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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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"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: July 2019
OH5: PC is determined on the totality, not each isolated fact
Defendant’s challenge to probable cause for the search warrant isolates each fact. Applying the totality of circumstances, there is probable cause. State v. Beightler, 2019-Ohio-2946, 2019 Ohio App. LEXIS 3037 (5th Dist. July 18, 2019).* Defendant doesn’t meet the Franks … Continue reading
VT: Inquest subpoena for video of police involved shooting is a public record
A television station sought access to a video of a police involved shooting produced before an inquest. The record is presumptively an open record. “The pivotal question in this case is whether a trial-court order granting a motion to quash … Continue reading
CA9: A state SW executed by a federal officer doesn’t violate 4A
A state issued search warrant is not executed in violation of the Fourth Amendment because a federal law enforcement officer executed it. United States v. Cruz-Ramirez, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 21528 (9th Cir. July 19, 2019). Defendant wasn’t “in custody” … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: Def failed to show standing at the place where he intermittently spent nights but no showing of when
Defendant failed to show standing in the home of another. He and his girlfriend had a key to the premises where he intermittently spent the night over a fair stretch of time, but there was no showing of when he … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Oral military search authorizations do not violate 4A or Rule 41
Oral search warrant requests and authorizations under M.R.E. 315 do not violate the Fourth Amendment or Rule 41. Many cases so hold. The violation of the SOP manual for military magistrates wasn’t serious enough to justify suppression nor prevent the … Continue reading
BuzzFeed News: Opinion: Don’t Regulate Facial Recognition. Ban It.
BuzzFeed News: Opinion: Don’t Regulate Facial Recognition. Ban It. by Evan Greer: We are on the verge of a nightmare era of mass surveillance by the state and private companies. It’s not too late to stop it.
The Atlantic: FaceApp Makes Today’s Privacy Laws Look Antiquated
The Atlantic: FaceApp Makes Today’s Privacy Laws Look Antiquated by Tiffany C. Li: Cameras are everywhere, and data brokers are vacuuming up information on individuals. But regulations have not kept pace.
E.D.Mich.: Second SW issued three weeks after first had no additional information to overcome staleness; no GFE
Defendant was the target of a search warrant. Three weeks later, police obtained another search warrant using the prior information attempted to be supplemented by defendant’s Facebook page. There was also a failed controlled buy there. There was insufficient new … Continue reading
NY3: No suppression hearing for lack of pleading a factual basis for suppression
Defendant was properly denied a suppression hearing for not alleging a factual basis for a suppression motion. People v. Seecoomar, 2019 NY Slip Op 05727, 2019 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 5742 (3d Dept. July 18, 2019).* The stop was justified. … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: While def was in jail, he caused robbery evidence to be moved to his sister’s house; he’d been in jail a month by then and lacks standing
Defendant is accused of robbing an ATM technician. The search warrant for his place in Chicago was based on probable cause, and evidence linking him to the robbery was found there. After jail calls suggested evidence was moved to his … Continue reading
No IAC for not moving to suppress where there’s no standing
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not pursuing a motion to suppress that the co-defendant already lost on the merits and for which defendant had no standing. State v. Adkins, 2019 Del. Super. LEXIS 335 (July 16, 2019).* Defense counsel wasn’t … Continue reading
Cal.1: Application of community caretaking function doesn’t require police to know who is inside; just that somebody reasonably might be
The community caretaking function was satisfied here: “Although in the present case the officers were not aware of a specific, known individual who might be in danger or might pose an imminent threat to others, as in some of these … Continue reading
SF Chronicle: Jeff Adachi case: Judge quashes SFPD warrant used to search journalist’s phone
SF Chronicle: Jeff Adachi case: Judge quashes SFPD warrant used to search journalist’s phone by Megan Cassidy: A judge on Thursday quashed a search warrant used by San Francisco police to search a journalist’s phone in what was part of … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: No evidence defendant “is a collector of child pornography,” so no PC; remanded for factual determination of GFE
The government did not show probable cause to believe that child pornography was on defendant’s electronic devices. The officer’s experience is one thing, but no facts suggest that defendant “is a collector of child pornography.” The record is inadequate to … Continue reading
MA: PC was shown for cell phone search on admission there were timely videos that could help explain
There was probable cause for a search warrant for photos and videos on defendant’s cell phone in a home invasion case based on all the evidence in the case to that point and, pointedly, admission there were videos on the … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Moving place of search of belongings away from alley where def was arrested to inside wasn’t unreasonable
Officers had a warrant for defendant’s person and belongings. It wasn’t unreasonable to move the place of the search from the alley where he was arrested inside, even as a search incident. United States v. Sanchez, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA4: Denial of cross examination into alleged falsity in SW affidavit where the product was never used was irrelevant or harmless
The district court didn’t err in holding cross-examination about alleged falsities in a search warrant affidavit where the product of the search was never admitted at trial. Also, in light of all the proof, it was harmless at best. United … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Def’s mother did not have joint control over a trailer he lived in on her property; officers at minimum should have inquired more
Defendant lived on property with his mother, but he was in a trailer. It was unreasonable for officers to believe that she had joint control over his part of the property. At best, the situation was such that officers should … Continue reading
PA: Birchfield doesn’t prevent evidence of refusal
“[W]e conclude the ‘evidentiary consequence’ provided by Section 1547(e) for refusing to submit to a warrantless blood test — the admission of that refusal at a subsequent trial for DUI — remains constitutionally permissible post-Birchfield. We therefore affirm the order … Continue reading