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- CA8: Def’s 20 prior arrests helped show voluntariness of consent
- TX1: No standing to challenge seizure of ketamine off co-def, but PC was lacking for his own arrest
- KS: 13 days pole camera surveillance violated no REP
- E.D.Va.: WaPo reporter’s SW was overbroad and 1A protected
- CAAF: GFE applies to cell phone’s geolocation data because of substantial basis for the search authorization
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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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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)
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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: Seizure
NYTimes: U.S. Citizen Detained by Mistake Sues Miami-Dade Over Immigration Enforcement
NYTimes: U.S. Citizen Detained by Mistake Sues Miami-Dade Over Immigration Enforcement by Caitlin Dickerson: Immigration lawyers in Miami-Dade County are challenging its practice of jailing people on behalf of federal immigration authorities, in a case that could test the Trump … Continue reading
MA: A civil abuse order of protection cannot be served by a traffic stop under the Fourth Amendment and the Massachusetts Constitution
A civil abuse order of protection cannot be served by a traffic stop under the Fourth Amendment and the Massachusetts Constitution. Commonwealth v. Sanborn, 2017 Mass. LEXIS 496 (June 29, 2017):
CA9: LAPD’s and California’s 30 day vehicle impoundment policy violates 4A
LAPD’s and the State of California’s policy of requiring all impounded vehicles be held 30 days violates the Fourth Amendment. Plaintiff loaned her car to her brother-in-law who was arrested for a suspended license, and the car was impounded. She … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: County Jail’s acceptance of ICE detainees without PC violates 4A
Bexar County jail’s acceptance of ICE detainers without a showing probable cause for the detention violates the Fourth Amendment. The collective knowledge doctrine doesn’t apply where there isn’t any communication between ICE and the jail other than the jail taking … Continue reading
NJ: Blocking car and shining light into car then approaching car was an investigative detention
“Defendant was faced with an investigative detention once the officer blocked in her vehicle, directed the patrol car’s alley light to shine into her car, and then approached her driver’s-side window to address her. Under the totality of the circumstances, … Continue reading
SC: Catching up to def on street and telling him to produce ID was a seizure, here without RS
“Before the agents made contact with Spears, he had walked several hundred feet without the agents engaging him, indicating he was free to continue walking. By increasing their speed to catch up with Spears, the agents indicated to Spears he … Continue reading
TX14: Use of a spotlight on a boat was not a seizure
The use of a spotlight on a boat at night was not a seizure. Neale v. State, 2017 Tex. App. LEXIS 5008 (Tex. App. – Houston (14th Dist.) June 1, 2017):
FL4: Just being on somebody else’s property is not RS of a crime without more; telling def to “stand by” is a seizure
Defendant’s friends saw a police officer coming and all walked away. Defendant did not. That did not mean that when the encounter started, defendant was free to leave. On this record, he was not, and it was a detention without … Continue reading
CA10: 4A claim not stated for malicious prosecution where no arrest
Plaintiff couldn’t state a Fourth Amendment claim for malicious prosecution where she was not arrested by the officer. He presented his findings to the prosecutor who filed a charge. Fisher v. Koopman, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 8940 (10th Cir. May … Continue reading
OH2: Direction to def to not reach into his own pocket for a consent search wasn’t a seizure
Defendant’s attempt to reach into his own pocket did not constitute an unequivocal withdrawal of the consent to search he had given to the officer. Defendant’s conduct appeared to have been an attempt to help facilitate the search, not to … Continue reading
D.Utah: No 4A requirement for a police car in the field to have internet access to more speedily check records without radioing it in
There is no constitutional requirement for a police car in the field to have internet access to more speedily check records without radioing it in. Also, he testified that rural service is spotty. United States v. Lopez-Casillas, 2017 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
UT: Officer safety permits extending stop long enough to check passenger’s ID
“This case presents a single issue: does a law enforcement officer violate the Fourth Amendment if she requests that a passenger voluntarily provide identification and then runs a background check on that passenger without reasonable suspicion that the passenger has … Continue reading
IL: Arrest of driver would not make passengers think they were free to leave; continuation of stop was with RS
Passengers would not think they were free to leave based on the arrest and handcuffing of defendant driver. The continuation of the stop, however, was with reasonable suspicion because of furtive movements. People v. Veal, 2017 IL App (1st) 150500, … Continue reading
MD: When officers tried to stop def he fled into a high speed chase; he wasn’t seized before the chase
Defendant had warrants out and he’d called 911 and said he had a gun and he’d use it. There was reasonable suspicion for his stop before he engaged in a high speed chase. He never stopped before the chase so … Continue reading
OR: Def not seized other than traffic stop; statements admissible
Defendant was not seized beyond this being a traffic stop. Defendant’s volunteering information extended the stop. There was no other show of authority. State v. Evans, 284 Ore. App. 806, 2017 Ore. App. LEXIS 505 (April 19, 2017). Defendant can’t … Continue reading
AK: Street rumor supplemented by controlled buy was PC
The CI passed on information from others that was virtually only a street rumor that he then corroborated with a controlled buy. The totality was probable cause. Hart v. State, 2017 Alas. App. LEXIS 59 (April 14, 2017). The officer … Continue reading
NY Co.: Taking a “recidivist transit violator” outside the turnstiles was a reasonable detention
Plaintiff was a “recidivist transit violator” stopped for moving between cars. Taking him off the train outside the turnstiles was a reasonable detention under the state constitution. Vargas v. City of New York, 2017 NY Slip Op 27116, 2017 N.Y. … Continue reading