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- VA: 12 second question about drugs didn’t unreasonably prolong the stop that was going to take a while anyway
- E.D.Tenn.: Application for SW was considered in detention ruling
- TN: RS didn’t develop to continue stop; second stop based on first suppressed
- CA4: Traffic stop immediately became firearms investigation; suppressed
- CA10: Disagreement over spelling of street name didn’t make warrant fail particularity; GFE at least would apply
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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) -
“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: Attenuation
IL: Illegal stop and search not fixed under Strieff by finding outstanding warrant after
An illegal stop and search that led to an outstanding warrant wasn’t attenuated by the finding of the warrant, even when the stop was not purposeful or flagrant. In re Jarrell C. (People v. Jarrell C.), 2017 IL App (1st) … Continue reading
CA8: The independent source rule doesn’t apply to a civil rights conviction for false arrest
Defendant was properly convicted of false arrest as a deprivation of civil rights. He argued the attenuation doctrine that there was an independent source of information. There wasn’t, and the independent source doctrine is for the exclusionary rule not a … Continue reading
OR: State has burden of pleading and proof on attenuation, and here it failed
The state had the burden and failed to prove attenuation between the stop and unreasonable search and finding the evidence. It did not raise the issue to preserve it. [This was submitted 33 months ago after remand from Oregon Supreme … Continue reading
MD follows Strieff on attenuation from preexisting arrest warrant
“[W]here officers observed a group of individuals openly drinking what appeared to be an alcoholic beverage and one of them threw a bottle to the ground, the officers had reasonable suspicion to investigate a potential open container violation and to … Continue reading
NE: Oral and written advice of rights to refuse consent attenuated any possible minor illegal police misconduct
The officer’s misconduct, if any, wasn’t flagrant and the later written advisement and waiver of consent was attenuation. State v. Bray, 297 Neb. 916, 2017 Neb. LEXIS 178 (Sept. 29, 2017). Defendant was driving a car carrier, and he was … Continue reading
M.D.La.: Def claims an illegal search led to his arrest; his admissions on jail phone calls are attenuated from that
Defendant’s calls from jail to his girlfriend about destroying evidence were attenuated from any prior illegality. “The Court finds that the nexus between the original unlawful search and the challenged evidence was attenuated by the intervening phone calls, an independent … Continue reading
OH5: SW needed to obtain blood results from hospital’s blood draw
Defendant’s blood draw in the hospital was for medical purposes, and a search warrant was required to get access to that information. Trial court affirmed. State v. Saunders, 2017-Ohio-7348, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 3640 (5th Dist. Aug. 23, 2017). Playpen … Continue reading
ID: Distinguishing Strieff, when it was obvious the person stopped was not the person the police were looking for, running warrants was unnecessary and continued the stop
Distinguishing Strieff, when it was obvious the person stopped was not the person the police were looking for, running warrants on them was unnecessary and continued the stop. State v. Cohagan, 2017 Ida. LEXIS 250 (Aug. 24, 2017)
NC: Firing gun at officer during alleged illegal traffic stop removed the taint
Even if the defendant was subjected to an illegal stop, his firing his gun at the officer was a new crime that removed the taint. State v. Hester, 2017 N.C. App. LEXIS 558 (July 18, 2017). Compelled testimony in the … Continue reading
CAAF: Attenuation not shown and ER applies: officer conducted ‘unwise, avoidable, and unlawful’ investigation and arrest
Defendant’s arrest was unlawful and the government failed to show attenuation. “However, we do not think it necessary that the agent’s misconduct be outrageous for the third factor in Brown to apply. Though there is no evidence of bad motive … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Illegal Terry frisk led to subsequent searches after arrest warrant found; no suppression under Strieff
Defendant’s Terry frisk was invalid, but the existence of a warrant for his arrest requires that the subsequent searches not be suppressed under Strieff. United States v. Sisco, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94761 (W.D. Mo. Jan. 11, 2017), adopted, 2017 … Continue reading
Hudson gutted the knock-and-announce rule by making it purely optional 11 years ago today
Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586 (2006), decided 11 years ago today, unraveling the knock-and-announce rule of Wilson v. Arkansas (1995) and Richards v. Wisconsin (1997). It’s constitutionally required, it saves lives, it’s far more civil in a civil society, … Continue reading
IA: “New crime” exception for a crime committed against a police officer after an allegedly unlawful entry is a part of attenuation
The “new crime” exception for a crime committed against a police officer after an allegedly unlawful entry is permitted under the attenuation doctrine. Here, defendant assaulted a police officer who pursued her into her house on a warrant for arrest … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Lack of attenuation from illegal search leads to exclusion
The lack of attenuation and exploitation of the illegality of an illegal search here favors exclusion. United States v. Cordero-Rosario, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 76904 (D.P.R. May 18, 2017):
D.Kan.: 37 day old knowledge of def’s suspended DL wasn’t stale for RS for a stop
The officer’s prior knowledge that defendant’s license was expired wasn’t considered stale for a stop, even for 37 days. [It’s a stop on reasonable suspicion, not a search on probable cause.] United States v. Bell, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 62616 … Continue reading
IL: Def’s statement after illegal arrest when confronted with bogus GSR test was not attenuated
Defendant’s statement six hours after his illegal arrest when confronted with a bogus GSR test was not attenuated. People v. Hernandez, 2017 IL App (1st) 150575, 2017 Ill. App. LEXIS 206 (March 31, 2017), mod. on den. of rehearing, 2017 … Continue reading
AR: Knock-and-announce applies to parole searches, but Hudson adopted and exclusionary rule doesn’t apply
The knock-and-announce rule applies to parole searches, and violation of the rule is a substantial violation of the Fourth Amendment and the state constitution. The court adopts Hudson, however, and finds that the exclusionary rule should not be applied. Lane … Continue reading
CA10: Officers pulled up next to def walking along road and finally told him to stop; this was a seizure without RS
Defendant was walking down the street at night and a police car pulled up beside him and officers were talking to him as he walked. Finally they told him to stop. This was a seizure for which there was no … Continue reading
OR: Detention at gunpoint wasn’t attenuated from statement
Defendant’s stop and detention was with a show of force, and his statement wasn’t attenuated from his de facto arrest. Suppression order affirmed. State v. Pichardo, 360 Ore. 754 (Jan. 20, 2017), aff’g 275 Ore. App. 49, 364 P.3d 1 … Continue reading