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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: December 2019
E.D.N.Y.: Email SWs are treated the same as hard drive warrants: The entirety may be seized so it can be searched by keyword
Email search warrants are treated the same as hard drive warrants: The entirety may be seized so it can be searched by keyword to find relevant material. Moreover, the good faith exception applies. United States v. Chalavoutis, 2019 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Even if def was beaten in his home country after a search that led to charges here, he doesn’t show it violated international norms
Defendant was subjected to a search in Malaysia for identity theft that he alleged included a beating after the search occurred. That evidence was used in the Northern District of Georgia to prosecute him for aggravated identity theft. He admits … Continue reading
NJ: Trial court misapplied Franks without def even pleading Franks on an arrest warrant
The trial court erred in excising part of the affidavit for arrest on its description of the video of a shooting. Defendant chose not to file a Franks motion, and the video description shows that a person fired a gun … Continue reading
techdirt: EU Tells US: Ban Strong Encryption, And Privacy Shield Data Sharing Agreement Could Be At Risk
techdirt: EU Tells US: Ban Strong Encryption, And Privacy Shield Data Sharing Agreement Could Be At Risk by Glyn Moody:
E.D.Pa.: Use of a key fob to identify defendant’s vehicle is not a search; it’s commonly available technology under Kyllo
Use of a key fob to identify defendant’ vehicle is not a search invading a reasonable expectation of privacy. United States v. Burgess, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 206776 (E.D. Pa. Nov. 29, 2019):
E.D.Pa.: Def could be transported to precinct for lineup on RS alone
Defendant was handcuffed as a part of his stop for officer safety and to secure the scene. They could also put him in a police car handcuffed. Finally, transporting him to the precinct for a lineup wasn’t an unreasonable seizure … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: SW for CP here lacked all PC, and GFE doesn’t apply
Defendant was believed by the police to have been involved in sexual abuse of children, and he had strange eBay purchases and messages for used childrens’ underwear and pictures of children wearing them. The search warrant ultimately issued was for … Continue reading
CA5: Heien objective reasonableness applies to a stop for driving too slow even though it was just def’s car in traffic
Driving too slow for too long justifies a stop, at least Heien makes it reasonable: “Given the dearth of authority on whether a single vehicle constitutes traffic …, the ambiguity in the statute, and the danger observed by the officer, … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Govt overcame presumptively unreasonable search finding a bullet hole to validate SW for premises
Defendant showed that filing his motion to suppress nearly a year late under the motions deadline was with good cause because of continuances of the trial and changes in counsel. A bullet hole in a hallway wall was discovered by … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Omission of CI’s felony conviction and motive to provide information justifies Franks hearing
“As further explained below, because the investigating detective’s omission of a tipster’s felony conviction for an offense bearing on his truthfulness in her affidavit supporting her application for a search warrant that led to the discovery of evidence on that … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Among eight 4A issues, none prevails; failure to provide inventory at the time of search is ministerial and requires a showing of prejudice
Defendant raised almost every conceivable Fourth Amendment and Rule 41 issue he could, and the district court rejects them all: (1) “The information in the affidavit is insufficient to support a finding of probable cause as to the crimes listed … Continue reading
OR: Officer had subjective PC, but it wasn’t objectively reasonable on totality; suspicious, yes, PC, no
The officer subjectively had probable cause to believe defendant was in possession of drugs, but it was not objectively reasonable on the totality. “Applying those standards here, we conclude that, even when viewed through the lens of Haugen’s training and … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: “[T]he mere fact that the agents requested that Defendant sign a consent form does not suggest that he was in custody” for Miranda
“[T]he mere fact that the agents requested that Defendant sign a consent form does not suggest that he was in custody” for Miranda purposes. United States v. Cox, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 206681 (N.D. Ind. Oct. 10, 2019), adopted, 2019 … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Pre-warrant thought process of police relevant to GFE
The good faith exception saved this apparent warrantless search that led to a search warrant. The government gets to explore the officer’s thought process leading to the warrant after an apparent warrantless search led to discovery of a bullet hole … Continue reading
N.D.Tex.: Not material to not mention def’s state of mind hours before the occurrence
Defendant claimed a Franks violation from the officer’s failure to include things that were true about defendant before things went south that night. It wasn’t material to defendant’s state of mind at the time of the occurrence. United States v. … Continue reading
2255: Can’t keep reraising 4A claim you’ve already lost on
2255 petitioner already lost on his CSLI issue in the direct proceedings, and he doesn’t get to relitigate it now. Figueroa v. United States, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 206123 (S.D. N.Y. Nov. 26, 2019).* Petitioner raised his Fourth Amendment issues … Continue reading
FL4: Use of cell site simulator under CSLI order 4A violation; no GFE because of lack of contrary authority
In 2012, well before Carpenter, the police used a cell site simulator under CSLI order to track defendant. There was no binding authority at the time for the state to rely on. By the time this case reaches appeal, the … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Cert grant alone in Carpenter didn’t nullify GFE as to CSLI
The fact that SCOTUS had granted cert in Carpenter when the CSLI was obtained under a § 2703 order and not a search warrant doesn’t make government reliance on existing precedent unreasonable or show a lack good faith. United States … Continue reading
CA1: Ptf shows apparent Franks violation to survive SJ in § 1983 case
Defendants’ grant of summary judgment in a § 1983 case is reversed for a Franks violation in a theft case where plaintiff had a power of attorney over the property and the officer knew it and failed to disclose it … Continue reading
CA8: Dist.Ct. erred in finding no RS for extending stop; there was, and it ripened to PC
The district court erred in finding there was no reasonable suspicion for extending the stop. “We have found a combination of nervous behavior and suspicious travel plans creates a reasonable suspicion justifying a traffic stop’s extension. … In the protective … Continue reading