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Recent Posts
- CAAF: Information on computer stored in evidence room wasn’t stale
- CAAF: SW’s incorporated affidavit satisfied particularity, reliance on CA10 case not CAAF case was error
- CA10: Def’s BO suggesting heroin abuse added to RS
- WaPo: They confided in ChatGPT. Their secrets ended up in court.
- CA6: No interlocutory appeal of denial of motion to suppress
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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)
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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 2016
W.D.N.Y.: Independent source rule satisfied; illegal entry didn’t factor into SW
There was an illegal entry, but the police had probable cause already, and the search warrant affidavit didn’t include a word of it. Therefore, the first prong of the independent source doctrine was satisfied. As to the second, the investigation … Continue reading
CADC: When the govt learns heroin dealers’ pattern for pick up and delivery, further acts matching the pattern are probable cause
Defendants were known heroin dealers, and they followed a pattern in travel. On the trip that resulted in their arrest, GPS data and cell site location information put them together following the same pattern, and that was reasonable suspicion. United … Continue reading
WI: Air fresheners on every vent in a high crime area with tinted windows was RS
Air fresheners on every vent of the air conditioning and being in a high crime area with tinted windows was reasonable suspicion of possession of drugs, but it’s a close call. Defendant voluntarily consented to the search of his car … Continue reading
Columbia Journalism Review: A reporter’s arrest is just the latest reason to worry about press freedom in Missouri
Columbia Journalism Review: A reporter’s arrest is just the latest reason to worry about press freedom in Missouri by Doran Lee:
W.D.N.Y.: No REP in bloody tissue left in police dept bathroom
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a bloody tissue left in a men’s bathroom at the Buffalo police station. United States v. Green, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 87388 (W.D.N.Y. July 6, 2016). Defendants’ vehicle was stopped as it … Continue reading
Atlantic: End Needless Interactions With Police Officers During Traffic Stops
Atlantic: End Needless Interactions With Police Officers During Traffic Stops by Conor Friedersdorf: A broken taillight does not require armed agents of the state to approach a motorist’s window.
NJLJ: Federal Judge Holds Christie’s Phone Data Off-Limits in Bridgegate Case
NJLJ: Federal Judge Holds Christie’s Phone Data Off-Limits in Bridgegate Case by Charles Toutant: The federal judge hearing the Bridgegate criminal case has granted Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s motion to quash a subpoena by defense lawyers who sought to examine … Continue reading
NYTimes Magazine: How a $2 Roadside Drug Test Sends Innocent People to Jail
NYTimes Magazine: How a $2 Roadside Drug Test Sends Innocent People to Jail by Ryan Gabrielson and Topher Sander: Widespread evidence shows that these tests routinely produce false positives. Why are police departments and prosecutors across the country still using … Continue reading
NC: Driving at normal speed out of a parking lot wasn’t “flight” for RS purposes
Driving out of a parking lot at a normal speed was not flight for reasonable suspicion purposes. “In the present case, the officers observed activity which made them suspect that Defendant’s actions in leaving the apartment complex might constitute flight, … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Omission of CI’s prior inconsistent statement didn’t require Franks hearing
The fact that more detail could have been included, including prior inconsistent statements of informants, that doesn’t make a search warrant affidavit false or misleading for Franks purposes because it wouldn’t change outcome. United States v. Davis, 2016 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: On a motion to reconsider, this is why def wasn’t deemed credible at suppression hearing
Defendant was found not credible at the suppression hearing. He filed a motion to reconsider to object. The court explains why, which is a lesson to all defense lawyers and maybe defendants. United States v. Lawson, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
D.Utah: Nexus to home for SW shown by def driving to drug deals from home
Sufficient nexus was shown for a search warrant for defendant’s home from his observed drug dealing on the street. He drove to the drug deals from his home, and other intel had him dealing at home. United States v. Galaviz-Gaxiola, … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Facial showing of racially discriminatory arrests made to get more discovery
Defendant made a sufficient showing of race-based selective enforcement in arrests in Operation Safe Streets in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco to get more discovery. United States v. Mumphrey, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 85593 (N.D.Cal. June 30, 2016). Defendant … Continue reading
Bustle: The Shooting Of Alton Sterling Makes This Sonia Sotomayor Dissent More Potent Than Ever
Bustle: The Shooting Of Alton Sterling Makes This Sonia Sotomayor Dissent More Potent Than Ever by Hillary E. Crawford:
LA Daily News: Privacy isn’t being protected by Congress
LA Daily News: Privacy isn’t being protected by Congress:
Argus Leader: Police use catheters, force to collect urine samples
Argus Leader: Police use catheters, force to collect urine samples by Mark Walker, Patrick Anderson and John Hult: Practice brought to light in recent case out of Pierre; AG says it’s not illegal Police in South Dakota are collecting urine … Continue reading
IL: Error in overruling def objection at suppression hearing doesn’t require new suppression hearing if outcome wouldn’t change
Erroneous overruling of defendant’s objections during a suppression hearing doesn’t necessarily require a new suppression hearing if the appellate court finds it harmless or wouldn’t change the outcome. People v. Maxey, 2016 IL App (1st) 130698, 2016 Ill. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
UT: Car can be stopped where RS passenger in violation of probation
A police officer can pull over a car with a probationer as a passenger when there was reasonable suspicion the passenger was in violation of probation. State v. Mikkelson, 2016 UT App 136, 2016 Utah App. LEXIS 139 (June 30, … Continue reading