drug testing of any probationer is reasonable under special needs
Random suspicionless drug testing of any probationer (even those from nondrug cases), satisfied the Fourth Amendment and state constitution under special needs. State v. Hinnenkamp, 2019 Kan. App. LEXIS 44 (July 5, 2019):
Pacific Standard: West Virginia Will Now Provide Free Community College Tuition If Students Can Pass a Drug Test
Pacific Standard: West Virginia Will Now Provide Free Community College Tuition If Students Can Pass a Drug Test by Kelley Czajka: The program is the first in the country to introduce drug testing as an eligibility requirement.
SCOTUSblog: Opinion analysis: Court upholds warrantless blood tests for unconscious drunk-driving suspects
SCOTUSblog: Opinion analysis: Court upholds warrantless blood tests for unconscious drunk-driving suspects by Amy Howe: Yesterday a divided Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment generally does not bar states from taking a blood sample from an unconscious drunk-driving suspect … Continue reading
SCOTUS: Warrantless blood draw from unconscious driver not unreasonable
A warrantless blood draw from an unconscious driver who became unconscious by the time he arrived at the hospital was reasonable under a state law that permits warrantless BAC testing of those incapable of consent by implied consent. Remanded, however, … Continue reading
AZ: Choice of law, exclusionary rule, and GFE
“¶1 Don Jacob Havatone appeals from his convictions and sentences for two counts of aggravated driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor (‘DUI’), one count of aggravated assault, one count of endangerment, and four counts of misdemeanor assault. Because a … Continue reading
Misinformation as to consequences of refusal of BAC test violates 4A
“Vigen was not informed the refusal to take a urine test was a crime punishable in the same manner as driving under the influence as required by the legislature.” He can set aside his guilty plea. State v. Vigen, 2019 … Continue reading