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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Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
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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: December 2017
D.Nev.: Lack of a front license plate is RS for a stop
The officers here noticed no front license plate, and they turned around and defendant fled. That was reasonable suspicion. United States v. Hodgkin, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 199936 (D. Nev. May 24, 2017),* adopted, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 199426 (D. … Continue reading
CA5: Def’s girlfriend has actual authority to consent to a search even though she was moving out
“Valenzuela had actual authority to consent to the search, or at the very least, the officer had a reasonable belief she had common authority over the residence. E.g., United States v. Matlock, …; see also Illinois v. Rodriguez, …. Valenzuela … Continue reading
OH8: Anonymous call about drug dealing from car led officers to defendants; smell of burning MJ led to valid search of car
The officer received an anonymous call about drug deals being done from a car in a shopping center parking lot. He pulled up to a parked car to check it out and it was occupied and smelled of burning marijuana. … Continue reading
NBC Chicago: Every Chicago Patrol Officer Equipped With a Body Camera
NBC Chicago: Every Chicago Patrol Officer Equipped With a Body Camera: Chicago now has the largest deployment of body cameras in the country, according to CPD, which previously said the total number of cameras throughout the department would reach 7,000.
TN: Search issue was decided in first appeal, and that’s law of the case and can’t be relitigated
Defendant’s search issue was decided in a prior appeal, and that makes it law of the case. State v. Weilacker, 2017 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 1018 (Dec. 8, 2017). The government doesn’t oppose return of some of the seized evidence, … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: State court GPS tracking order limited to Indiana didn’t prevent FBI from using it under 4A when car went to California
Defendant was suspected of a bank robbery, and the government presented a GPS tracking warrant affidavit to an Indiana judge to track defendant in Indiana. Shortly thereafter, defendant drove to Los Angeles, and he was stopped for a traffic offense … Continue reading
WaPo: The Supreme Court’s privacy case shows Congress needs to draw new lines
WaPo: The Supreme Court’s privacy case shows Congress needs to draw new lines:
D.Me.: CP on a cell phone is nexus to CP being on a computer
Child pornography on defendant’s cell phone is nexus to his computer. Computers are common storage devices for cell phone pictures and information. “Common sense suggests that if an individual has images of child pornography downloaded to one electronic device, the … Continue reading
DE: IAC 4A claim requires alleging then showing that the motion to suppress not pursued would have been granted
Defendant wanted to plead guilty in his drug case at the first appearance, and defense counsel persuaded him to wait until discovery was complete. Defendant then wanted to plead, but later he claimed that defense counsel failed to consider all … Continue reading
IN: Second patdown had its own RS def was still armed
Defendant was hostile and aggressive toward officers, and a second patdown was conducted after he was handcuffed finding a gun. His actions continued and heightened concern that he had a weapon on him. J.R. v. State, 2017 Ind. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA11: RS can be found by collective knowledge
Probable cause to search defendant’s vehicle existed based on officers’ collective knowledge, including a tip from an informant who had recently been found with cocaine, identified defendant as his primary supplier, and described how she hid cocaine under her car’s … Continue reading
Politico: Court filing highlights breadth of Mueller’s investigation into Manafort
Politico: Court filing highlights breadth of Mueller’s investigation into Manafort by Josh Gerstein:
PA: Even if HIPAA violated (it wasn’t), there’s no exclusionary remedy
Defendant’s medical records from the state he was extradited from were not unlawfully obtained under HIPAA or the Uniform Act for Obtaining Witnesses from Without State. A “subpoena” under the act includes subpoenas duces tecum. Moreover, even if HIPAA had … Continue reading
NV: Illegally recorded conversation by recorder in child’s backpack can be used by expert in child custody proceeding
In this child custody case, the father put a recording device in the child’s backpack to record the child’s interactions with the mother. While the recording violated state law, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in permitting an … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: During the knock-and-talk def was not “in custody” for Miranda purposes
During the knock-and-talk at defendant’s apartment, he was not “in custody” for Miranda purposes, and his statements could be used against him. United States v. Butler, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 201765 (W.D. Mo. Nov. 16, 2017), adopted, 2017 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Def’s losing an SD card with CP on it wasn’t abandonment; but he loses because there was PC for SW
Defendant claimed he lost an SD card, and it ended up stuck to his girlfriend’s leg, and she discovered it when she wasn’t around him. He didn’t abandon it, so he had standing. The girlfriend put the SD card in … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Citizen’s complaint of trespassing with a vehicle days earlier was RS for a stop
Citizen complaint defendant’s vehicle was trespassing was a valid basis for a stop a few days later. United States v. Arredondo, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 199737 (D. Neb. Nov. 18, 2017),* adopted, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 199357 (D. Neb. Dec. … Continue reading
D.Md.: Nexus shown by def’s car driven to drug deal was registered at his house and he left there to do the deal
Defendant was alleged to have left the address his car was registered at to go to a controlled buy. That showed nexus to the house. United States v. Goldsberry, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 199446 (D. Md. Dec. 4, 2017). Defendant … Continue reading