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- 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
- WA: Sweat patch as condition of release violated state constitution’s privacy provision
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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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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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)
ACLU on privacy
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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: June 2019
ABAJ: Lawyer count in US increases 14.5% from decade ago …
ABAJ: Lawyer count in US increases 14.5% from decade ago; these 5 states have highest number of active attorneys by Debra Cassens Weiss When I became a lawyer in 1973, there were 250,000 American lawyers. Today it’s 1,352,027.
News 5 Cleveland: Video shows 2 Cuyahoga Co. Jail officers beat inmate in restraint chair
News 5 Cleveland: Video shows 2 Cuyahoga Co. Jail officers beat inmate in restraint chair by Ian Cross: CLEVELAND — Newly-released video shows two Cuyahoga County Jail officers brutally beating a restrained inmate back in March of this year; both … Continue reading
CA7: Govt illegally entered def’s house but they had plenty of PC and were going to get a warrant; thus, independent source saves the illegal search
“All agree: the DEA entry team entered Huskisson’s house unlawfully. We do not condone this illegal behavior by law enforcement; the better practice is to obtain a warrant before entering a home. Ordinarily, the evidence found here would be excluded. … Continue reading
IA: Smell of MJ alone is PC for a search
“Iowa Supreme Court precedent holds that the odor of marijuana emanating from a person, by itself, when detected by a police officer, who has adequate knowledge and training to recognize the smell, constitutes probable cause. The district court incorrectly found … Continue reading
TX: After Franks hearing that removed information from the affidavit, there is no heightened standard of PC
After removing false information after a Franks hearing, the standard of review of probable cause remains the same. There is no heightened standard of probable cause after Franks. Hyland v. State, 2019 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 542 (June 5, 2019). … Continue reading
FoxNews: OnStar alert leads to rescue of Florida baby from hot car after mom passes out inside: deputies
FoxNews: OnStar alert leads to rescue of Florida baby from hot car after mom passes out inside: deputies by Talia Kaplan The question is: Why were they listening? There was no accident triggering the system.
OH10: Two year old email wasn’t stale for CP SW probable cause
A two year old incriminating e-mail was not stale for a child pornography search warrant. State v. ShaskusState v. ShaskusState v. Shaskus, 2019-Ohio-2190, 2019 Ohio App. LEXIS 2273 (10th Dist. June 4, 2019). Defense counsel acted reasonably in foregoing appealing … Continue reading
CA6: No QI for a baseless stop, strip search, and body cavity search and then tightening handcuffs for ptf’s complaining about his treatment
The officer gets no qualified immunity in his interlocutory appeal. On the complaint, plaintiff stated a claim that his stop was not objectively reasonable in the first place. A police dog was put into plaintiff’s vehicle, then it was searched … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Broad discovery in hopes of finding a Franks violation isn’t proper under Rule 16
Defendant doesn’t get broad discovery just to see whether a Franks claim might be able to be made. He needs to be more specific and not just fish around. United States v. Walker, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 92699 (E.D. Cal. … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Eight months of constant pole camera digital recording of all comings and goings from defendants’ house violated their reasonable expectation of privacy under Carpenter
The government intends to use at trial parts of eight months of constant pole camera digital recording of all comings and goings from defendants’ house. Such recording and preserving it violated their reasonable expectation of privacy under Carpenter and chilled … Continue reading
NBC: Border Patrol searches have increased on Greyhound, other buses far from border
NBC: Border Patrol searches have increased on Greyhound, other buses far from border by Adiel Kaplan and Vanessa Swales:
The Hill: FBI database stokes worries over facial recognition tech
The Hill: FBI database stokes worries over facial recognition tech by Emily Birnbaum:
CA7: Def’s texting photos of a firearm to others that police saw was an independent source for the search
Defendant had texted a copy of a photograph of his AK-47 on his cell phone to another, and the police saw it. That gave cause and an independent source to search the phone for it. “We agree with the district … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Govt had objective good faith belief def consented to search through his lawyer
The government had an objective good faith belief that the defendant in jail consented to a search of a storage unit through his lawyer. The lawyer was asked about whether the officers could have consent or get a search warrant, … Continue reading
Roll Call: Lawmakers fear that the FBI and TSA are misusing facial recognition tech
Roll Call: Lawmakers fear that the FBI and TSA are misusing facial recognition tech by Griffin Connolly: Law enforcement and national security agencies implementing new technology ‘without any real guard rails,’ top Democrat warns
D.Minn.: SW for house that includes def’s car if “near” is constitutionally sufficient
The search warrant for defendant’s house included his car if found “near,” and it was not overbroad. It might have better for there to be a search warrant just for the car, too, but that’s not constitutionally required. United States … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: Def counsel not ineffective for not raising flash bang device as justifying suppression of the search that followed
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not filing a motion to suppress that use of a flash bang device was excessive force and justified suppression because it wouldn’t be under Herring. Also, defense counsel’s failure to challenge defendant’s arrest wasn’t ineffective … Continue reading
BuzzFeed.news: “Good Day for a Choke Hold”
BuzzFeed.news: “Good Day for a Choke Hold” by Emily Hoerner & Rick Tulsky: A review of the Facebook accounts of thousands of officers around the US — the largest database of its kind — found officers endorsing violence against Muslims, … Continue reading