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- CA3: In seeking arrest warrants, officers need not present all exculpatory evidence to issuing magistrate unless it’s “conclusive”
- D.Idaho: Trial references to SW not barred, but govt limited in what it can say
- D.D.C.: PO’s alleged violation of probation regulations doesn’t warrant suppression if a reasonable mistake
- E.D.N.C.: SW not required to look in def’s jail property bag and retrieve car keys
- D.N.M.: Consent attenuated unreasonable search
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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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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)
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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: March 2020
N.D.Ohio: The clear potential for violence in a volatile domestic disturbance was a continuing exigency
The clear potential for violence in a volatile domestic disturbance was exigency. “As is evident from the video, the exigency did not terminate due to the passage of time or as a result of [Off.] Sosenko’s attempts to manage the … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: The triggering event in an anticipatory SW is subject to broad construction
The triggering event of an anticipatory warrant having occurred, the search warrant could be executed. The triggering event can be broadly construed. United States v. Santana, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38086 (M.D. Pa. Mar. 5, 2020). Plaintiff refused to get … Continue reading
CO: Officer responding to a just-occurring assault call can stop car pulling out of driveway
An officer responding to a house where an assault was just reported to have occurred could stop a car backing out of the driveway because the occupant might have been involved in it. People v. Jiron, 2020 COA 36, 2020 … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: Address of a building is usually sufficient for particularity
The address of a building is generally sufficient particularity for a search warrant. Even so, the good faith exception would apply. United States v. Wilson, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37210 (E.D. Tex. Jan. 17, 2020), adopted, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
Miami Herald: Feds grab $15,000 from Miami mom’s ‘quince’ savings for daughter. Now she’s fighting back
Miami Herald: Feds grab $15,000 from Miami mom’s ‘quince’ savings for daughter. Now she’s fighting back. by Jay Weaver & David Ovalle (“It would take two years for Salgado to recover her money from the DEA, which did not arrest … Continue reading
Daily Press: After Virginia prisons strip searched an 8-year-old, state lawmakers passed 4 bills to limit the practice
Daily Press: After Virginia prisons strip searched an 8-year-old, state lawmakers passed 4 bills to limit the practice by Gary A. Harki (“Four bills addressing the strip searching of visitors at jails and prisons in Virginia passed the General Assembly … Continue reading
Vice: We Built a Database of Over 500 iPhones Cops Have Tried to Unlock
Vice: We Built a Database of Over 500 iPhones Cops Have Tried to Unlock by Joseph Cox (“‘It is the world we are in today, and so have to deal with it,’ former FBI general counsel Jim Baker said about … Continue reading
NYDN: Mother sues Pittsburgh hospital for false-positive drug test during labor that led to child abuse probe
NYDN: Mother sues Pittsburgh hospital for false-positive drug test during labor that led to child abuse probe by Theresa Braine (“A western Pennsylvania mother is suing the hospital where she gave birth after it ran a drug test without her … Continue reading
WY: Refusing to permit execution of SW for blood BAC supported obstruction conviction
Defendant was properly convicted of obstruction of a peace officer for refusing to permit a search of his blood under a search warrant. Garza v. State, 2020 WY 32, 2020 Wyo. LEXIS 34 (Mar. 4, 2020). “Bennett-Martin cannot recover compensatory … Continue reading
CA4: Routine traffic checkpoint complied with 4A
A routine traffic checkpoint complied with the Fourth Amendment where the roadblock was established to check licenses, automobile registrations, and compliance with motor vehicle laws to ensure the safe and legal operation of motor vehicles on the roadways. Defendant did … Continue reading
IA: DL of registered owner of car RS for stop
An LPN search showed the DL of the owner suspended. It turned out, however, to be the result of a clerical error. The officer suspected defendant driver was under the influence. The stop was with reasonable suspicion under the Fourth … Continue reading
CA5: Def’s office in building behind his house was properly searched under IRS SW for house/office for records where officers relied on address publicly listed
IRS agents’ search of the home office behind defendant’s home was reasonable and did not violate the Fourth Amendment where the search warrant described defendant’s primary residence but the office carried a different address. It was reasonable to believe the … Continue reading
IA: Possible presence of runaway 14 yo not exigency for warrantless entry
A runaway child was not an exigency justifying a warrantless entry into defendant’s home. “Today we must decide if a police officer may enter a third party’s residence without a search warrant based on a verbal request from the Iowa … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Officers had PC to believe def was inside for execution of arrest warrant
The officers had at least a fair probability that defendant was inside for execution of the arrest warrant in Arizona and the case was indicted in New Mexico. The standards are different between the Ninth and Tenth Circuits, so which … Continue reading
LA2: Continuation of stop was without RS
The continuation of this stop was without reasonable suspicion. State v. Bell-Brayboy, 2020 La. App. LEXIS 368 (La. App. 2 Cir. Mar. 4, 2020)*:
E.D.Tex.: Conclusory objections to R&R are denied
Conclusory objections to the R&R on this search issue are overruled. United States v. Wilson, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36571 (E.D. Tex. Mar. 3, 2020). Feeling a firearm during a patdown is plain feel. United States v. White, 2020 U.S. … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Controlled buy is PC; CI’s alleged lie isn’t Franks issue
A controlled buy was probable cause. The claim that the CI lied isn’t cognizable under Franks. United States v. Sheridan, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36163 (N.D. Ohio. Mar. 3, 2020). There were disputed questions of fact on whether it was … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Shots fired call specifying def’s backyard was exigency permitting entry
A report of gunshots from defendant’s backyard justified exigency entry into yard. “In response to Officer Gali’s statement that they could do it the easy way or get a search warrant, Pouncey responded, ‘go ahead, bro.’ The Court reviewed the … Continue reading
E.D.La.: Despite apparent validity of motion to suppress never pursued, defense counsel kept evidence out of plea colloquy, so no IAC because of strategy call
Defense counsel didn’t file a motion to suppress evidence because defendant’s stop likely was without reasonable suspicion, and a motion to suppress might well have been granted. However, there was a legitimate strategic reason for not moving to suppress which … Continue reading