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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)
--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: November 2017
D.S.D.: Was all this a “reasonable” mistake under Heien? Doesn’t matter because there was RS for other reasons
The court goes on at length about the reasonableness of the officers’ interpretation of use of a turn signal and the application of the state “practicable lane” statute under the reasonableness standard of Heien, then concludes there was reasonable suspicion … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Suspicionless probation search condition not shown to be on defendant; motion to suppress granted
Defendant did not have a suspicionless search condition on him. “This Court now joins the other courts in this district that have held that an officer must have reasonable suspicion to conduct a search of a probationer, unless the probationer … Continue reading
HI: Moving to suppress seizure of pill bottle incident to arrest didn’t cover later search of the bottle; issue waived
Defendant’s challenge to removal of a pill bottle from his person did not preserve a challenge to search of the pill bottle at the police station. “In any event, we conclude that Sado’s argument on appeal is without merit. Officer … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Def’s car could have been searched under auto. exception but police got a SW and took 8 days to search; not unreasonable under the circumstances
Defendant’s car was seized with probable cause for involvement in a series of bank robberies, and it could have been searched without a warrant under the automobile exception. The police got a search warrant instead and took eight days to … Continue reading
Techdirt: Oversight Board Report On DC Police Cameras Contradicts Earlier Report’s Claims
Techdirt: Oversight Board Report On DC Police Cameras Contradicts Earlier Report’s Claims by Tim Cushing: Less than a month after a first report was delivered on Washington, DC police body camera use, a second one has arrived. And it seems … Continue reading
D.Nev.: PC for automobile exception continues into impoundment
Probable cause for a vehicle search under the automobile exception continues into impoundment for later inventory even though the vehicle is immobilized by where it is. Also, permission from the owner gives the driver of a car standing. United States … Continue reading
C.D.Ill.: Ins. co. has standing to sue that audit would be 4A violation, and its claim is ripe. Motion to dismiss denied.
An insurance company subject to government audit has standing to challenge the legal basis for the audit. Its Fourth Amendment claim is ripe: “Fidelity’s Fourth Amendment claim in Count 1 presents a purely legal question, which renders the claim fit … Continue reading
WA: Appeal should have been from dismissal after granted suppression order; appeal dismissed
State couldn’t appeal a suppression order after it moves to dismiss a case. It should have appealed the dismissal order or both. State v. Cruz, 2017 Wash. LEXIS 997 (Nov. 2, 2017). Dropping a coat with a gun in the … Continue reading
Fairfaxtimes.com: Is your refrigerator dropping a dime on you?
Fairfaxtimes.com: Is your refrigerator dropping a dime on you? Letter to the editor on the surveillance life of home appliances.
CA6: No reasonable officer could conclude there was PC for pft’s arrest
“When reviewing the information known to Seidl at the time of Zavatson’s arrest, we conclude that no reasonable officer could have believed, based on anything more than speculation, that Zavatson had committed the purported theft. As an initial matter, there … Continue reading
CA6: Ptf’s guilty plea after losing suppression motion wasn’t collateral estoppel to § 1983 and Heck not implicated
Plaintiff sued over his body cavity search that was part of his state case. He litigated and lost in state trial court then pled guilty. His federal action does not implicate his conviction, and it can proceed under Heck v. … Continue reading
D.Me.: Officer’s comments and actions on body recorder belie any need for protective sweep
Officers went to defendant’s mobile home on a knock-and-talk based on an attempt to buy a gun two weeks earlier that was denied because the address given didn’t match the driver’s license. At the door of the mobile home, the … Continue reading
New American: Did Mueller’s Search of Manafort’s Home Violate the Fourth Amendment?
New American: Did Mueller’s Search of Manafort’s Home Violate the Fourth Amendment? by C. Mitchell Shaw:
CA5: Witness to police shooting handcuffed and detained for 2 hours stated 4A claim for relief
Plaintiff’s father was acting erratic and was armed, and the police were called. Plaintiff was trying to defuse the situation. The SWAT team showed up, and, after a brief stand-off plaintiff’s father was shot while she was standing next to … Continue reading
CA10: Defs did not violate clearly established 4A law by accessing the Utah Controlled Substance Database on plaintiffs’ prescriptions
Defendants did not violate clearly established Fourth Amendment law by accessing the Utah Controlled Substance Database on plaintiffs’ prescriptions (and the Fourth Amendment claim goes undecided). Pyle v. Woods, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 21713 (10th Cir. Nov. 1, 2017):
The New American: Utah Nurse Waives Lawsuit, Settles for $500,000 in Patient Privacy Case Written by Bob Adelmann
The New American: Utah Nurse Waives Lawsuit, Settles for $500,000 in Patient Privacy Case by Bob Adelmann:
techdirt: First Circuit Appeals Court Latest To Overturn Playpen Suppression Order
techdirt: First Circuit Appeals Court Latest To Overturn Playpen Suppression Order by Tim Cushing: A third Appeals Court has ruled on the tactics the FBI used to track down users of a dark web child porn site. And the third … Continue reading
WaPo: Debate on ‘Carpenter v. United States,’ the Fourth Amendment cell-site case
WaPo: Debate on ‘Carpenter v. United States,’ the Fourth Amendment cell-site case by Orin Kerr: Last Thursday, I participated in an excellent debate on Carpenter v. United States, the pending Fourth Amendment case on government access to historical cell-site records. … Continue reading
Just Security: Opinion: Can Defense Counsel Ever Be Lawfully Surveilled by the Government?
Just Security: Opinion: Can Defense Counsel Ever Be Lawfully Surveilled by the Government? by Charles J. Dunlap, Jr.: Could there be any circumstance where the surveillance of defense counsel in a terrorism case might be ‘defensible’?