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- WaPo: Americans have turned against police cameras that track license plates, new survey shows
- W.D.Tex.: What is the duty of the neutral and detached magistrate?
- D.Me.: Yes, more investigation could have been done, but there’s still PC on what there was
- CA3: Brady doesn’t apply to SW materials
- E.D.Mich.: Person a cell phone was given to as gift could consent to search
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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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Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
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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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (2012)
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Section 1983 Blog -
"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. 
Monthly Archives: May 2014
W.D.Tex.: Failure to show SW is not a Fourth Amendment violation
2255 petitioner did not show that he was prejudiced by officers showing up at 5:30 am rather than 6 for execution of a search warrant, if that in fact happened. Rule 41 violations are ministerial, it doesn’t per se violate … Continue reading
NJ: SW for house didn’t authorize search of car parked 5-6 doors away
Search warrant didn’t authorize search of a car 5-6 houses away from the place being searched under the warrant. State v. Bivins, 2014 N.J. Super. LEXIS 67 (May 13, 2014): In this appeal, we consider whether the scope of the … Continue reading
WaPo: Despite court rulings, people are still getting arrested for recording on-duty cops
WaPo: Despite court rulings, people are still getting arrested for recording on-duty cops by Radley Balko The latest incident comes from Massachusetts. And, since the courts are uniform on this, there will be no qualified immunity for such an arrest.
Atlantic: Can an Anonymous Tip Get You Arrested for Drunk Driving?
Atlantic: Can an Anonymous Tip Get You Arrested for Drunk Driving? by Garrett Epps: Consider the Court’s recent 5-4 decision in Navarette v. California….Scalia (writing for himself and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan) noted an amicus … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: The reality of Gates-Leon: Showing no PC is an uphill battle
Recognizing the reality of Gates-Leon: “the Defendant challenges whether the Magistrate Judge should have issued the warrant at all based on the information presented in the agent’s affidavit. This argument faces difficult legal standards, which the Defendant cannot meet. His … Continue reading
Drone news–NPR
NPR: Regulating Domestic Drones to Protect Privacy and Public Safety, The Diane Rehm Show, One Hour: Drones are now used across the U.S. to monitor crops, inspect power lines, and shoot commercials. But the near-collision of a drone and a … Continue reading
WaPo: Editorial: Putting cameras on police officers is an idea whose time has come
WaPo: Editorial: Putting cameras on police officers is an idea whose time has come: Having successfully deployed cameras in patrol cars, a number of police departments, including the District’s, are now studying whether body-mounted minicams–attached to an officer’s lapel, for … Continue reading
Two on reasonable suspicion: CA10 & CA5
“We first analyze each of the factors: (1) Officer Devos’s previous encounter with Mr. Garcia [where he ran and aggressively confronted the officer two weeks earlier], (2) Mr. Garcia’s criminal history [which included a prior armed robbery], (3) Officer Devos’s … Continue reading
CA9: Mistaken stop on Automatic License Plate Reader gets no qualified immunity
Plaintiff was subject to an erroneous felony stop because of a hit by an Automatic License Plate Reader. Summary judgment of her § 1983 claim on qualified immunity for false arrest and excessive force was reversed, and the case sent … Continue reading
Star Tribune: Marine Corps appoints independent attorney to review seized evidence from raid on law offices
Star Tribune: Marine Corps appoints independent attorney to review seized evidence from raid on law offices by Julie Watson: Military criminal investigators raided Marine Corps defense counsel offices at Camp Pendleton, opening files during a 2½-hour search and potentially compromising … Continue reading
WaPo: Meet Howard Bowe and Detective Charles Dinwiddie, your latest casualties in the war on drugs
WaPo: Meet Howard Bowe and Detective Charles Dinwiddie, your latest casualties in the war on drugs by Radley Balko: “The way these people were treated has to be judged in the context of a war.” — Former Hallandale Beach, Florida, … Continue reading
An Alabama dissent in a DUI roadblock case
In Woolen v. State, 2014 Ala. LEXIS 70 (May 9, 2014), Chief Justice Roy Moore dissented from denial of certiorari on a roadblock case (opinion below) that basic standards weren’t complied with:
New Law Review Article: Policing Facts
Policing Facts, Seth W. Stoughton, 88 Tul. L. Rev. 847 (2014). Abstract: The Supreme Court’s understanding of police practices plays a significant role in the development of the constitutional rules that regulate officer conduct. As it approaches the questions of … Continue reading
MI: Hot pursuit of suspected robber justified warrantless entry
Police received a call about a cash register till tapping theft or robbery, and defendant was identified as a suspect. He fled into an apartment building, and he was pursued. Police believed he broke into an apartment in flight. The … Continue reading
NYT: The Polarized Court
NYT: The Polarized Court by Adam Liptak: WASHINGTON — WHEN the Supreme Court issued its latest campaign finance decision last month, the justices lined up in a familiar way. The five appointed by Republican presidents voted for the Republican National … Continue reading
CA7: Warrantless entry to seize a mental health patient 9 hrs after Dr’s call wasn’t exigent, but qualified immunity applies
A police entry to seize a person and her guns 9 hours after a doctor’s call she was a danger to herself or others was kind of “exigent,” but nevertheless treated as a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Still, qualified … Continue reading
ID: Passing an FST doesn’t negate other PC for DUI arrest
On the totality of circumstances, the officer had probable cause to believe defendant was under the influence, and that can overcome the driver passing an FST. State v. Hunter, 2014 Ida. App. LEXIS 51 (May 6, 2014). An officer doesn’t … Continue reading
ND: Officer created exigency didn’t require suppression where there was independent source
Officers created their own exigency by sticking a foot in a motel room door, but the court finds the independent source doctrine saves the search because they already had enough information in the submission for the search warrant independent of … Continue reading
OH10: Taking and retaining defendant’s DL without reasonable suspicion then running his name for warrants was suppressed
Taking and retaining defendant’s DL without reasonable suspicion then running his name for warrants was suppressed. State v. Westover, 2014-Ohio-1959, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS 1898 (10th Dist. May 8, 2014): [*P28] We find the running of a warrants check to … Continue reading