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- 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: April 2017
IN: Even if prolonged knocking can be unreasonable in a knock-and-talk, here it was justified by a chemical smell at the house
Even if prolonged knocking during a knock-and-talk, recognized as potentially unreasonable in United States v. Jerez, 108 F.3d 684 (7th Cir. 1997), was unreasonable, here it was reasonable because it was based on the officers encountering a chemical on the … Continue reading
NY4: Testimony at trial can’t be used on appeal of a suppression issue
Even if defendant had standing, the search was justified by consent. “In contending that the resident did not give consent, defendant improperly relies on testimony of the resident of the home at the first trial, which ended in a hung … Continue reading
WaPo: Want Medicaid coverage? A drug test should come first, Wisconsin governor says
WaPo: Want Medicaid coverage? A drug test should come first, Wisconsin governor says by Paige Winfield Cunningham: Now that House Republicans have squandered their shot at reordering Medicaid, governors who want conservative changes in the health program for low-income Americans … Continue reading
Two on qualified immunity
It was not sufficiently clear that the officers’ actions here in aiding a repossession violated the Fourth Amendment, so they get qualified immunity. “However, there is sufficient daylight between the Officers’ conduct here and the conduct in Cochran and Hensley … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Email SW to Google was particular, and target has no 4A right to notice of the SW
“Courts have repeatedly upheld courts’ ability to issue warrants outside their respective district under the S[tored] C[communications] A[ct]. The computer system was in California with Google. The email warrant was for nearly everything for 13 months, and it wasn’t overbroad. … Continue reading
CA11: RS justified home search by PO when door opened and MJ could be smelled, plus more, not that it mattered
POs came to defendant’s place for a home visit. When the door was opened, the officer could smell marijuana. He asked for defendant and the man answering the door said defendant didn’t live there. He asked for defendant’s girlfriend who … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Evidence that officer condoned CI planting evidence survives MSJ
Plaintiff had enough evidence of CI misconduct in planting evidence and police turning a blind eye toward it to survive summary judgment. Santiago v. Lafferty, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49177 (D. Mass. March 31, 2017):
NYTimes: What the Repeal of Online Privacy Protections Means for You
NYTimes: What the Repeal of Online Privacy Protections Means for You by Brian X. Chen:
WaPo: A panty liner triggers a TSA pat-down just one step removed from a pap smear
WaPo: A panty liner triggers a TSA pat-down just one step removed from a pap smear by Petula Dvorak:
IL: Def’s statement after illegal arrest when confronted with bogus GSR test was not attenuated
Defendant’s statement six hours after his illegal arrest when confronted with a bogus GSR test was not attenuated. People v. Hernandez, 2017 IL App (1st) 150575, 2017 Ill. App. LEXIS 206 (March 31, 2017), mod. on den. of rehearing, 2017 … Continue reading
NYTimes Sunday Review: Trump Is President. Now Encrypt Your Email.
NYTimes Sunday Review: Trump Is President. Now Encrypt Your Email. by Max Read:
MD: PC as to the passenger isn’t automatic PC as to the vehicle
Probable cause that the passenger is in possession does not automatically translate to probable cause to believe that the vehicle contains contraband in the trunk justifying its search. The police could articulate nothing as to the vehicle itself, other than … Continue reading
LATimes: Police arrests are plummeting across California, fueling alarm and questions
LATimes: Police arrests are plummeting across California, fueling alarm and questions by James Queally, Kate Mather and Cindy Chang:
CEI: Six Reasons FCC Rules Aren’t Needed to Protect Privacy
CEI: Six Reasons FCC Rules Aren’t Needed to Protect Privacy by Ryan Radia:
CA11: Nolo plea establishes PC for arrest; excessive force can be shown by the injuries
Plaintiff’s nolo plea established probable cause for his arrest. Plaintiff’s excessive force claim, however, is established by clearly established law and the district court erred in finding it was de minimus. It appears that plaintiff was handcuffed and compliant but … Continue reading
D.Minn.: 911 call about two men entering house with guns couldn’t be corroborated at all at scene; entry for protective sweep unreasonable
“The information provided to the police was that a caller called 911 and said ‘there’s two men that came inside the house with guns.’ (Transcript at 9.) The police were also given the address of the subject house. (Id.) Based … Continue reading
Two on Miranda custody
Asking defendant whether he drove to the place where he was detained was not within the “public safety” exception of Miranda. His car, however, being left in an emergency zone when he was arrested permitted inventory for the gun under … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: QI granted city for seizure of liquor license under IL law after a bar erupted into a large fight
Plaintiff ran a bar in the Chicago suburbs, and police got 911 calls about a large fight inside. When they arrived and sorted it out, the Mayor, under the authority of the Illinois liquor control law, ordered the liquor license … Continue reading
CA4: Two successive computer checks took a while, but they were reasonable; def finally admitted to a gun during “small talk” with officer at window
Defendant’s stop was a bit long, but not unreasonably long, and it wasn’t delayed by the officers. Running the driver and defendant passenger’s name through NCIC produced an alert on them because of past events, and the court never says … Continue reading