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Recent Posts
- 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
- D.Utah: Minor time detours to writing up a traffic ticket didn’t unreasonable extend this stop; the dog was quickly on its way
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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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (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: March 2018
GA: Allegedly illegally seized journals the state agreed not to use could be used as prior inconsistent statements when def testified
Defendant’s journals were allegedly illegally seized, and the state agreed not to use them. Defendant testified, and the state sought to put the journals into evidence for impeachment as a prior inconsistent statement. When the trial court allowed it, defendant … Continue reading
MS: “The description ‘stolen property’ is no description” for particularity
The affidavit for the search warrant satisfied probable cause to believe items were stolen, but the search warrant’s particularity failed because “The description ‘stolen property’ is no description” at all. More is required. Sutton v. State, 2018 Miss. LEXIS 128 … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: If you’re suing over a SW issued on false allegations, somebody has to put the SW papers in the MSJ pleadings; nobody did, so denied
This is an excessive force and illegal search claim where plaintiff claimed her husband was unreasonable killed in violation of the Fourth Amendment and state law. It also included a claim that the search warrant was obtained by judicial deception. … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Detroit’s removal of 85 used cars parked on city land as a trespass was reasonable
Plaintiff is a used car dealer who parked cars on a city owned lot that they were trying to acquire, but it never went through. The cars weren’t removed despite requests, so all 85 were towed off by towing companies … Continue reading
PA: SW papers issued by GJ retain secrecy and aren’t open
The search warrant issued by a state grand jury are still entitled to grand jury secrecy, compared to other judicial records. The court followed In re Gwinnett Cty. Grand Jury, 284 Ga. 510, 668 S.E.2d 682 (2008). In re 2014 … Continue reading
OH11: Def’s vehicle and occupants matching description of bank robbery getaway car and suspects was RS
Defendant’s vehicle matched the description of a bank robbery suspect’s truck in terms of the color, size, make, and model, and the defendant matched the suspect’s description in terms of his gender, race, and clothing. That was reasonable suspicion. State … Continue reading
OH3: Court declines to extend state const to trash searches
The court declines to extend the state’s constitution to prohibit trash searches permitted by the Fourth Amendment. While other state courts have done so, this state has not yet, and that’s for the state supreme court. Another district had also … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Older information about drugs confirmed by an ion scan of door knob 72 hours before SW not stale
Officers received detailed information in May 2017 of several being involved in the drug trade in April 2017. This resulted in a search warrant of others. Another CI provided information about June 2017. “In addition to Defendant being seen in … Continue reading
NYTimes: Justice Scalia’s Fading Legacy
NYTimes: Justice Scalia’s Fading Legacy by Linda Greenhouse His Fourth Amendment opinions, on balance, more favored privacy against the government.
New Draft Article: “Cross-Enforcement of the Fourth Amendment”
New Draft Article: “Cross-Enforcement of the Fourth Amendment” by Orin Kerr on SSRN. The surprising uncertainty when the Fourth Amendment meets federalism. From Volokh Conspiracy:
Trial the rest of week, so postings likely late
MN: Officer’s entry on def’s property to look at serial number of an allegedly stolen camper violated curtilage; entry suppressed
Defendant was a suspect in having a stolen pop-up camper on his property. The victim saw it and called the police. The police entered to look at the serial number on the camper, but it was curtilage under Dunn. The … Continue reading
Treatise 25% off through Friday midnight PT
Treatise 25% off through Friday midnight PT.
D.Utah: Shooting of def in court attempting to stab witness on stand with a pen was reasonable use of force
The CSO shooting plaintiff’s decedent in the courtroom was reasonable under all the circumstances as a matter of law, shooting him four times in quick succession after he came over the rail around the witness box. Decedent grabbed defense counsel’s … Continue reading
NJ: Def was interrogated in DA’s office; inventory of her purse after lawyering up was unreasonable
Defendant was detained and being interviewed at the local DA’s office. She’d rummaged in her purse without restriction, and it was open on the table. She looked at her cell phone for the time and commented that she had to … Continue reading
CA9: Officer putting gun to head of handcuffed compliant suspect and threatening to kill him was excessive force, but QI applied
“Examining the facts in the light most favorable to plaintiff, the non-moving party on summary judgment, the panel assumed that the police officer did indeed point his gun at plaintiff’s head and threatened to kill him. The panel held that … Continue reading
MO: No REP in a dilapidated broken down trailer on rural property without any secure walls, roof, or floor
Defendant worked for a tree service that had a rural place where they burned tree debris. There was a broken down trailer on the property that had missing walls, partially missing roof and a rotting floor where defendant changed clothes. … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Accidentally transmitted private conversation wasn’t a search
Plaintiff had a conversation near a malfunctioning Motorola handheld radio that transmitted their conversation to the Illinois State Police that was recorded in due course, and then the conversation was passed on resulting in job discipline. The recipients did not … Continue reading
NYTimes: Customer Faces Get Scanned at Madison Square Garden
NYTimes: Customer Faces Get Scanned at Madison Square Garden by Kevin Draper:
CA5: TX sanctuary cities law is not enjoined pending trial; law not shown unconstitutional in all its applications
Texas’s sanctuary cities law (SB4) is not enjoined pending trial. Plaintiffs do not show that the law is unconstitutional in all its applications. City of El Cenizo, Texas v. State of Texas, 17-50762 (5th Cir. Mar. 13, 2018):