Archives
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Recent Posts
- CA11: Service of SW without attachments isn’t 4A violation
- KS: Running warrants on a passed out person is reasonable
- M.D.Fla.: Unidentified pills in driver’s lap may have been RS but it wasn’t PC for arrest
- D.C.Cir.: It was reasonable for officers to conclude that evidence or instrumentalities of the crime would be found in the car used in a robbery
- CA7: Officer’s warrantless view of CSAM flagged by hash value was not unreasonable
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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: August 2017
D.S.C.: Strip search for gun in groin was reasonable on the totality: “the search was less than ideal, but so were the circumstances”
A patdown revealed a gun hidden in defendant’s groin area. His strip search on the street produced the gun hidden in his underwear. The record doesn’t show whether others saw the strip search, a factor in reasonableness, but it certainly … Continue reading
NPR (WMUK): New Baltimore Police Scandal Threatens Criminal Cases
On the body camera video showing planted drug evidence, see NPR (WMUK): New Baltimore Police Scandal Threatens Criminal Cases by Eric Westervelt. Thus far, 40 cases have been dropped.
Wired: Warrantless US Spying Is Set to Expire Soon. Let it Die
Wired: Warrantless US Spying Is Set to Expire Soon. Let it Die by Kevin Montenegro and Stephen Renderos:
WIRED: Your Own Pacemaker Can Now Testify Against You In Court
WIRED: Your Own Pacemaker Can Now Testify Against You In Court by Deanna Paul: When Ross Compton had a pacemaker installed, he had a constitutional right to remain silent. One would expect his body to have the same. But when … Continue reading
Bloomberg: Police Push Tracking for Civilian Drones
Bloomberg: Police Push Tracking for Civilian Drones by Alan Levin:
The Hill: Congress must act to protect data privacy before courts make surveillance even easier
The Hill: Congress must act to protect data privacy before courts make surveillance even easier by Ashley Baker:
OH2: Particularity and scope of search have to be raised and litigated to preserve for review
Claims of particularity and scope of search have to be raised and litigated in the trial court to appeal them. State v. Terrell, 2017-Ohio-7097, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 3224 (2d Dist. Aug. 4, 2017). Tossing a gun in flight from … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: A “Car-Mart” advertisement in place of the license plate was RS for a stop to inquire whether vehicle just purchased or not
“Thus, having viewed the ‘Car-Mart’ advertisement serving as Defendant’s license tag or plate, Cpl. Williams possessed reasonable suspicion to believe that Defendant was in violation of those laws” about getting a car licensed within 20 days of purchase, so the … Continue reading
OH2: Def’s denial of possessory interest in car at suppression hearing denies him standing
“During the suppression hearing, Williamson specifically disclaimed a possessory interest in the Chrysler 300” so he didn’t have standing. State v. Williamson, 2017-Ohio-7098, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 3217 (2d Dist. Aug. 4, 2017). (Shades of Rawlings v. Kentucky where the … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Writing “return to sender” and putting package back on porch didn’t nullify PC for anticipatory warrant
The fact a package with drugs is coming to a particular address is enough to issue an anticipatory warrant for that address. A prior history of that address and drugs isn’t required. When the triggering condition is taking the package … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Probation condition doesn’t permit warrantless tracking of defendant’s cell phone as a matter of course. If he’s a fugitive, yes, by court order
Probation condition doesn’t permit warrantless tracking of defendant’s cell phone as a matter of course. When he’s a fugitive, however, it can be. United States v. Ponce, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 119550 (M.D. Fla. July 31, 2017):
CA9: In a civil Franks claim, withheld SW affidavit tolls limitations until discovery
Plaintiff claimed judicial deception in obtaining search warrants for his home and computers over the death of his wife. When the state had the warrant affidavits sealed, the two year statute of limitations on his claim of judicial deception did … Continue reading
VI: Report of gun pointed from a particular car is RS
A report that a gun had been pointed from a car was reasonable suspicion to stop the car. When three of the four doors of the car flung open on the stop, it was reasonable to order everyone to the … Continue reading
CA10: “the Fourth Amendment doesn’t require officers to use the least intrusive method of acquiring information”
The district court was mistaken in holding that the defendant officers didn’t use the least restrictive means necessary when he was seized: “the Fourth Amendment doesn’t require officers to use the least intrusive method of acquiring information. See Armijo ex … Continue reading
CA9: A valid parole search includes detaining the property long enough to search it
Defendant was on a parole search condition, and that included searching any property under his control and even detaining that property long enough to do it. United States v. Miller, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 14283 (9th Cir. Aug. 3, 2017). … Continue reading
CA7: 4A doesn’t bar Michigan state GPS warrant permitting tracking of car into Indiana
It didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment for a state issued GPS warrant in Michigan to track a car into Indiana. Territoriality is a state law issue, hardly ever a Fourth Amendment issue. “The problem with Castetter’s principal argument is that … Continue reading
IA: Officer’s checking on car parked on rural road at 1 am was valid welfare check
The officer stopped to check on the welfare of defendant parked on the side of a rural road at 1 am. This was a bona fide welfare check and not a criminal investigation, and it was reasonable. State v. Coffman, … Continue reading
ME: SW not needed to photograph def’s facial injuries
Police didn’t need a search warrant to photograph injuries on defendant’s face. State v. McNaughton, 2017 ME 173, 2017 Me. LEXIS 193 (Aug. 1, 2017). There was neither reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop nor his patdown. No facts were put … Continue reading