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ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (discontinued 2018)
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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com / The Book
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-25,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 500,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 47,000 posts since 2003 (30,000+ on WordPress as of 12/31/24) -
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Fourth Amendment cases,
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--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] -
“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
---Pepé Le Pew -
"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)
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Category Archives: Staleness
CA10: Siccing police dog on sleeping man wasn’t subject to QI
Siccing a police dog on a sleeping man not subject to qualified immunity. Luethje v. Kyle, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 6385 (10th Cir. Mar. 19, 2025). The CI’s information on a video showed his basis of knowledge and provided probable … Continue reading
PA: For crime of obstructing a search, def didn’t have to see SW to know there was one when he was told
Defendant’s conviction for obstructing a search is affirmed. He was not entitled to a jury instruction that he had to have seen or read the warrant first where it was not disputed that he knew there was a warrant. Commonwealth … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Single image that officer opined was CP is PC
“Under Supreme Court and Eighth Circuit law, Detective Erwin’s professional opinion [based on her experience] that the file contained child pornography was sufficient to establish probable case for the issuance of the search warrant. See Ornelas, 517 U.S. at 700; … Continue reading
D.Mass.: SnapChat warrant didn’t go stale after six months [would it ever?]
SnapChat warrant wasn’t stale: “The passage of more than six months between Cardoso’s messages to Pyrtle and issuance of the October 2021 warrant did not undermine probable cause to believe that data from Pyrtle’s Snapchat account would provide evidence of … Continue reading
OH6: Background information didn’t make SW affidavit stale
Information in the affidavit for warrant about a 2021 overdose was valid background and not stale information. State v. Martin, 2025 Ohio App. LEXIS 727 (6th Dist. Mar. 7, 2025). Officers getting a search warrant to enter to arrest was … Continue reading
OH5: Drug dog officer’s touching car to redirect dog wasn’t a search
The officer’s briefly touching the vehicle’s exterior to redirect the canine’s focus did not constitute a search. The dog’s certification and training were sufficient to establish its reliability, absent conflicting evidence from the defendant. This traffic stop was not unconstitutionally … Continue reading
IN: Cell phone ping to locate missing 13-year-old was with exigent circumstances
The ping of defendant’s cell phone to find him when a 13-year-old girl went missing was based on exigency under state statute. Brooks v. State, 2025 Ind. App. LEXIS 19 (Jan. 31, 2025). All the factors supported reasonable suspicion: CI … Continue reading
CA8: When there’s PC for a SW, standing doesn’t even have to be decided
In a tax fraud case, there were six search warrants. Defendants challenge them all. Standing was in dispute, but doesn’t even have to be decided because there clearly is probable cause for all six, despite the claim that one piece … Continue reading
M.D.Tenn.: Five-month-old information about CP on a Pinterest account not stale
There was probable cause for this child pornography warrant. Information about a Pinterest account that was five months old was not stale, and the images were adequately identified. United States v. Lynch, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2633 (M.D. Tenn. Jan. … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: Reasonable during a traffic stop to ask about firearms in the car
The traffic stop was reasonable, and it was also reasonable for the officer to just ask whether there was a gun in the car for safety reasons because carrying in legal in this state. United States v. Martin, 2024 U.S. … Continue reading
D.Neb.: SW for property not overbroad and sought in GF; it objectively was a single-family home
The officers did their due diligence before the search warrant and saw only that defendant’s property was a single-family dwelling. That’s how it appeared, that’s what public records said. Therefore, they searched in good faith. United States v. Rice, 2024 … Continue reading
CA1: GFE applies to alleged staleness of SW
Defendant operated a pill-making operation in his house for years without detection. He moved to a new place without suspicion for it. The warrant for the prior house was not sufficiently stale to still be valid under the good faith … Continue reading
DC: Illegal stop led to finding weapon, and it was not attenuated
Defendant was subjected to a stop that violated the Fourth Amendment. Information from that stop sufficiently led to a search of a dwelling producing a gun. That was fruit of the poisonous tree. There was a first search that could … Continue reading
CA4: PC was shown def was likely a collector of CP so nine-month-old information wasn’t stale
“We are also not impressed by Sanders’s appellate contention that the facts in the Affidavit were so ‘stale’ as to negate probable cause.” Nine months. “Here, the Affidavit conveyed the same critical information to the magistrate judge — the person … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Dissipation of PC for automobile exception search?
Defendant argues dissipation of probable cause in an automobile exception search, but cites no cases. Probable cause always has to exist at the time of the search. One can imagine that it can go stale, but not generally, and not … Continue reading
CA9: “[T]he Fourth Amendment does not require a warrant to arrest a parole violator.”
“[T]he Fourth Amendment does not require a warrant to arrest a parole violator.” United States v. Carpenter, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 13596 (9th Cir. June 5, 2024). The CI for the warrant is not disclosable under Roviaro. United States v. … Continue reading
GA: SW for a physical nonperishable item wasn’t stale
In a child sex abuse case, the trial court erred in finding the warrant stale that a massaging tool used on the victim wouldn’t likely be there. It was a physical object and nonperishable. It was not stale. State v. … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: PC not shown for Jan. 6th target’s cell phone in California three years later
The government sought search warrants for cell phones in California in 2024 for six alleged misdemeanors at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The court finds no probable cause to believe that there is evidence on the phones three … Continue reading
CA10: Def’s possession of a gun six days ago can add to RS now
In the reasonable suspicion calculus, the fact defendant had a gun six days earlier can be a factor in reasonable suspicion now. United States v. Minners, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 7734 (10th Cir. Apr. 2, 2024). Plaintiffs were loaded on … Continue reading