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- E.D.Tenn.: Application for SW was considered in detention ruling
- TN: RS didn’t develop to continue stop; second stop based on first suppressed
- CA4: Traffic stop immediately became firearms investigation; suppressed
- CA10: Disagreement over spelling of street name didn’t make warrant fail particularity; GFE at least would apply
- VA: Statutory requirement to provide SW papers only applies to “places of abode”
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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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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) -
“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: August 2015
OR: Telling the passenger to get out of the car is not a seizure
During a traffic stop, telling the passenger to get out of the car is not a seizure. State v. Leahey, 272 Ore. App. 766, 2015 Ore. App. LEXIS 961 (August 12, 2015). “He requested defendant’s identification, asked if she had … Continue reading
Just Security: Warrantless Phone Tracking: The Fourth Amendment and Circuit Splits
Just Security: Warrantless Phone Tracking: The Fourth Amendment and Circuit Splits by Andy Wright: Last week, a divided three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit ruled in United States v. Graham that the government must obtain a warrant to obtain from … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Def’s parole status admissible to show why he was subjected to a rigorous search so motives of officers wouldn’t be questioned
Defendant’s being on parole was admissible to explain why he was subjected to a rigorous search because, otherwise, the officers’ motives might be questioned. United States v. Johnson, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105518 (N.D.Cal. August 11, 2015):
M.D.Fla.: Driver of a borrowed vehicle may have standing
The driver of a borrowed vehicle may have standing. United States v. Reina, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 106687 (M.D.Fla. August 13, 2015). Here, however, defendants’ possession of a borrowed pickup truck and then fleeing from it shows a lack of … Continue reading
OH12: Where there is PC for automobile exception, drug dog’s failure to alert doesn’t mean no PC
When there is probable cause to search a car, a drug dog’s failure to alert is not proof there is no probable cause. In addition, to be safe, the officers got a warrant and told the magistrate the dog didn’t … Continue reading
CA2: Seizure of property and cash for forfeiture requires a judicial finding of probable cause
Seizure of property and cash for forfeiture, even after exigency, requires a judicial finding of probable cause or a forfeiture count in an indictment. United States v. Cosme, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 13996 (August 10, 2015):
EFF: NSA Spying: Government’s Latest Delay Tactic Fails
EFF: NSA Spying: Government’s Latest Delay Tactic Fails by Cindy Cohn: The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today rejected the government’s latest attempt to delay consideration of whether the NSA’s tapping into the Internet backbone is … Continue reading
Slate: The Hidden Bias of Cameras
Slate: The Hidden Bias of Cameras by Adam Benforado: Body and dashboard-mounted cameras used by police don’t give an objective account of the facts. Here’s how we should reform them.
Houston Chronicle: Woman files official complaint over roadside vaginal probe
Houston Chronicle: Woman files official complaint over roadside vaginal probe by Dylan Baddour: A Houston-area woman who alleged Harris County sheriff’s deputies held her down for a cavity search in a Texaco parking lot filed a complaint with the sheriff’s … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Def’s waving in PO was consent to enter
Defendant’s gesture to parole officers at his door was reasonably interpreted by them as waving them in. Once they were inside he didn’t protest. When his girlfriend came out of a room, they asked if there was anybody else in … Continue reading
DC: Because the circuit hasn’t ruled on the standard for seizure of a child from the home, officials get qualified immunity
The circuits are split on whether a Fourth Amendment seizure of children from the home requires reasonable suspicion or probable cause. Moreover, what is an exigency is not consistent among the circuits. The point is that this circuit has not … Continue reading
Orange County Register: Who’s policing the police? ACLU app says it does just that
Orange County Register: Who’s policing the police? ACLU app says it does just that by Roxanna Kopetman: The app allows him to record and instantly upload his interactions with police, something the 69-year-old sculptor from Laguna Beach wishes he’d had … Continue reading
Politico Magazine: The Murders Not Deemed Newsworthy
Politico Magazine: The Murders Not Deemed Newsworthy by April Saul: When Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson a year ago, journalists from around the world beat a path to that troubled, rioting community to report on a deep, enduring racial … Continue reading
WaPo: D.C. would release most police body camera footage under new plan
WaPo: D.C. would release most police body camera footage under new plan by Aaron C. Davis: Police in the nation’s capital would release more footage from body cameras than in any other major U.S. city under a plan from Mayor … Continue reading
WaPo: Computer searches and the problem of withdrawn consent
WaPo: Computer searches and the problem of withdrawn consent by Orin Kerr: Last week, a district court in Atlanta handed down a fascinating decision on whether agents can search a copy of a seized computer after consent to search the … Continue reading
NJ: The state has a difficult burden in showing justification for entry into a building it believes is abandoned
The state has a difficult burden in showing justification for entry into a building it believes is abandoned. Here, the place had only a couch and debris on the floor and defendant was dealing drugs from there, but there was … Continue reading
CA9: The statute of limitations for a § 1983 search claim runs from the date of the search
The statute of limitations for a § 1983 search claim runs from the date of the search. Belanus v. Clark, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 13648 (9th Cir. August 5, 2015). Defendant wasn’t prejudiced by defense counsel’s failure to challenge the … Continue reading
CA: A police car pulling behind a car with emergency lights on is a stop
A police car pulling behind a car with emergency lights on is a stop. One can’t refuse to pull over and just keep going. Here, the officer was investigating a domestic complaint, and the stop was justified. Reasonable suspicion developed … Continue reading