Archives
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Recent Posts
- CA2: No 4A requirement for SWs being issued with notice to target
- CA6: Denying ptf access to his own bathroom during a search of his house stated 4A claim
- W.D.Mo.: Not exactly following the inventory policy doesn’t make it unreasonable under 4A
- GA: No IAC for not challenging complete cell phone download before search
- DNYUZ: CBP Workers Allegedly Used Government Databases to Spy on Exes, Crushes, and Colleagues
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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)
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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: Probation / Parole search
CA6: Individual officer not responsible for process that denied ptf prompt PC hearing under Riverside
While an arrested person has a right to a prompt judicial determination of probable cause for the arrest, it’s not necessarily on the officer to get the person before a magistrate. “[I]t was not objectively unreasonable for Wynkoop to expect … Continue reading
D.Conn.: Flight from the police with abandonment of stuff obviates the need to decide RS for the stop
Defendant’s flight from the police and abandonment of items in flight was not while he was “seized.” Thus, the need to decide reasonable suspicion for a stop is obviated. United States v. Sockwell, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 215294 (D.Conn. Nov. … Continue reading
KS: Officer did not have to rely on def’s representation AW was being withdrawn; dispatch confirmed it was still valid before arrest
There was an arrest warrant for defendant, but it was vacated by the issuing court eight hours after defendant’s arrest. Defense counsel was trying to get it vacated at the time. “Here, Rollf testified that under department policy, after dispatch … Continue reading
GA: Probationer was unreasonably detained as suspect in a crime where he didn’t match
The state failed in its burden of proof that defendant was lawfully stopped and then detained as a possible suspect in a crime even though he was a probationer. His clothing didn’t match. It was prolonged way past its justification. … Continue reading
AR: GFE applies to dispatch saying there was a search waiver when there apparently wasn’t
The officer relied in good faith, as in Herring, upon dispatch saying that defendant had a probation search waiver on file. She argued that she had a suspended sentence and never agreed to a search waiver and the suspended sentence … Continue reading
M.D.Ga.: Def had standing at the address he gave his PO
Defendant listed the address searched with his PO. That gives him standing. Probation had reasonable suspicion for the search of that place. United States v. Shearry, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 204764 (M.D.Ga. Oct. 25, 2021). Defendant was a frequent visitor … Continue reading
CA7: Parole search of cell phone doesn’t require SW
Riley doesn’t require a search warrant for a parole search of a cell phone. The arrest was for drugs and the cell phone search found child pornography, and it is not suppressed. United States v. Wood, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Doctor had no REP in hospital’s patient records
A doctor working at a hospital had no reasonable expectation of privacy in patient records in the hospital’s computer system. United States v. Evers, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 200425 (M.D.Pa. Oct. 18, 2021). While a probationer is subject to broad … Continue reading
NY: Failure to swear to facts of standing dooms motion to suppress
Failing to swear to facts supporting standing is fatal to a Fourth Amendment claim in New York. People v. Ibarguen, 2021 NY Slip Op 05617, 2021 N.Y. LEXIS 2207 (Oct. 14, 2021) (Wilson dissents again (see today’s prior post of … Continue reading
IL: Mere visitor present at time of SW execution could not be searched without reason
Defendant was merely on the premises raided, and he was clearly not the person sought. There were no furtive gestures or other justification. The search of his person was unreasonable. People v. Duffie, 2021 IL App (1st) 171620, 2021 Ill. … Continue reading
D.Conn.: No REP in parolee’s GPS monitor that placed him at scene of murder
The search warrant for defendant’s phone to attempt to link him to a murder of a witness was based on probable cause that he was seen in a car likely involved and his parole GPS monitor that put him there. … Continue reading
M.D.Tenn.: Harassment of a parolee as reason for exclusion has to come from something other than the alleged const’l violation
Defendant was on supervised release, and he was stopped for a traffic offense. The officer was admittedly courteous, but defendant still claims harassment as a reason to invoke the exclusionary rule. “[T[he Court concludes that if the exclusionary ‘may’ apply … Continue reading
CA9: Supervised release electronic search condition not shown to have nexus to purposes of SR
“We nevertheless vacate the suspicionless search condition because the district court ordered suspicionless searches of Leonard’s ‘electronic devices and their data, including cell phones, computers, and electronic storage media’ without making ‘a properly supported factual finding’ that ‘establish[es] some nexus … Continue reading
ID: Def has burden of proving standing and can’t rely on state seeking to prove he didn’t have standing
Defendant had the burden of showing standing, and he couldn’t rely on the state not proving he didn’t have standing. Wilson v. State, 2021 Ind. App. LEXIS 264 (Aug. 24, 2021). Finding that defendant was on federal supervised release was … Continue reading
DC: PO’s turning over supervisee’s GPS tracking to police not unreasonable
Defendant on probation in D.C. was supervised by the Court Supervision and Offender Services Agency. After he violated terms of probation, he was placed on GPS monitoring. It was not unreasonable for CSOSA to share that information with D.C. Metro … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: SW issuing judge has judicial immunity
You can’t sue a judge for issuing a warrant where there’s no allegation that the judge abandoned the judicial role [harkening to good faith exception too]. Kolle v. Kyle, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148629 (S.D.Ohio Aug. 9, 2021). The smell … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Officers could accompany POs where there was fear def engaged in criminal conduct
It was not unreasonable for law enforcement officers to accompany defendant’s parole officer on a parole search because of concerns defendant was involved in criminal conduct. United States v. Davis, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 147629 (E.D.Mich. Aug. 6, 2021). “Brewster’s … Continue reading