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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: July 2019
VOA: Customs Agency Cash Seizures at Airports Cost Travelers Millions
VOA: Customs Agency Cash Seizures at Airports Cost Travelers Millions by Masood Farivar: A little-known U.S. anti-money laundering law is costing international travelers millions of dollars a year, raising concerns of civil liberties’ advocates that many innocent people are unwittingly … Continue reading
The Intercept: As Trump Announces Mass Immigration Raid, Documents Show How ICE Uses Arrest Quotas
The Intercept: As Trump Announces Mass Immigration Raid, Documents Show How ICE Uses Arrest Quotas by Maryam Saleh:
Cal.3: Broad electronic parole search condition was reasonable and related to the crime
Defendant was convicted of identity theft and he had an electronic search condition for his release. The computer search release condition was reasonable and not overbroad, and it was related to the underlying crime and how it was committed. People … Continue reading
CA10: Taking ptf nude through a hospital for treatment when in custody stated a claim
Plaintiff’s being paraded nude into a hospital for treatment when in custody stated a claim, and the officers get no qualified immunity. “Plaintiff’s claim … that he was mistreated while in state custody … may be challenged under the Fourth … Continue reading
WA: Evidence lawfully obtained in another jurisdiction is admissible even if state law would have been violated
Washington’s “silver platter doctrine” that evidence lawfully obtained in another jurisdiction will be admitted into evidence there, even if Washington law would have been violated by the search in Washington, is retained and followed. The search warrant for child pornography … Continue reading
CA10: SW not needed to obtain GPS location information from parolee’s GPS monitor
Defendant was on community supervision with GPS monitoring. He does not contest that, just the fact the location information was obtained without a search warrant. The probation-parole search exception doesn’t require a search warrant to obtain that information. United States … Continue reading
W.D.Ark.: Speaking Spanish isn’t even a factor in RS or PC for a vehicle search
The fact the driver of a car spoke Spanish was not reasonable suspicion or probable cause because at least 10% of the U.S. population speaks Spanish. The search of the car was without probable cause, and the exclusionary would be … Continue reading
CO: Officer’s statement there was PC for a SW was irrelevant at trial
Whether there was probable cause for a search warrant is irrelevant at trial and should not be admitted. This was a part of defendant’s cumulative error argument. Howard-Walker v. People, 2019 CO 69, 2019 Colo. LEXIS 573 (July 1, 2019). … Continue reading
GA: No IAC to not object to reference to SW as somehow lowering burden of proof at trial
It was not ineffective assistance of counsel to not object to a police reference to having obtained a search warrant as somehow lowering the state’s burden of proof on guilt in the trial. Franklin v. State, 2019 Ga. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
VT: SW target gets a hearing on whether he gets access to his own SW materials
“In this matter, Jacob Oblak petitioned the superior court for access to an affidavit of probable cause filed in a criminal case and was denied.” The public access to records rule has another rule for exceptions was not properly applied. … Continue reading
Reason: The FBI Hopes These Cute Puppies Will Distract You From Unconstitutional Civil Asset Forfeitures
Reason: The FBI Hopes These Cute Puppies Will Distract You From Unconstitutional Civil Asset Forfeitures by Scott Shackford: Surrender the Fifth Amendment or the dog dies.
NYT: Russia Sanctions Froze His Fortune. Can the 4th Amendment Unlock It?
NYT: Russia Sanctions Froze His Fortune. Can the 4th Amendment Unlock It? by Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum
MD: Judge sanctioned for, among other things, not properly handling the SW paperwork allowed to accumulate in her office rather than get it matched up and filed
A Baltimore City judge was suspended for six months for multiple things, one of which was not timely matching up 135 search warrants and applications and returns that had accumulated in her office for filing. Also, a staff member turned … Continue reading
IA: Where owner of car was female and had a suspended license, a stop was reasonable when a woman and three men got into it
Officers knew the owner of the car was female, and there was a woman in the group that got into it, so, for reasonable suspicion purposes, it was reasonable to believe she might be driving and stop the car where … Continue reading
CA8: Second attempt at knock-and-talk wasn’t unreasonable under Jardines
Officers went to defendant’s home for a knock-and-talk and could smell green marijuana. Their second attempt at a knock-and-talk wasn’t unreasonable under Jardines. United States v. White, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 19446 (8th Cir. June 28, 2019). “Ferguson, however, does … Continue reading
Pacific Standard: West Virginia Will Now Provide Free Community College Tuition If Students Can Pass a Drug Test
Pacific Standard: West Virginia Will Now Provide Free Community College Tuition If Students Can Pass a Drug Test by Kelley Czajka: The program is the first in the country to introduce drug testing as an eligibility requirement.