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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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (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: July 2019
E.D.N.Y.: Facebook SW was far too broad, but court declines to decide 4A question and goes with GFE instead
This Facebook warrant just seeks way, way too much information when it could have been far more narrowly tailored. “That said, the court need not decide whether the Facebook Warrant violated the Fourth Amendment because, even if it did, the … Continue reading
Forbes: Cop Who Accidentally Shot 10-Year-Old When Aiming For Family Dog Can’t Be Sued, Federal Court Rules
Forbes: Cop Who Accidentally Shot 10-Year-Old When Aiming For Family Dog Can’t Be Sued, Federal Court Rules by Nick Sibilla:
Bloomberg: You’re Home Alone With Alexa. Are Your Secrets Safe?
Bloomberg: You’re Home Alone With Alexa. Are Your Secrets Safe? by Matt Day
PA: Refusal to submit to a test is admissible under Birchfield
“[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
NBC2 News: Can police search your car for medical marijuana after you leave a dispensary?
NBC2 News: Can police search your car for medical marijuana after you leave a dispensary? by Delia D’Ambra: Attorneys are becoming concerned these patients could fall victim to law enforcement overreach and have their rights violated and not even know … Continue reading
PA: Motions for return of property seized by SW are addressed to judge supervising the GJ that sought them
Motions for return of property seized by search warrant issued for a Statewide Investigating Grand Jury are to be addressed to the judge supervising the grand jury. In re Return of Seized Property, 2019 Pa. LEXIS 3845 (July 17, 2019). … Continue reading
CA8: Package with anticipatory SW was placed back on porch with “return to sender” on it; search still constitutionally sufficient
In this anticipatory warrant case, the package was received, but it was placed back outside with “return to sender” written on it. Still, the warrant was constitutionally sufficient and the officers supplying their own triggering event, one not provided for … Continue reading
Immigration Blog: When May ICE Agents Enter Residences or Private Premises to Make Arrests?
Immigration Blog: When May ICE Agents Enter Residences or Private Premises to Make Arrests? by Dan Cadman:
CA7 declines to reinstate a 4A jail strip search claim after 8A claim went to trial; SCOTUS needs to decide
Plaintiff female prisoners filed a Fourth Amendment and Eighth Amendment claim against a jail for what they alleged was an invasion of privacy by an unjustified group strip search. The district court granted summary judgment against them on the Fourth … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: The exclusionary rule does not apply in a § 1983 suit against police officers
The exclusionary rule does not apply in a § 1983 suit against police officers. Mayo v. Lasalle County, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 117667 (N.D. Ill. July 15, 2019).* The court concludes defendant didn’t just drop his backpack when confronted by … Continue reading
TX14: The exclusionary rule does not apply to drug testing in a termination of parental rights case
The exclusionary rule does not apply to drug testing in a termination of parental rights case. In the Interest of L.C.L., 2019 Tex. App. LEXIS 6018 (Tex. App. – Houston (14th Dist.) July 16, 2019). The smell of marijuana during … Continue reading
IN: When AE applies, the fact def walked away from the car doesn’t prevent search
Where there was probable cause and the automobile exception applied, the fact defendant walked away from the vehicle didn’t prohibit its search. Cleveland v. State, 2019 Ind. App. LEXIS 316 (July 15, 2019). Defendant was apparently asleep parked in an … Continue reading
Forbes: Are Conversational Interfaces The ‘Foot In The Door’ For Government Surveillance?
Forbes: Are Conversational Interfaces The ‘Foot In The Door’ For Government Surveillance? by Ilker Koksal: Amazon Echo, released in 2014, introduced voice software into the home, quickly followed by Google Home, Apples’s HomePod and other generic smart speakers. In fact, … Continue reading
CA6: When PC is shown for the SW, what’s not there really doesn’t matter
There was probable cause on the totality for this search warrant. Defendant’s attack on what’s not there doesn’t help him. United States v. Jones, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 20851 (6th Cir. July 15, 2019). There was a factual basis for … Continue reading
LA Times: Women in jail endured group strip searches. LA County to pay $53 million to settle suit
LA Times: Women in jail endured group strip searches. LA County to pay $53 million to settle suit by Alene Tchekmedyinsta:
ClickOrlando.com: Be careful when driving with large amounts of cash in your vehicle
ClickOrlando.com: Be careful when driving with large amounts of cash in your vehicle by Steve Montiero: Troopers may ask to see proof.
TN: Carpenter argument defaulted for lack of a good record
A Carpenter CSLI plain error argument isn’t reached because of deficiencies in the record brought up. State v. Avant, 2019 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 415 (July 15, 2019)*:
W.D.N.Y.: Govt gets benefit of GFE which overrides Franks [without sufficiently telling us why]
Defendant twice asked the USMJ for a Franks hearing and never got one. On review, application of the good faith exception is sustained. “Here, the Government has shown that McMahon and the other law enforcement officers that executed the search … Continue reading
W.D.N.C.: The fact def’s car crossed the county line between when the police car lights came on and when he was stopped is not a basis to suppress
The fact a stop was started in one county and actually occurred as defendant crossed the county line is not a basis for suppressing the stop. Defendant’s consent to search his house is suppressed, however, because of language difficulties: “Thus, … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Trash pull alone isn’t enough for PC, but here there was more
A trash pull alone should not be enough for probable cause to search a house. Here, there was more of complaints of neighbors of people coming and going at all hours. “Investigators confirmed this complaint during their own surveillance of … Continue reading