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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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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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"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: July 2015
PA: DUI accident provided PC for automobile exception search
In a DUI accident, the officer had probable cause to search defendant’s vehicle for evidence of the impairment under the automobile exception. Commonwealth v. Best, 2015 PA Super 151, 2015 Pa. Super. LEXIS 409 (July 16, 2015).* The officer’s participation … Continue reading
CO: DNA taken in violation of statute not suppressed
Taking DNA from this defendant on a misdemeanor arrest was not a Fourth Amendment violation under King. It did violate state law, but the court doesn’t suppress. It matched DNA in a rape case and led to him being charged. … Continue reading
WaPo: Judge: No-fly list procedures were — and still might be — unconstitutional
WaPo: Judge: No-fly list procedures were — and still might be — unconstitutional by Matt Zapotosky: A federal judge on Thursday ruled that the way the United States implemented its no-fly list was unconstitutional years ago when it was used … Continue reading
CA9: Not questioning search likely sound strategy where defense at trial was disassociation from the drugs and the place they were found
Defendant’s IAC claim on his search isn’t proper for direct appeal, and it should proceed in a 2255. “However, counsel may have had strategic reasons not to file a suppression motion to avoid having Birrueta testify. For example, testifying at … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Officer’s failure to note everything in car didn’t undermine claim of inventory nor show pretext for search
The court credits the officer’s testimony about the purpose of the search of defendant’s car to be inventory. He made notes of the items found but not all made it into official reports. The court credits this was an innocent … Continue reading
MI: Plaintiffs failed to show that a “smart meter” violated their privacy or Fourth Amendment rights
Plaintiffs alleged but failed to show, inter alia, that a “smart meter” violated their privacy or Fourth Amendment rights. Detroit Edison Co. v. Stenman, 2015 Mich. App. LEXIS 1384 (July 14, 2015):
GA: Mistake in address not prejudicial where right place was searched; police used address listed with Assessor
The search warrant had a mistaken address. It authorized the search of the plaintiff’s building but listed it as 11195 when it was actually 11193. The wrong building was not searched. Plaintiff did not state a claim for trespass by … Continue reading
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: This week in police shootings
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: This week in police shootings: There were two more disturbing stories about police officers killing people this week, although both of the actual incidents occurred two years ago.
AK: Slightly changing search incident argument on appeal and including Gant was changing the issue
Defendant raised a search incident claim about his arrest: “(1) the toiletry bag was not “immediately associated” with his person, and because (2) the search of the bag was not sufficiently contemporaneous with his arrest.” On appeal, however, he raised … Continue reading
OR Const. doesn’t permit weapons inquiry to jaywalker without RS
Oregon Constitution does not permit an officer to inquire of a jaywalking suspect whether he is armed without some reasonable suspicion. State v. Jimenez, 357 Ore. 417, 2015 Ore. LEXIS 441 (July 9, 2015):
TN: CI’s reliability mooted by trash pull
Whether the CI was reliable was essentially moot based on a trash pull that showed all kinds of marijuana cuttings. State v. Altman, 2015 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 556 (July 13, 2015).* [Usually, the courts say that the CI was … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Hypodermic needle felt in patdown could be seized as potential weapon
A patdown that felt a hypodermic needle was valid because a needle could be used as a weapon. United States v. Rush, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90250 (D.Minn. July 13, 2015). Defendant was stopped for suspicion of DUI on federal … Continue reading
Slate: Judge Allows Strip Club’s Constitutional Case Against Police Raids to Move Forward
Slate: Judge Allows Strip Club’s Constitutional Case Against Police Raids to Move Forward by Mark Joseph Stern: As the Supreme Court recently reminded us, “the Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach”—including strip clubs, which, like most private property, … Continue reading
Criminal Law 2.0 – Preface to the 44th Annual Review of Criminal Procedure
Criminal Law 2.0 – Preface to the 44th Annual Review of Criminal Procedure by Hon. Alex Kozinski: Although we pretend otherwise, much of what we do in the law is guesswork. For example, we like to boast that our criminal … Continue reading
Vox: Filmmaker Laura Poitras has been detained [at airports] 50 times. Now she’s suing to find out why
Vox: Filmmaker Laura Poitras has been detained 50 times. Now she’s suing to find out why by Timothy B. Lee:
ars technica: After drone diverts fire-fighting planes, lawmakers want fines and jail time
ars technica: After drone diverts fire-fighting planes, lawmakers want fines and jail time by Megan Geuss
Encryption and national security
The Atlantic: Do Encrypted Phones Threaten National Security? How Dangerous Is End-to-End Encryption? If it were possible, would proponents of “backdoor” access to encrypted communication also favor equivalent access to the private thoughts in our brains?
NYTimes: Judge Orders Release of Video of 2013 Police Shooting in California
NYTimes: Judge Orders Release of Video of 2013 Police Shooting in California (AP): A federal judge ordered a suburban Los Angeles city on Tuesday to release video of the police fatally shooting an unarmed man two years ago. The public … Continue reading
NYTimes: A.C.L.U. Asks Court to Stop Part of N.S.A.’s Bulk Phone Data Collection
NYTimes: A.C.L.U. Asks Court to Stop Part of N.S.A.’s Bulk Phone Data Collection by Charles Savage: The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to partly shut down the National Security Agency program that collects Americans’ … Continue reading