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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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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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Section 1983 Blog -
"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
NBC: Facebook lawyer says ‘there is no privacy,’ hinting at the challenges of Zuckerberg’s pivot
NBC: Facebook lawyer says ‘there is no privacy,’ hinting at the challenges of Zuckerberg’s pivot by Ben Popken: Some privacy advocates remain concerned that Zuckerberg’s ‘privacy-focused vision’ leaves the company’s core business of data-targeted ads mostly unscathed.
S.D.N.Y.: SW for the entire contents of a cell phone isn’t per se overbroad; depends on the crime involved
“The fact that the warrant authorized law enforcement agents to access all the data on the phone does not automatically render it overbroad.” Moreover, defendant doesn’t suggest that the good faith exception does not apply. United States v. Dawkins, 2019 … Continue reading
PA: Theft of a firearm isn’t exgency for warrantless search of a house
Defendant’s alleged theft of a firearm the day before was not an exigent circumstance for a warrantless entry into his home. Commonwealth v. Gray, 2019 PA Super 175, 2019 Pa. Super. LEXIS 541 (May 31, 2019). In fact, the person … Continue reading
OH6: Def doesn’t have standing to challenge search of another that led to PC for his SW
Defendant claimed that part of the facts of probable cause in the affidavit for his search warrant shouldn’t have been considered because of an illegal search of another. He doesn’t have standing to contest that search, and it can be … Continue reading
CA6 (en banc): The question of PC isn’t even close, and the GFE applies
The question of probable cause isn’t even close, and the good faith exception applies. United States v. Christian, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 16322 (6th Cir. May 31, 2019) (en banc). (The dissent is concerned about use of criminal history as … Continue reading
N.D.Okla.: While an attachment was missing from the official SW it was at the scene of the search, so no prejudice
The government conceded that Attachment C to the mail search warrant was missing from it, and thus that it led to a potentially overbroad search. The search team, however, all had copies of Attachment C, and it was at the … Continue reading
PA: Officer’s belief of possession of a concealed firearm is not RS for a stop and frisk
Officer’s belief of possession of a concealed firearm is not reasonable suspicion of unlawful use of a firearm. Prior case law from 1991 is disapproved. Commonwealth v. Hicks, 2019 Pa. LEXIS 3064 (May 31, 2019):
CA7: § 1983 4A ptf doesn’t have to plead around qualified immunity; ptf clearly overcame it anyway
The district court erred in finding for officers who conducted a warrantless search of plaintiff’s house. It was not her burden to plead around qualified immunity—it was the defendant’s burden to show qualified immunity. “It was clearly established in October … Continue reading
News Maven: Cop, CPS Strip-Search Six Kids, 4-Year-Old after Mom’s 10-Minute Muffin Errand
News Maven: Cop, CPS Strip-Search Six Kids, 4-Year-Old after Mom’s 10-Minute Muffin Errand by Ben Keller: Kentucky police and CPS threatened to take a mother’s kids if she didn’t allow them in her home to strip-search them.
D.Mont.: PC to arrest also justifies extension of a stop
There was probable cause to arrest, and that also justified the extension of the stop. The actual arrest doesn’t have to happen during the extension. United States v. Phillips, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 89962 (D. Mont. April 12, 2019), adopted, … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Officer consulting prosecutor about SW before issuance is a factor in GFE
The officer’s consulting a prosecutor on the search warrant isn’t conclusive on good faith, but it is an important factor. United States v. Anderson, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90265 (E.D. Ky. May 29, 2019). There was probable cause for the … Continue reading
Cell phones as a “tool of the trade”?
Atlantic: The Collapsing Crime Rates of the ’90s Might Have Been Driven by Cellphones by Alexis C. Madrigal Did technology disrupt the drug game, too?
W.D.N.Y.: State judge’s notes of oral testimony for SW may be considered in federal court
Under the “four corners rule,” only the content of the affidavit for search warrant can be considered, but what about unrecorded oral testimony in support? New York procedural law requires the issuing magistrate who considers oral representations in further support … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Protective sweep can occur after an arrest at the threshold
A protective sweep can occur after an arrest at the threshold even though defendant’s girlfriend said nobody else was there. United States v. Villanueva, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 89450 (D. S.D. May 29, 2019). The defendant being armed when the … Continue reading