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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) -
“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 2016
DE: Trial court couldn’t decide PC where def didn’t raise it in motion to suppress; reconsideration granted; def has to frame the issues in the motion to suppress
At issue was a seizure and then search of defendant’s cell phone with a search warrant looking for an incriminating text message that was already seen by the police on the recipient’s cell phone. At the hearing, the Superior Court … Continue reading
KY: There is no jurisdictional requirement for knock-and-talk
There is no such thing as a jurisdictional requirement that a law enforcement officer outside of his or her jurisdiction can’t come to one’s door to do a knock-and-talk. The officers did nothing more than any other citizen could do … Continue reading
CA6: Where affidavit for SW referenced defendant’s arrests it was true: no duty to investigate how they came out
In the PC showing for a search warrant, the affiant doesn’t have to investigate every arrest of the defendant shown in a records check to determine outcomes that there was no convictions. The affiant didn’t assert convictions. At the suppression … Continue reading
UT: Discovery order for DNA taking based on showing of PC was valid way to get it
Defendant was accused of burglary and aggravated assault, but he could not be identified by his victims. The state applied for a DNA collection order via the discovery rules, and defendant said he would not comply. Then an order was … Continue reading
New law review article: Apple and the American Revolution: Remembering Why We Have the Fourth Amendment,
Clark D. Cunningham, Apple and the American Revolution: Remembering Why We Have the Fourth Amendment, 126 Yale L.J. Forum ___ (2016). Abstract: This essay provides a concise history of events prior to the Revolutionary War that led to the adoption … Continue reading
Seattle Times: Oregon study finds racial disparities in drug convictions
Seattle Times: Oregon study finds racial disparities in drug convictions by AP: That conviction disparity held true in methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine cases statewide, according to a study by the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission.
CATO at Liberty Blog: 84% of Americans Oppose Civil Asset Forfeiture
CATO at Liberty Blog: 84% of Americans Oppose Civil Asset Forfeiture by Emily Ekins: Eighty-four percent (84%) of Americans oppose civil asset forfeiture–police ‘taking a person’s money or property that is suspected to have been involved in a drug crime … Continue reading
LA2: Even though LA doesn’t follow SCOTUS standing rules, def still had to show a privacy interest, and he didn’t have one in his murder victim’s cell phone
Defendant couldn’t challenge the search of his murder victim’s cell phone. While Louisiana doesn’t follow SCOTUS cases on standing, no privacy right of defendant was involved in her phone found at her feet when the police arrived at the crime … Continue reading
DE: SW for house didn’t also show nexus to include outbuilding
Defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in a shed behind another man’s property. He’d been sleeping there for a while, and the police even listed that address on the arrest report as where he stayed. While the state Supreme … Continue reading
MI: Consent to remove shoe didn’t include consent to take apart a lighter that fell out
Defendant’s consent was to remove his shoe. It did not include taking apart the lighter that fell out. Remanded to suppress. May v. State, 2016 Miss. App. LEXIS 810 (Dec. 13, 2016). Officers received a BOLO on a particular car … Continue reading
Mississippi adopts new Rule of Criminal Procedure, search and seizure in Rule 4
In re Adoption of Mississippi Rules of Criminal Procedure, 2016 Miss. LEXIS 524 (Dec. 13, 2016)
IL: Civil discovery request to search personal computers was unreasonable; it was tenuous anything helpful would be found
Defendant was rear-ended in a car wreck, and he claimed various injuries, including cognitive impairment. The defense sought access to his work and personal computers in an effort to determine whether they could shed light on that. Under the Illinois … Continue reading
PA: An unannounced home visit of a probationer doesn’t require RS
Defendant was on probation, and the unannounced probation home visit resulted in a plain view of cocaine that was admissible in evidence. The home visits were provided for in the probation agreement, and they did not have to be based … Continue reading
Cal.4th: Failure to knock-and-announce and wait long enough was not subject to exclusionary rule
The officers’ failure to knock-and-announce (really wait long enough) before entry does not invoke the exclusionary rule under Michigan v. Hudson. People v. Byers, 2016 Cal. App. LEXIS 1087 (4th Dist. Dec. 14, 2016):
CA7: Arrest for disorderly conduct was clearly without PC, so officers get no qualified immunity
Officers have no qualified immunity for an arrest for disorderly conduct that was obviously without probable cause, and no reasonable officer could have concluded otherwise. Catledge v. City of Chicago, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 22118 (7th Cir. Dec. 13, 2016):
Three on reasonable suspicion
Flight led to reasonable suspicion. When cornered, defendant wouldn’t raise his hands. The frisk was valid. United States v. Strayhorn, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 169219 (E.D.Mo. Nov. 14, 2016).* A valid traffic stop led to smelling marijuana which led to … Continue reading
CA7: “We’re not inclined to construct a [4A] constitutional basis for [plaintiff’s] claims when she has failed to do so herself”
Plaintiff is a lawyer who attempted to report a $22M theft committed by a client learned in unprivileged information. The state ignored her. Ultimately, she was charged as an aider and abetter of the client, and acquitted at trial. She … Continue reading