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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
Cert. granted: Mitchell v. Wisconsin: Warrantless blood draws from the unconscious
ScotusBlog: Mitchell v. Wisconsin, 18-6210 (granted Jan. 11, 2019). Issue: Whether a statute authorizing a blood draw from an unconscious motorist provides an exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. Posted here: WI: Drinking and driving until unconsciousness obviates def’s … Continue reading
CA11: Drug testing of substitute teacher applicants was reasonable
Drug testing of substitute teacher applicants was reasonable. School employment is different and protection of the environment of children is paramount. Friedenberg v. School Board of Palm Beach County, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 35905 (11th Cir. Dec. 20, 2018):
IL: Fatal accident alone not PC for blood draw; no exigency argued either
Just because defendant was involved in a fatal accident where his passenger died, there wasn’t probable cause for a blood draw. The state did not argue exigent circumstances below or on appeal, but that would also require probable cause. People … Continue reading
TX: Officers jumped the gun on facts for exigency based warrantless blood draw; suppression affirmed
Defendant was in a “catastrophic car crash” and was at the hospital. Officers suspected defendant had been driving under the influence. Medical treatment and IVs were expected, and a warrantless blood draw was done. It turned out that it was … Continue reading
National Law Review: With Wide-Spread Legalization of Marijuana, Has A Public Employer’s Ability to Test for Marijuana Gone up In Smoke?
National Law Review: With Wide-Spread Legalization of Marijuana, Has A Public Employer’s Ability to Test for Marijuana Gone up In Smoke? by Ryan P. Heiden:
NY1: Tossing backpack from car is waiver of REP
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a backpack he tossed from a car as he was being stopped by the police. (This conviction was February 2013; nearly six years being decided on appeal.) People v. Febo, 2018 N.Y. … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Govt showed basis to get SW for def’s blood to prove he wasn’t taking the oxy he was prescribed
Defendant’s oxycodone use was tipped to the police by an automated system that he was prescribed 50 oxys a day for five years [yet wasn’t dead]. “The indictment further alleges that from November 2012-November 2017, Defendant filled prescriptions on a … Continue reading
KS: Def was removed from a van and her purse left behind; it wasn’t subject to search incident
Defendant was sitting in a van when she was gotten out and then arrested. Her purse was left behind. Her purse was not subject to a search incident when she’d been handcuffed and led away. The state’s argument that inevitable … Continue reading
ME: First blood draw was potentially contaminated, so second was valid under exigent circumstances
The state showed by a preponderance of the evidence that there were exigent circumstances for a warrantless blood draw. Natural dissipation of alcohol alone is not an exigency under McNealy. The first blood draw was potentially contaminated, so a second … Continue reading
IN: Pirtle on advice of rights before person in custody asked for consent doesn’t apply to DRE
Defendant has no right to counsel before being asked for consent to a DRE. Pirtle on advice of rights before obtaining consent from a person in custody doesn’t apply here. Dycus v. State, 2018 Ind. LEXIS 564 (Oct. 3, 2018):
AZ: Exclusion not a remedy for violation of implied consent law
Exclusion of evidence for violation of the implied consent statute is not provided for by the statute nor required by the constitution. Soza v. Marner, 2018 Ariz. App. LEXIS 157 (Oct. 2, 2018):
CA7: Officer at trial twice referring to def as “target” of search wasn’t reversible where court ordered jury to disregard
A police officer at trial twice referred to defendant as the “target of a search warrant.” The first was on direct and ordered struck and the jury directed to disregard. It happened again during cross of the same witness. Same … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: RS started here with def’s justification for his actions on being a DEA informant
Defendant was validly stopped for a turn signal violation. During the stop, reasonable suspicion developed starting with defendant volunteering he was a DEA informant. United States v. Jackson, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 158598 (E.D. Ky. Sep. 18, 2018).* Defendant argued … Continue reading
NE: Shots fired at car led to officers seeing likely kicked in door and blood on doormat and that was exigency
Officers responded to a call about shots fired hitting a car, and, at defendant’s apartment building, defendant and his cohort fled when the police approached. Possible blood was found on his doormat, and the door had a boot mark that … Continue reading
OH5: Ptf stated claim for invasion of privacy that private drug tester had to observe genitalia
Plaintiff stated a claim for invasion of privacy that a private drug tester had to observe their genitals in a drug test. Lunsford v. Sterilite of Ohio, 2018-Ohio-3437, 2018 Ohio App. LEXIS 3725 (5th Dist. Aug. 27, 2018). “Failure to … Continue reading
NPR: The Pot Breathalyzer Is Here. Maybe
NPR: The Pot Breathalyzer Is Here. Maybe by Eric Westervelt: As legalization of recreational and medical marijuana continues to expand, police across the country are more concerned than ever about stoned drivers taking to the nation’s roads and freeways, endangering … Continue reading
MI: Def’s admission he took a sleeping pill before driving added to PC for his blood
The affidavit for the blood search warrant here included that defendant admitted taking some kind of sleeping pill before driving and getting in the accident. That was probable cause and the good faith exception applies in any event. People v. … Continue reading
ME: Def was about to go into surgery after suspected DWI and accident; warrantless blood draw was with exigency and PC
Defendant was in a serious accident, and he was about to go into surgery. The blood draw at the request of the police was with exigent circumstances and probable cause. State v. Palmer, 2018 ME 108, 2018 Me. LEXIS 111 … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Random drug testing of day care employees unreasonable
Random suspicionless government mandated drug testing of day care employees unreasonable because there is no compelling governmental interest. Ass’n of Indep. Sch. of Greater Wash. v. District of Columbia, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 70146 (D.D.C. April 20, 2018), reconsideration denied, … Continue reading