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- 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)
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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: December 2017
MO: Where 2 SWs authorize search, both have to be suppressed for def to prevail; challenging only one is moot
There were two search warrants authorizing the search of defendant’s computers for child pornography. He challenged the second but not the first, and that makes his argument moot. State v. Cato, 2017 Mo. App. LEXIS 1298 (Dec. 12, 2017). A … Continue reading
WA: Def counsel likely ineffective for not moving to suppress seizure of attorney-client materials from jail cell
Defendant showed potential for prejudice for defense counsel’s failure to file a motion to dismiss a jail search that recovered materials the defendant was preparing for defense counsel and thus protected by attorney-client privilege. Remanded for a hearing. In re … Continue reading
NYTimes: City Police Officers Are Not Reporting All Street Stops, Monitor Says
NYTimes: City Police Officers Are Not Reporting All Street Stops, Monitor Says by Al Baker: More than two years into his tenure, a court-appointed monitor overseeing changes to the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policies has found that some officers … Continue reading
E.D.La.: Not filing motion to suppress but joining in codef’s renewed motion to suppress was waiver
Where one defendant didn’t file a motion to suppress but joined in a renewed motion to suppress of a codefendant, the motion is treated as waived. The procedure attempted circumvents Rule 12. Moreover, he doesn’t even have standing. United States … Continue reading
CA8: Domestic call and argument where def was reported armed justified warrantless entry
In a domestic dispute where the police were called, “The warrantless entry was justified by a legitimate and objectively reasonable concern for the safety of Christina Bak and the officers. They had information that Quarterman was making Christina Bak move … Continue reading
Cal.6th: Citizen informant’s report def matched a BOLO of a sex offender justified talking to him, and his probation search condition justified search
A San Jose bus driver thought that a passenger on a bus was a person there was a BOLO out on for having committed a lewd act on a child on a bus that was captured on the bus video. … Continue reading
OH12: Without def bringing up a suppression hearing transcript, findings uncontradicted
With no transcript of the suppression hearing, there’s nothing to contradict the trial court’s findings. State v. Harding, 2017-Ohio-8930, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 5373 (12th Dist. Dec. 11, 2017). Defense counsel’s failure to file a motion to suppress wasn’t ineffective … Continue reading
IN: Officer didn’t follow inventory policy and made this a criminal search; suppressed
The inventory in this case “deviated greatly” from the impoundment policy. When a gun was found, it turned into a criminal investigation and the officer ignored the inventory. No inventory was made. Sansbury v. State, 2017 Ind. App. LEXIS 804 … Continue reading
IL: Illegal stop and search not fixed under Strieff by finding outstanding warrant after
An illegal stop and search that led to an outstanding warrant wasn’t attenuated by the finding of the warrant, even when the stop was not purposeful or flagrant. In re Jarrell C. (People v. Jarrell C.), 2017 IL App (1st) … Continue reading
California Lawyer: Gag Orders on Grand Jury Subpoenas to Banks: The Next First Amendment Frontier?
California Lawyer: Gag Orders on Grand Jury Subpoenas to Banks: The Next First Amendment Frontier? by Joshua M. Robbins & Adam M. Sechooler: It is not uncommon for federal prosecutors to use grand jury subpoenas to force banks to produce … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Def shooting victim’s clothes could be seized from ER floor as plain view or because of exigency
Defendant arrived at a hospital ER after he was shot. His clothing was cut off him and on the floor, and the officer’s seizure was valid because it was in plain view and had clear evidentiary value from blood and … Continue reading
D.Mont.: Gun possession not stale after 5 months
A CI’s reference to guns in defendant’s house in Dec. 2016 was not stale by April 2017. Defendant’s arguments about a Franks violation are rejected for lack of materiality to the finding of probable cause. United States v. Wilson, 2017 … Continue reading
CA8: The independent source rule doesn’t apply to a civil rights conviction for false arrest
Defendant was properly convicted of false arrest as a deprivation of civil rights. He argued the attenuation doctrine that there was an independent source of information. There wasn’t, and the independent source doctrine is for the exclusionary rule not a … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Officers had PC defendant had CP and not just child nudity
Defendant argued that the alleged child pornography was mere child nudity, and thus not a crime. “The Court concludes that the information contained in each of the four warrant applications was sufficient to permit the reviewing magistrate judges to conclude … Continue reading
GA & Guam: Not getting a timely ruling on motion to suppress is waiver
Defendant didn’t get a ruling on his motion to suppress before trial. At trial, he didn’t object to one item being admitted but did to another, but not on Fourth Amendment grounds. Defendant waived his Fourth Amendment claim by not … Continue reading
ME: DEP could enter open fields to inspect composting operation
The state Department of Environmental Protection sought an injunction against the livestock business to get it to stop denying access to the business property for inspection of its composting operation. Because the area to be inspected was open fields, the … Continue reading
MA: Production of password to iPhone doesn’t violate 5A because ownership of iPhone is foregone conclusion
The state via a grand jury request sought the password to defendant’s iPhone. Production of the password would implicate self-incrimination concerns, but, here, it’s a foregone conclusion that it’s his phone and there are no self-incrimination concerns. Civil contempt affirmed … Continue reading
PA: No REP in CI recorded video in def’s car during drug transaction; also, motion was out of time and should have been denied on that ground alone
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his car under the state constitution from a surreptitious silent video recording of a drug transaction. The trial court erred in granting it. Indeed, the filing of the motion to suppress on … Continue reading