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- WaPo: They confided in ChatGPT. Their secrets ended up in court.
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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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--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: April 2017
E.D.Mich.: If an inventory is otherwise valid, it doesn’t matter that it also had an investigative purpose
Defendant’s cell phone was seized from his car after a stop. If an inventory is otherwise valid, it doesn’t matter that it also had an investigative purpose. A search warrant was sought for the cell phone. The affidavit for the … Continue reading
CA11: When one in a group in a high crime area flinches on seeing the police, others with him are subject to investigative detention
Officers approached a group of men standing in a high crime area, and one of them flinched on seeing the police. That was reasonable suspicion as to him and at least permitted a brief detention of the others in the … Continue reading
CA1: SW for guns on 4 mo old information wasn’t stale
Defendant was a reputed Boston mobster on the lam in Idaho with a different name. Police were tipped off to his location, interviewed neighbors learning about guns, and then allegedly went to his house and peeked in the window. Even … Continue reading
D.Nev.: There is no co-conspirator standing
Defendant was charged as a co-conspirator in a drug conspiracy involving a warehouse. He makes no effort to show his individual standing, and being a co-conspirator isn’t enough. United States v. Galecki, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 185667 (D. Nev. Sept. … Continue reading
WaPo: How Jeff Sessions wants to bring back the war on drugs
WaPo: How Jeff Sessions wants to bring back the war on drugs by Sari Horwitz: When the Obama administration launched a sweeping policy to reduce harsh prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, rave reviews came from across the political spectrum. … Continue reading
WI: Confrontation clause does not apply to suppression hearings
The confrontation clause is a trial right, so does not apply to suppression hearings. So the use of a deceased police officer’s recorded statement at a suppression hearing did not violate the confrontation clause. State v. Zamzow, 2017 WI 29, … Continue reading
FL: Def abandoned gun by storing it in attic of friend’s house where friend said gun wasn’t allowed in house
Defendant abandoned his gun by putting it in his friend’s attic in a shoebox after he was told the gun was not welcome in the house. Heyne v. State, 2017 Fla. LEXIS 748 (April 6, 2017). The PO had reasonable … Continue reading
TN: No consent to blood draw where def pulled out of car at gun point and told his blood was being taken
Defendant did not freely and voluntarily give his actual consent because he was pulled over by police officers, ordered out of his car at gun point, read the implied consent form, and informed that officers would hold him down and … Continue reading
TN finally rejects Aguilar-Spinelli for Gates under state constitution
After rejecting Gates in 1989 and retaining Aguilar-Spinelli as a matter of state constitutional law, Tennessee finally adopts the totality of circumstances test of Gates. State v. Tuttle, 2017 Tenn. LEXIS 190 (April 5, 2017) (see Treatise § 6.36 n.4):
Slate: The Second Amendment vs. the Fourth Amendment
Slate: The Second Amendment vs. the Fourth Amendment by Mark Joseph Stern: Does exercising your right to carry a gun diminish your other constitutional protections? The American judiciary is currently engaged in a vigorous debate that can be summed up … Continue reading
LATimes: Op-Ed My phone was searched at LAX, which apparently is the new normal
LATimes: Op-Ed: My phone was searched at LAX, which apparently is the new normal by Lubana Adi: One of the happiest moments in my life was the day in 1999 when I became an American citizen. Studying for the citizenship … Continue reading
New law review article: The Original Fourth Amendment
The Original Fourth Amendment, by Laura Donohue, University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 83, 2016 Abstract:
KY: Arrest outside away from door did not justify protective sweep inside
A protective sweep wasn’t justified because the arrest was outside the apartment building away from view. Exigency also didn’t exist because there was no justification for thinking that there might be an injured person inside. Pace v. Commonwealth, 2017 Ky. … Continue reading
Cal.1: Telling def to keep hands out of pockets and move to sidewalk was not a seizure
Defendant was not detained when officers asked him to keep his hands out of his pockets and to step onto the sidewalk. The encounter did not become a detention until the officers used force to grab defendant’s arm and told … Continue reading
D.R.I.: Running a criminal background check during a traffic stop is reasonably part of the stop; RS not required
Defendant’s car was stopped because the passenger didn’t have his seatbelt on. A criminal background check was run, and it was part of the stop and did not require separate justification. That was enough to order defendant out of the … Continue reading
CA11: No nexus shown for cell phone SW, but def was on probation, so inevitable discovery applies
Cell phone search warrant failed to show nexus between the phone and the alleged crime. In considering remedy, the court decides not to apply the good faith exception and instead goes with inevitable discovery. Defendant was on probation and there … Continue reading
CA5: SW for 320 CR 401 didn’t include 320A; telephonic warrant fails for lack of a record of what caused to issue
A search warrant for 320 CR 401 did not objectively include 320A CR 401, a different address and building 200 yards away with a separate electric meter, so summary judgment was improperly granted the police. In addition, a telephone warrant … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Officers on consent search saw cell phone in plain view and they knew it would have evidence on it; seizure proper
The court assumes without deciding that defendant had standing to challenge the search of his sister’s house because, although he was kicked out because of an arrest warrant for him, she let him back in to take a shower, charge … Continue reading
N.D.W.Va.: Fact a cell phone is searched in a county other than where the SW issued isn’t a 4A issue
The affidavit for the state search warrant for defendant’s cell phone established that cell phones were used in the drug offenses, so that establishes probable cause to search them. The fact the phones were searched in a county other than … Continue reading
D.N.M. allows motion to reconsider under implied authority and denies it
On defendant’s motion to reconsider the prior denial of the motion to suppress, the new evidence that defendant has doesn’t change the outcome. United States v. Thayer, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51255 (D.N.M. April 3, 2017).* The motion to reconsider … Continue reading