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Recent Posts
- 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
- CO: DNA could be seized from trash
- CA8: Nebraska statute allowing SWs to cross state lines doesn’t violate 4A
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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)
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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: February 2019
M.D.Fla.: No showing of RS for protective sweep on entry; observations in other rooms suppressed
The protective sweep of other rooms had no reasonable suspicion justification under Buie that another person might be present. There were two and they were unreasonable. The product of the walk through made it into a search warrant for the … Continue reading
D.Nev.: DNA match overcame alleged Franks violation
The court finds that a minimal showing of at least recklessness was made in a representation in the search warrant application that a black cloth had not been disturbed during a crime. The video surveillance shows several people did. On … Continue reading
D.Minn.: A narrative affidavit for SW is hardly “outrageous conduct” to seek to dismiss indictment
Obtaining a search warrant with a narrative affidavit, inter alia, is hardly outrageous governmental conduct warranting dismissal. United States v. Ortiz, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17455 (D. Minn. Feb. 4, 2019).* Plaintiff’s excessive force claim against a probation search which … Continue reading
NJ: When the subject of a loud music complaint turned down the sound, no RS existed for continued detention
Police were called to a motel room because of a loud music complaint. The renter turned the music down, and, with that, the police should have left. Instead they wanted IDs and found a warrant on defendant. There was no … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Community caretaking function doesn’t apply well to seizures; seizure and frisk suppressed
Officers responded to a drive-by shooting allegedly picked up by ScatterShot. Officers grabbed defendant’s arm ostensibly to see if he’d been shot, and it was readily apparent that he had not been, and he denied it. The community caretaking function … Continue reading
CA7: State law violation for tracking warrant not a 4A violation
Defendant was tracked by a state issued tracking warrant. A state imposed limitation on the tracking warrant was arguably violated, but that doesn’t by any means mean that the Fourth Amendment was violated when his case was brought in federal … Continue reading
MN law that requires identifying information on renters is third party information and voluntary disclosure doesn’t offend Patel
Defendant rented a motel room in Minnesota, and state law requires the hotelier to gather certain basic identifying information about the renter. The police came and inquired of the hotel. They ran defendant’s information and learned that he’d been convicted … Continue reading
ECN: Will Big Brother Technology Compromise Privacy?
ECN: Will Big Brother Technology Compromise Privacy? by Ashley Osbun:
Bloomberg Law: FBI Exceeded GPS Tracking Warrant, But Convictions Survive
Bloomberg Law: FBI Exceeded GPS Tracking Warrant, But Convictions Survive by Porter Wells: Duo of bank robbers ‘à la Bonnie and Clyde’ tracked by GPS Violating warrant terms not same as violating Fourth Amendment
GA: Motion for a Franks hearing on arrest warrant mooted by indictment
Defendant’s motion for a Franks hearing on his arrest warrant was mooted by his indictment. Young v. State, 2019 Ga. LEXIS 55 (Feb. 4, 2019). Defendant was a sheriff’s deputy, and he was suspected of sexual misconduct with a minor. … Continue reading
WaPo: The Supreme Court’s ‘alternative facts’ about drug-sniffing dogs
WaPo: The Supreme Court’s ‘alternative facts’ about drug-sniffing dogs by Radley Balko:
TruNews: UK Police Fines Man after He Protested Facial Recognition
TruNews: UK Police Fines Man after He Protested Facial Recognition: If The ‘Predictive Policing’ Technology Makes Its Way To The U.S., There Could Be Some Major Problems.
N.D.Tex.: Pet’r raised his 4A claim at every level in state court, and that forecloses habeas relief on the merits
Petitioner raised in his 2254 a lack of probable cause for the search warrant. “Petitioner raised this Fourth Amendment claim in the trial court, on direct appeal, and in his state habeas petition. He has failed to show he did … Continue reading
ABA Criminal Justice: Carpenter v. United States: Building a Property Based Fourth Amendment Approach to Digital Data
ABA: Carpenter v. United States: Building a Property Based Fourth Amendment Approach to Digital Data by Melody J. Brannon, 33 Criminal Justice No. 4 at 20 (Winter 2019):
D.D.C.: Two story building with barbershop on first floor and residence above appeared to officers as one structure for SW purposes
The building searched was two stories. Defendants argued that the first floor was a barbershop and the second floor was a “warren of rooms” which were residential in character. Thus, two search warrants were required. The court disagrees because the … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Using state judge to get tracking warrant violated Rule 41, but court refuses to suppress for lack of prejudice or widespread violations
Officers used a state judge’s tracking warrant on defendant in technical violation of state law. It was not an isolated case. Nonetheless, defendant doesn’t show that he was prejudiced by this failure sufficient to justify applying the exclusionary rule. United … Continue reading
FL5: State’s failure to prove active pursuit of SW precluded reliance on inevitable discovery
The State failed to show that law enforcement was in pursuit of a search warrant at the time of the improper entry into defendant’s residence. It was thus error for the trial court to rely on the inevitable discovery doctrine … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Def showed no standing in a rented getaway car that they didn’t get back into before arrest where the car was rented with fake ID
Failure to attach search warrant to amended motion to suppress was abandonment of the motion. As to a rental car that was to be the getaway car in a robbery, rented with fake ID, defendant lacked standing. Moreover, there was … Continue reading