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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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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. 
Monthly Archives: June 2014
D.Kan.: Failure to sign affidavit for SW after being sworn not a Fourth Amendment violation
The failure of the officer to sign the affidavit after he was sworn did not void the warrant. It actually was issued on “oath or affirmation.” United States v. Williamson, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77703 (D. Kan. March 18, 2014), … Continue reading
D.S.D.: “Good faith is not a magic lamp for police officers to rub whenever they find themselves in trouble.”
Warrantless entry was not “sanitized” by an ex post facto search warrant. “‘Good faith is not a magic lamp for police officers to rub whenever they find themselves in trouble.’” Leon involved no police misconduct; this case does. United States … Continue reading
WaPo: NSA fights preservation of data sought for suit
WaPo: NSA fights preservation of data sought for suit by Andrea Peterson: The National Security Agency recently used a novel argument for not holding onto information it collects about users online activity: it’s too complex.
CA7: “[T]the Fourth Amendment is not a bulwark against typos.”
DNA warrant for defendant that transposed month and day (11-01 v. 01-11) using military and international convention was still for him. “[T]the Fourth Amendment is not a bulwark against typos.” United States v. Clark, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 10613 (7th … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: Officer’s testimony the falsity in the SW affidavit was a “mere mistake” good enough to overcome Franks
False statement in an affidavit was testified to being a “mere mistake” in reporting information so the good faith exception still applies. If the officer testified it was a “mere mistake,” well, then, it can’t be wilfully false. Thus, the … Continue reading
TX14: No per se rule on exigency for DUI blood draw; state carries burden
Defendant’s blood draw in this DUI case violated the Fourth Amendment for lack of any exigent circumstances. Under McNeely, mere passage of time is no longer enough. There is no per se rule that the time to investigate an accident … Continue reading
NYT: War Gear Flows to Police Departments
NYT: War Gear Flows to Police Departments by Matt Apuzzo: NEENAH, Wis. — Inside the municipal garage of this small lakefront city, parked next to the hefty orange snowplow, sits an even larger truck, this one painted in desert khaki. … Continue reading
KS: Failure to corroborate anonymous informants was a complete lack of PC for GFE
A police car was stolen and left in a ditch apparently with blood and hair left on it. Three anonymous calls linked defendant to the theft. He first agreed to come in and give samples and then didn’t show. A … Continue reading
OH2: Search of defendant’s cell phone case during patdown not shown with RS
The search of defendant’s cell phone case felt during a patdown could not reasonably be shown to be a weapon or contraband that would justify it. The officer was predisposed because she testified she assumed everybody was armed. State v. … Continue reading
OR: Police encouraging housekeeper to seize child’s underwear was state action
Defendant’s housekeeper called child protective services to report that defendant’s minor daughter had discharge in her underwear consistent with sexual intercourse and that defendant was the suspected abuser. They had her seize the underwear and turn it over to the … Continue reading
OH1: Driveway not curtilage but front porch is
Defendant was in his driveway when he unreasonably refused to identify himself when the officer had reasonable suspicion. That was not on the curtilage. When he retreated to his porch, he was on the curtilage, but this gun was in … Continue reading
D.C.Cir. finds good faith exception applies to warrant, and probable cause was not even considered
The reliability of the informant’s tale does not need to be decided here because the good faith exception applies [without a word of why]. United States v. Matthews, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 10522 (D.C. Cir. June 6, 2014). Defendant in … Continue reading
NM: No standing in house of another DUI suspect was apparently passed out in
Defendant went to a friend’s house after being involved in an apparent hit and run. Actually, he stopped and attempted to enter the house where he hit the car. The homeowner’s alarm at his coming in scared defendant off. He … Continue reading
Policy Mic: What Texas Police Are Doing Is Law Enforcement Corruption at Its Very Worst
Policy Mic: What Texas Police Are Doing Is Law Enforcement Corruption at Its Very Worst by Matt Connolly: Don’t mess with Texas. Unless you’re the cops, in which case you can seize millions of dollars from Lone Star State residents … Continue reading
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: Morning Links: NYPD conducts mass sweep of public housing
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: Morning Links: NYPD conducts mass sweep of public housing: ● In what seems to be a brazen, shameless action to avoid transparency, U.S. marshals have apparently seized the records kept by Florida police agencies … Continue reading
NYT: Internet Giants Erect Barriers to Spy Agencies
NYT: Internet Giants Erect Barriers to Spy Agencies by David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth: Internet companies like Google and Facebook are working to keep governments and especially their spy agencies out of their servers after revelations from Edward J. … Continue reading
W.D.Mich.: No standing in an envelope where only connection to it was asking about it
Defendant lacked standing to challenge the search of an envelope in transit. He didn’t mail it, it wasn’t mailed to him, and he merely asked about it when it was in transit. That wasn’t standing. United States v. Johnson, 2014 … Continue reading
Legal Intelligencer: Dougherty Wants Federal Judge to Order Affidavit Resealed
Legal Intelligencer: Dougherty Wants Federal Judge to Order Affidavit Resealed: Labor union leader John Dougherty has asked a federal judge to order a state court to reseal an FBI affidavit of probable cause related to a search of Dougherty’s home … Continue reading