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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: March 2016
UT won’t require warrant under automobile exception
“Rigby contends that the Utah Constitution provides its citizens greater protection against unreasonable searches than the United States Constitution because Utah courts have required police officers to have both probable cause and exigent circumstances when performing a warrantless search under … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Def was a potential suspect in a series of robberies, and he gave cause for an exigent circumstances into a hotel room after he kicked in the door; plain view sustained
An Hispanic male wearing somewhat distinctive clothing committed four robberies around Tampa. Surveillance video put a vehicle at one of the robberies, and officers found it and surveilled it at a motel parking lot. A couple was around the vehicle … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Police allowing hours-long exposure of ptf’s breasts stated 4A seizure claim that was clearly established
Plaintiff was involved in a bar brawl, and her shirt was torn and her breasts exposed. DC Metro police officers handcuffed her behind her back and took her to jail and failed to do anything to cover her breasts or … Continue reading
DE: Cut-and-paste SW led to overbreadth problem in witness tampering SW where child porn found and suppressed
This is a child pornography case. The search warrant was a cut-and-paste from a child porn warrant but the warrant was for evidence of witness tampering on a computer. Child porn was found. The result was a warrant that failed … Continue reading
WSJ: After Ferguson, Cities Face a Body-Cam Dilemma
WSJ: After Ferguson, Cities Face a Body-Cam Dilemma by Dan Frosch and Zusha Elinson: In arming police with video devices, some cities face friction for acting fast American cities rushed to provide police departments with body cameras, spurred by public … Continue reading
TN: Passing the FST didn’t negate PC; bloodshot and watery eyes, smelled of alcohol, admitted to 3 beers
Passing the FST didn’t negate probable cause. The officer observed defendant speeding, and, when the officer approached defendant he smelled alcohol, defendant had bloodshot and watery eyes, and defendant told the officer he had consumed three beers. State v. Silva, … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Def invited in by homeowners’ daughter without their knowledge had standing
Defendant had standing in the homeowner’s house where he’d been invited in by the daughter and spent the night many times. The protective sweep here was objectively reasonable. United States v. Nelson, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28209 (D.Kan. March 3, … Continue reading
KY: Strip search was reasonable because of def’s sagging pants and exposed underwear
Defendant’s “strip search” was reasonable in part because his pants were already sagging and his underwear was showing. Jackson v. Commonwealth, 2016 Ky. App. LEXIS 31 (March 4, 2016). Defendant was not in custody when he told police in a … Continue reading
GA holds that a dog sniff of a car before dispatch confirms ID is valid because it didn’t extend the traffic stop
The dog sniff of defendant’s car took only five minutes and occurred during the normal incidents of a traffic stop for improper lane change. The officer had watched defendants go into an apartment, retrieve a duffle bag and then followed … Continue reading
WaPo: D.C. police sometimes raid wrong homes on scant evidence, terrifying innocents
WaPo: D.C. police sometimes raid wrong homes on scant evidence, terrifying innocents by John Sullivan, Derek Hawkins, and Pietro Lombardi: Authorities cited their ‘training and experience’ to justify searching a residence without any sign of criminal activity.
D.Mont.: Govt had insufficient evidence defendant lived at place searched to enter with arrest warrant
The police had insufficient evidence defendant resided at the place searched to justify entry under an arrest warrant. “The government contends that the following facts, in combination, were sufficient to establish probable cause that Doney lived at 108 Buena Vista: … Continue reading
W.D.Ark.: Dog alert unreliable because of handler cues and other things and search suppressed
The stop and its continuation was with reasonable suspicion. Ultimately, the dog’s alert was not reliable on the totality. No one factor was enough to find the dog alert unreliable, but collectively they were. The dog was “off his game,” … Continue reading
SC: Walking near a place being searched isn’t RS; def not connected to property
A no-knock warrant was executed at a house, and defendant walked along the periphery of the property. The police stopped and frisked him finding drugs. There was no reasonable suspicion, even when he acted nervous and evasive after confronted. He … Continue reading
CA9: Probation search of cell phone for missing one probation meeting unreasonable; rule unclear “property” includes data
A probation search of defendant’s cell phone based on missing a single probation meeting was unreasonable for various reasons: The heightened privacy in a cell phone v. the ubiquity of cell phones in everyday life and the unclear provision that … Continue reading
NC: Jardines does not prohibit knock-and-talks
Where the notice of appeal says the defendant is appealing from the denial of the motion to suppress and not the judgment, the notice of appeal was deficient. Nevertheless, the case was taken by writ of certiorari. The police here … Continue reading
NJ: Reentry of a house looking for a missing dementia patient was valid under community caretaking doctrine
Defendant called the police to tell them that his mother with dementia had wandered off again, as she had six months earlier. One of the officers who looked for her returned to the house to look there again because, three … Continue reading
Heritage.org: Hearing Before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Heritage.org: Hearing Before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform by Paul J. Larkin, Jr. before United States House of Representatives (March 2, 2016)