Archives
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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)
--Outline of 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)
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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: June 2017
CA2: Protective sweep leading to plain view doesn’t require immediate seizure
Police entered the apartment with an arrest warrant for one occupant and found four living there. A gun and drugs were in plain view. During a protective sweep, a gun and cell phone were found in defendant’s room. They weren’t … Continue reading
CA9: Administrative stop of tractor-trailer was pretext for criminal investigation lacking RS; suppressed
Commercial vehicles are subject to administrative stops for compliance inspections without reasonable suspicion. When, however, the use of the stop is predicated on pretext for criminal investigation, the stop and its continuation require reasonable suspicion. Here, that was lacking, and … Continue reading
MA: Nervousness, evasive answers about travels, coming from a source city, and criminal history all not RS
Defendant’s stop for a traffic offense had to end when there was no reasonable suspicion. Here, the government’s arguments for reasonable suspicion are all unavailing: Nervousness, evasive answers about his travels, coming from a source city, and criminal history all … Continue reading
SC: Catching up to def on street and telling him to produce ID was a seizure, here without RS
“Before the agents made contact with Spears, he had walked several hundred feet without the agents engaging him, indicating he was free to continue walking. By increasing their speed to catch up with Spears, the agents indicated to Spears he … Continue reading
Law.com/Daily Report: Students Subjected to Invasive Body Searches Sue South Georgia Sheriff
Law.com/Daily Report: Students Subjected to Invasive Body Searches Sue South Georgia Sheriff by R. Robin McDonald: An Atlanta lawyer representing students subjected to invasive body searches during a mass-and warrantless-drug sweep at a South Georgia high school says the local … Continue reading
Stop and frisk created by SCOTUS 49 years ago today
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), was decided 49 years ago today, June 2d. The stop and frisk occurred on October 31, 1963. The Ohio Court of Appeals Eighth District opinion is interesting for its historical value: State v. … Continue reading
TX14: Use of a spotlight on a boat was not a seizure
The use of a spotlight on a boat at night was not a seizure. Neale v. State, 2017 Tex. App. LEXIS 5008 (Tex. App. – Houston (14th Dist.) June 1, 2017):
TN: TN SCt has to adopt Herring under exclusionary rule; Ct.Crim.App. can’t
Despite the Tennessee Supreme Court’s recent changes in exclusionary rule jurisprudence, the court has not yet adopted Herring on good faith reliance on an out of date list. This court will not do it–that court has to. State v. McElrath, … Continue reading
PA: Once SW issues for clothes and DNA removed, no further warrant needed for DNA testing
DNA lawfully seized from defendant’s clothes did not require a separate warrant to test it. Defendant doesn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his victim’s DNA on him. Once DNA is lawfully taken, there is no longer any reasonable … Continue reading
MI: Unreasonable mistake of law voids search
Defendant’s arrest was without probable cause for violating a no trespassing ordinance. It was a public place, open for business, defendant briefly entered and did nothing wrong. The search incident to the arrest thus fails too. Mistake of law as … Continue reading
EFF: Montana Protects Communications Privacy, But Allows Gag Orders
EFF: Montana Protects Communications Privacy, But Allows Gag Orders by Andrew Crocker and Adam Schwartz (which EFF says violate the First Amendment).
ABC News: JetBlue testing facial-recognition boarding system in Boston
ABC News: JetBlue testing facial-recognition boarding system in Boston by Jeffrey Cook: JetBlue Airways will soon begin testing technology at Boston’s Logan International Airport that will use facial-recognition in lieu of a boarding pass to clear passengers to board their … Continue reading
WaPo: Opinion: Body cameras are key for police accountability. We can’t let them erode privacy rights
WaPo: Opinion: Body cameras are key for police accountability. We can’t let them erode privacy rights by Chris Dunn and Donna Lieberman: An essential tool poses a core dilemma.
N.D.Ill.: Viewing def’s Facebook page isn’t a 4A violation
Viewing defendant’s public Facebook is [hardly] a Fourth Amendment or Stored Communications Act claim. United States v. Khan, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 82493 (N.D. Ill. May 31, 2017):
CA2: Computer SW was sufficiently particular; broad doesn’t mean necessarily unreasonable
In the Silk Road “drug kingpin” conviction, whether the third party doctrine succumbs to technology is going to have to come from SCOTUS since the doctrine came from it. The search warrant for defendant’s computer was sufficiently particular. Broad for … Continue reading
EFF: Why We’re Suing the FBI for Records About Best Buy Geek Squad Informants
EFF: Why We’re Suing the FBI for Records About Best Buy Geek Squad Informants by Stephanie Lacambra and Aaron Mackey:
AZ: Being directed to get out of the car alone doesn’t extend the stop
“Urrea has not explained how his being directed to exit his vehicle while the deputy conducted a records check illegally prolonged the stop.” Even so, his coming back to the patrol car to talk about it was by consent. [Really?] … Continue reading
IN: Anonymous report of man with gun wouldn’t alone support frisk, but def fled
Police received an anonymous tip that a man matching defendant’s description had a gun in a bar. The officer arrived right after the call and saw defendant. Under state case law, that alone wasn’t enough for a frisk without more. … Continue reading
Time: Alexa Takes the Stand: Listening Devices Raise Privacy Issues
Time: Alexa Takes the Stand: Listening Devices Raise Privacy Issues by Haley Sweetland Edwards: