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- 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)
--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. 
Monthly Archives: October 2014
WaPo: Volokh: Intelligence Squared debate: Mass collection of U.S. phone records violates the Fourth Amendment
WaPo: Volokh: Intelligence Squared debate: Mass collection of U.S. phone records violates the Fourth Amendment by Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz: Intelligence Squared presented an excellent debate last week at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia — “Resolved: Mass collection of U.S. … Continue reading
60 Minutes: FBI director on privacy, electronic surveillance
60 Minutes: FBI director on privacy, electronic surveillance: FBI Director James Comey speaks with Scott Pelley about our lives online and the need for government electronic surveillance, but only with a court order.
CA4: A motion to suppress raised after the government rested in a jury trial is a waiver; early notice is vital
A motion to suppress raised after the government rested in a jury trial is a waiver. The pretrial filing rule exists for important reasons of notice to the parties. United States v. Moore, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 19648 (4th Cir. … Continue reading
VT: Suspicionless parole searches for internet access and computer use of a SO was reasonable
Probation and parole services did not need reasonable suspicion to conduct home searches of a convicted sex offender for internet access. When released, he agreed to suspicionless searches. There is a state law prohibition on arbitrary or harassing searches, but … Continue reading
MS: RS justified def’s “detainment” and it turned into search incident
Officers were investigating an armed robbery and were looking for suspects. Defendant conceded in his motion to suppress that the stop was valid, so he can’t argue to the contrary on appeal. In his patdown, something rolled up was found, … Continue reading
WaPo: Asset seizures fuel police spending (4th in a series)
WaPo: Asset seizures fuel police spending by Robert O’Harrow Jr. & Steven Rich: Police agencies have used hundreds of millions of dollars taken from Americans under federal civil forfeiture law in recent years to buy guns, armored cars and electronic … Continue reading
ID: The area outside a tent campsite in a national forest was not defendant’s curtilage
The area outside a tent campsite in a national forest was not defendant’s curtilage. Forest Service officers came upon the campsite and it was apparent that the occupants of the tent there were smoking marijuana. The officers did not enter … Continue reading
ID: Jacket a companion was sitting on while def was handcuffed was subject to search incident
Defendant was handcuffed and a woman with him wasn’t. She was sitting on his jacket. The jacket was still subject to search incident because she could have done something to aid him. State v. Pedersen, 2014 Ida. App. LEXIS 106 … Continue reading
OR: No privacy interest in a text message in the recipient’s cell phone
One who sends a text message to another cell phone has no privacy in that interest when it’s in the other phone. There is a privacy interest in the content of a telephone call, but not once it’s shared with … Continue reading
CA8: Arguable PC means qualified immunity against false arrest
There was arguable probable cause for plaintiff’s arrest, so the officers get qualified immunity. Trevino v. Benton County, Arkansas, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 19166 (8th Cir. October 8, 2014).* The police obtained separate search warrants for marijuana and a cell … Continue reading
OR: The fact that the only way into defendant’s apartment was a backdoor was not implied consent for the police to enter the curtilage
Defendant’s apartment was only accessible by a backdoor on the curtilage. The fact that the only way into defendant’s apartment was a backdoor was not implied consent for the police to enter the curtilage, and it was apparently his curtilage, … Continue reading
VI: Matching description of robber and near the scene with money sticking out of pocket was reasonable suspicion
There was reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop of defendant when the officers knew that suspects in a robbery and shooting were still at large, likely on foot, and presumably armed, when defendant matched the description given by a citizen … Continue reading
OR: Just asking for ID wasn’t a “stop” without more
On its third review of this case, having gone up twice, the court concludes that asking for defendant’s ID under the circumstances here was not a “stop” that required reasonable suspicion or probable cause when compared with other cases. All … Continue reading
D.N.H.: Nervousness alone wasn’t enough to extend the stop 20 minutes
Defendant’s nervousness, exacerbated by the officer tailgating him for a long time, wasn’t enough to show reasonable suspicion to extend the stop as long as it was. All the government’s authorities are nervousness plus something else, and here there was … Continue reading
TX3: Private election actions don’t lead to unreasonable searches: it’s private action and court can intercede
Texas provides for a private right of action in some election matters. The statutes are not facially unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment or Fourteenth Amendment due process in potential civil discovery disputes because these are private parties asking, and the … Continue reading