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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)
--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: December 2014
NY Times: News Analysis: Things to Consider Before Buying That Drone
NY Times: News Analysis: Things to Consider Before Buying That Drone by Kate Murphy: Drones – usually the camera-equipped, multiple rotor variety – have also been spotted peeping into the windows of high-rise condos, interfering with medevac helicopters and buzzing … Continue reading
TX13 finds an “apartment curtilage” in dog sniff at door of inside apartment
Because defendant’s apartment was only one of two on the floor, and he kept plants outside the door, the court finds a curtilage in his apartment such that a dog sniff at the door invaded the curtilage. This situation is … Continue reading
W.D.Wis.: Search of def’s car essentially was based on curiosity; no warrant exception applies; suppressed
The search of defendant’s car couldn’t be justified as a search incident or an inventory, and the testimony is woefully inadequate to support either. Essentially, the officer testified, and acted at the scene like, he could search the car with … Continue reading
CA4: “Reason to believe” the defendant is home for execution of an arrest warrant under Payton is less than PC
“Reason to believe” the defendant is home for execution of an arrest warrant under Payton v. New York is less than probable cause. Fialdini v. Cote, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 22938 (4th Cir. December 5, 2014):
Mayberry Sheriff’s Dept. by Bruce Plante
By Bruce Plante, Tulsa World (Dec. 1, 2014). Speaking of Mayberry, see this MRAP from the Bryant, Arkansas Police Dept.’s Facebook page in the same color, posted October 27th (via Arkansas Times today): Uncanny. Creepy, actually. Especially if you’ve been … Continue reading
NY Times: Body Cameras Worn by Police Officers Are No ‘Safeguard of Truth,’ Experts
NY Times: Body Cameras Worn by Police Officers Are No ‘Safeguard of Truth,’ Experts Say by Vivian Yee and Kirk Johnson: Michael Brown’s family, on the night of the Ferguson grand jury decision, called for all police in the United … Continue reading
NPR: NOLA Police Hope Body Cameras Provide Important Evidence
NPR: NOLA Police Hope Body Cameras Provide Important Evidence: Police officers in New Orleans started wearing cameras this spring. Independent police monitor Susan Hutson tells NPR’s Scott Simon how the NOPD’s camera implementation is going.
NYTimes: Op-Ed Contributors: Eric Garner and the Legal Rules That Enable Police Violence
NYTimes: Op-Ed Contributors: Eric Garner and the Legal Rules That Enable Police Violence By Shakeer Rahman and Sam Barr: ERIC GARNER was not the first American to be choked by the police, and he will not be the last, thanks … Continue reading
SCOTUSblog: Cases and controversies: Racial disparities in law enforcement practices
SCOTUSblog: Cases and controversies: Racial disparities in law enforcement practices by Eric Criton: In the 1996 case of Whren v. United States, the Court considered essentially the following question: If the police pull you over because you are black, but … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: SW for dumpsters here didn’t violate “business curtilage” nor a REP
A search warrant was issued for dumpsters on a “large commercial property” for evidence of asbestos dumping in violation of EPA law. Accepting that there might be a “business curtilage,” the court finds this search warrant didn’t violate any reasonable … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: No GFE where SW issued on bare conclusion of officer and CI
Here, the approval of the search warrant was mere ratification of the conclusion of the officer, so there was no probable cause and no good faith exception. United States v. Rutherford, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166917 (S.D. N.Y. December 2, … Continue reading
HuffPo: Houston Police Chief Calls Drug War A ‘Miserable’ Failure, Says Feds Need To Lead Reform
HuffPo: Houston Police Chief Calls Drug War A ‘Miserable’ Failure, Says Feds Need To Lead Reform by Matt Ferner: The drug war is a “miserable” failure and the federal government needs to take the lead on reforming marijuana policy, Houston … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Warrantless PO’s search of cell phone with reasonable suspicion was reasonable
Warrantless search of a sex offense probationer’s cell phone by state PO on reasonable suspicion he was arranging a liaison with a 15 year old was reasonable under Riley and Knights read together. United States v. Dahl, 2014 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
OH12: Def had no standing to contest pinging wife’s cell phone even though police were looking for him
Defendant was a suspected heroin dealer taking his family on runs to Boston to get the heroin. When defendant left, they went to his house and did a trash pull and got his wife’s cell phone number from a bill … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Use of booking DNA statute to obtain DNA to link defendant to crime was unreasonable
Under Florida law, DNA is taken from certain types of offenders at the time of booking. The statute is constitutional under Maryland v. King. However, the taking of defendant’s booking DNA for “identification” (King) to link him to a gun … Continue reading
MA: Arrest on recalled warrant suppressed under state const. where officers violated policy and didn’t recheck
Product of an arrest on a recently recalled warrant suppressed under the state constitution. The police had plenty of time to check the status of the warrant during the hours of surveillance looking for defendant and waiting for him to … Continue reading
ID applies McNeely and requires a warrant for DWI blood draws
McNeely requires a warrant for DWI BAC blood draws. State v. Halseth, 2014 Ida. LEXIS 313 (December 2, 2014). The EEOC sent emails about age discrimination to hundreds of plaintiff’s employees. The company sued the EEOC claiming, inter alia, a … Continue reading
The Atlantic: Seen It All Before: 10 Predictions About Police Body Cameras
The Atlantic: Seen It All Before: 10 Predictions About Police Body Cameras by Robinson Meyer: Twenty years ago, law enforcement and activists teamed up to support another video surveillance technology: in-car dash cams.