Archives
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Recent Posts
- 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
- KY: Despite lack of nexus, SW sustained under GFE
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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: April 2018
IL: Def’s actions after stop to inquire rose to RS
Police encountered defendant and others in a car in a neighborhood where it didn’t seem to belong. The officers pulled up next to their car and talked. Based on furtive movements, the officer believed that defendant had a gun he … Continue reading
OH9: GPS tracking previously imposed for parole wasn’t a violation of 4A
GPS tracking as a condition of parole was based in substantial part on findings in a prior sentencing involving defendant, and that did not violate the Fourth Amendment in imposing those release conditions. That GPS information was used in this … Continue reading
CA11: Ten officers for a “knock and talk” violated Jardines, but it wasn’t the cause of the search of the house
Ten officers approaching defendant’s house for a “knock-and-talk” violated Jardines, but that doesn’t matter because it didn’t lead to the discovery of evidence. Defendant didn’t see them, and he opened the door in response to the knock. Then the officer … Continue reading
TN: There’s normally no reason why the judge that issued the SW would be a witness at a suppression hearing on a Franks motion
The judge that issued the search warrant is not required to recuse from being the trial judge, so there was no ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to raise that issue. Moreover, the issuing judge would not be a witness … Continue reading
D.S.C.: Considering the totality, there was no RS for defs’ detention for a dog sniff
“After consideration of the testimony presented during multiple lengthy suppression hearings, a thorough analysis of the relevant caselaw, and a careful review of the dashcam video of the traffic stop, the court grants the motion to suppress. The court finds … Continue reading
NV: Even if PBT was a 4A violation, SW was moot because there was both PC and exigency for warrantless search
The trial court erred in suppressing the telephonic search warrant for defendant’s blood. Even if the PBT was unconstitutional, there was both probable cause and exigent circumstances without even considering it. State v. Sample, 134 Nev. Adv. Op. 23, 2018 … Continue reading
CA6: When an anticipatory SW says delivery to X, X has to receive it for search to occur
When the triggering event in an anticipatory search warrant doesn’t occur, then the search can’t occur. Here it was to a named person. Somebody else accepting it isn’t acceptable. “In this case, requiring delivery to Perkins is the only common … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: A motion for new trial is too late to raise new grounds to suppress
Defendant litigated a motion to suppress and lost. In a motion for new trial, he raised new grounds, and this is rejected as untimely. United States v. Bishop, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57353 (N.D. Ind. Apr. 4, 2018). Defendant’s stop … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: There was a fair inference business records would be at def’s house
When a white collar investigation is underway, the staleness inquiry is more flexible because records, as opposed to drugs, are regularly kept for a long time. It was reasonable here to conclude that business records would be found at defendant’s … Continue reading
NJ: When driver can’t or won’t produce registration, a limited search for it is permissible
“Sufficient credible evidence supported the trial court’s determination that defendant was given an adequate opportunity to present the vehicle’s registration before the search commenced. When a driver is unwilling or unable to present proof of a vehicle’s ownership, a police … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Email SW completely lacked PC, then there were false statements and material omissions, too
The motion to suppress the search warrant for defendant’s emails is granted. “Nothing in the 2013 affidavit used to obtain the search warrant approaches probable cause.” And, “Therefore, the 2013 search warrant affidavit is so lacking in indicia of probable … Continue reading
MD: Surreptitious recording of def’s statement on cell phone violated state wiretap act
A parent’s surreptitious recording of defendant on cell phone for use to make a sex offense against him was inadmissible under the state wiretap act. Holmes v. State, 2018 Md. App. LEXIS 310 (Apr. 6, 2018).* First paragraph:
CA8: Stop of car apparently leaving scene of crime was valid
There was reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop based on the fact the vehicle matched the description of one leaving the scene of a robbery by time and proximity, too. United States v. Daniel, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 8504 (8th Cir. … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: This SW affidavit was adequate and different than co-def’s SW affidavit where it was suppressed
The affidavit for the search warrant as to this defendant adequately demonstrated probable cause. The fact the codefendant’s search warrant lacked probable cause isn’t binding on this search warrant. United States v. Damondo, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57204 (S.D. Ohio … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Statement is suppressed, but def’s giving up passcode to cell phone is not
While defendant’s statement is suppressed, his giving up the passcode to his cell phone is not, so the search of the cell phone was by consent. United States v. Jackson, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55965 (D. Minn. Feb. 27, 2018):
MI: Exclusionary rule doesn’t apply in child protective proceedings
The exclusionary rule does not apply in child protective proceedings. In re Kirschner, 2018 Mich. App. LEXIS 1093 (Apr. 3, 2018):
D.Neb.: Def’s Franks IAC claim fails for lack of any allegations of fact
“Lloyd makes four claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. Those claims border on the ridiculous.” As to his Fourth Amendment IAC claim for not making a Franks challenge, he alleges nothing was false. United States v. Lloyd, 2018 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
CA6: Decedent’s putting gun to head during execution of SW at his house justified deadly force against him
Officers executing a search warrant had the target pull a gun and put it to his head, so one shot him, and he died. There was a factual dispute about whether the officers properly knocked-and-announced before entry, but that’s not … Continue reading