Archives
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Recent Posts
- N.D.Tex.: AUSA can summarize what the gov’t knows for SW application
- S.D.N.Y.: No right to quash SCA warrant before execution; remedies are after
- S.D.N.Y.: SW not based on mere speculation
- D.Mont.: Officers had RS for stop; it wasn’t based on the race of the suspects
- M.D.Pa.: SW for phone 19 months after alleged crimes showed PC
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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: September 2019
LA5: Failure to raise scope of search issue below was waiver on appeal
The officer affiant adequately corroborated the CI to show probable cause. Defendant’s argument that the search of his house under the warrant couldn’t include the back yard was not preserved below [but it usually would be valid anyway]. State v. … Continue reading
CA10: Def could not be charged with obstruction for refusing patdown that lacked RS
“The officer arrested Romero for obstruction because he failed to immediately comply with the officer’s request that he submit to a pat-down search. Romero argued in his motion that the firearm must be suppressed because the officer had neither (1) … Continue reading
CA6: Ptf stated a 4A claim and overcame QI for the officer’s allegedly manufacturing case against him
Plaintiff produced enough evidence to show defendant officer falsified the case against him and overcame qualified immunity. The prosecutor dropped the criminal case when it was apparent it was bogus, and then plaintiff sued. Parnell v. City of Detroit, 2019 … Continue reading
CA8: Strip search of female detainee on parking lot stated § 1983 claim
Nearly public strip search of female detainee on an open parking lot by a female officer also berating her with a male officer nearby stated a claim and overcame qualified immunity. Robinson v. Hawkins, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 26772 (8th … Continue reading
CA4: Stopping men right after shots were fired to look for guns was reasonable
Officers on patrol heard gunshots and arrived within 35 seconds and saw a group of men dispersing. The directed then to stop while shining flashlights on them, and the directed the men to pull up their shirts. Only defendant didn’t, … Continue reading
TX3: Phlebotomist’s careless handling of blood draw that didn’t compromise test wasn’t enough to suppress just from alleged risk of infection that didn’t happen
“As the State admits, using a biohazard container as a workstation for a blood draw is not ideal. However, even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling, we conclude that Fikes failed to meet … Continue reading
CA11: Arrest for not answering knocks to door by officers with a writ of possession unreasonable and no QI
Plaintiff was arrested for ignoring knocks to the door from officers with a writ of possession. They didn’t even ring the doorbell. Officers entered through the garage area and pulled a gun on plaintiff. There was no justification asserted for … Continue reading
MA: Calls from juvenile detention have no REP
Phone calls in juvenile detention were properly recorded. Defendant was on notice of recording. Commonwealth v. Odgren, 483 Mass. 41 (Sept. 4, 2019). In an immigration case where the petitioner bears the burden of showing an egregious violation of the … Continue reading
CA6: Tightening handcuffs more when arrestee complains and threatening her life overcame QI
“A group of masked City of Detroit police officers broke down plaintiff Katrina McGrew’s door, threw her to the ground, and handcuffed her so tightly it left bruises. When she complained about how constricting the handcuffs were, the officers threatened … Continue reading
CA5: Immigration stop was short and then justified being extended by RS
“The less-than-three-minute immigration stop was sufficiently brief under the Fourth Amendment …, and Escobar’s nervous and evasive behavior, unusual responses to lawful questions, and provision of a suspicious bill of lading gave agents sufficient reasonable suspicion to extend the stop. … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Parolee has no REP in own home as to parole search
The court holds that defendant’s status as a parolee literally gave him no reasonable expectation of privacy in his own trailer from a parole search. He seeks narrowing the search under Griffin to avoid Samson and Knights. The court rejects … Continue reading
CA2: More regular home visits of sex offenders to verify information reasonable under “special needs”
Suffolk County contracted with a private non-profit to verify registered sex offenders’ addresses, and that required home visits. Plaintiff sued for violation of the Fourth Amendment. The court holds that their actions were permitted under the “special needs” exception because … Continue reading
CA9: The extreme of QI: officers alleged to have committed theft during execution of a SW get QI because no case says it’s a 4A violation
Officers get qualified immunity for alleged theft of $300,000 in cash and property from plaintiffs because it wasn’t clearly established that theft from a search is unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Jessop v. City of Fresno, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
MO: Search incident of item taken off def’s person could happen 30 min after arrest
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not moving to suppress the search of a cigarette pack removed from defendant’s person at the time of his arrest but searched 30 minutes later. It was still subject to the search incident doctrine. Greene … Continue reading
KY: No REP in conversations with family members in police interrogation room
Defendant was allowed to talk to relatives in an interrogation room, and their conversation was recorded. “Accordingly, we conclude that Easterling’s Fourth Amendment rights were not violated when his conversation with family members in the interrogation room was videotaped and … Continue reading
Time: Justice Neil Gorsuch: Why Originalism Is the Best Approach to the Constitution
Time: Justice Neil Gorsuch: Why Originalism Is the Best Approach to the Constitution
WaPo: Sen. Markey seeks answers from Ring on doorbell-camera police network
WaPo: Sen. Markey seeks answers from Ring on doorbell-camera police network https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/09/05/sen-markey-seeks-answers-ring-doorbell-camera-police-network/ Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) is seeking answers from the doorbell-camera firm Ring about its hundreds of video-sharing partnerships with U.S. police agencies, citing ‘serious privacy and civil … Continue reading
The Appeal: ‘No Knock’ Warrants Spur Wave of Civil Rights Lawsuits in Little Rock
The Appeal: ‘No Knock’ Warrants Spur Wave of Civil Rights Lawsuits in Little Rock by Joshua Vaughan: “Police are accused of lying to obtain the warrants to conduct military-style raids on the homes of poor people and people of color.”
CA2: RS of stolen car not immediately dispelled by computer check
Officers had unusual facts during their stop of defendant that supported reasonable suspicion the vehicle might be stolen. Even a computer check didn’t completely dispel reasonable suspicion, so brief continuation of the stop was proper. United States v. Wallace, 2019 … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: The single question “Is there anything illegal in the car” doesn’t unlawfully extend the stop
“Even assuming here that the single question, whether there is anything illegal in the car, was not related to the mission of the traffic stop, the question did not violate the Fourth Amendment because it did not lengthen the traffic … Continue reading