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)
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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: January 2021
CA5: Standard of review: GFE first, basis for finding PC second
“This court engages in a two-step inquiry when reviewing a district court’s denial of a defendant’s motion to suppress which challenges the sufficiency of a warrant. … First, this court determines whether the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule announced … Continue reading
CA5: Independent RS obviated govt’s reliance on collective knowledge
“First, we need not address the collective-knowledge doctrine. The police officer who initiated the traffic stop developed reasonable suspicion of a straw purchase through his own questioning and discovery of the firearm in Perez’s trunk after Perez lied about having … Continue reading
CO: Forced blood test unreasonable and suppressed; remedy is to prosecute for refusal
Under Colorado statute, anyone who drives a motor vehicle in the state is deemed to have consented to take a blood or breath test when requested by a law enforcement officer having probable cause to believe the driver is under … Continue reading
CA11: Not IAC to not challenge recording jail calls
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not challenging recording jail calls [actually stated as a 2254(d) failure]. Garcia v. Sec’y, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 314 (11th Cir. Jan. 6, 2021).* The CSLI warrant was particular and not a general warrant, and … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Ptf’s 4A claim wasn’t sufficiently articulated to state a claim
“Mr. Ryan also alleges that there wasn’t any ‘adversarial pursuit of the Fourth Amendment’s protection of privacy can not be invalidated simply because a person’s right to want to be private evidences unlawful activity because the person does not want … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Littering from a livery cab justified stop and search of the cab
A littering offense from a livery cab in NYC justified a stop of the cab and entering it for further evidence of the crime. That resulted in a plain view. United States v. Abreu, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1945 (S.D. … Continue reading
DE: Def can’t argue RS was standard below then PC was required on appeal
Defendant can’t argue below that reasonable suspicion was all that was required, but then argue on appeal that probable cause was required. Gordon v. State, 2021 Del. LEXIS 2 (Jan. 6, 2021). An eyewitness claiming to be assaulted by defendant … Continue reading
FL2 sua sponte raises lack of standing on the record and remands
“The State appeals the trial court’s order granting Ricardo Fernandez’s motion to suppress after the trial court found the affidavit used to obtain the anticipatory search warrant was deficient and the good faith exception to the warrant requirement did not … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Even if a notebook was unlawfully seized, an IRS summons for it was valid
The IRS summons was upheld. “[E]ven if the notebooks were unlawfully seized, the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule does not render the summonses unenforceable. First, even if the exclusionary rule applied, evidence may not be excluded when it is obtained based … Continue reading
CA5: Affidavit for SW for cell phone photos didn’t show PC for drug trafficking
The affidavit for the search warrant for defendant’s cell phone for evidence of drug trafficking and not just personal use did not permit a search of the photographs on the phone for evidence of drug trafficking. The good faith exception … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Franks challenge in PC clothing fails for no offer of proof
“At first glance, the Defendant’s motion does not appear to be a true Franks hearing request as it does not appear to contest the veracity of the statements of the affiant or assert that she made false allegations. Rather, it … Continue reading
CA5: Ptf’s underlying conviction is attacked by his 4A claim and thus barred by Heck
“We begin with Price’s Fourth Amendment excessive force claims as alleged in his proposed amended complaint. The district court concluded that Price’s claims, even as amended, remained ‘inseparable’ from his conviction for battery of an officer and, thus, were barred … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: CI’s story was substantially corroborated to provide PC; controlled buys the clincher
The CI’s story was substantially corroborated to provide probable cause. “In this case, Frampton’s affidavit provides substantial information about the CI’s reliability, from which the issuing judge could have inferred probable cause. The affidavit recounted the reliability of the CI’s … Continue reading
CA10: Uncertainty def was alone inside justified protective sweep
The consenter’s uncertainty that defendant was alone in the apartment justified a protective sweep, and ultimately she consented and the evidence supports that conclusion. United States v. Phyfier, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 133 (11th Cir. Jan. 5, 2021). [Even so, … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: State court’s suppression of evidence is a fact question for trial on underlying facts and findings and not preclusive
Plaintiff was charged in state court with possession, and the state court credited his version over that of the officers on the basis for the stop because their testimony was contradictory and confusing. Still, that doesn’t have preclusive effect in … Continue reading
PA to decide CPS power to enter without SW for “child in need of services”
PA grants review on the authority of Child Protective Services to enter without a warrant on a report of a “child in need of services” under (1) state constitution, and (2) Fourth Amendment. In interest of Y.W.-B., 2021 Pa. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA6: Def waived Franks argument on appeal by only arguing PC below
Defendant’s Franks argument on appeal fails because the motion to suppress was based on a lack of probable cause and didn’t direct the court to any alleged false statement under Franks. United States v. Baker, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 113 … Continue reading
CA6: CoA denied for federal defense counsel not pursuing claim SW violated state law
CoA denied for an ineffective assistance of counsel claim that defense counsel didn’t investigate the claim that the state court search warrant hadn’t been properly issued and then filed and was thus invalid. It wouldn’t be because there was essentially … Continue reading
CNS: Judges Grapple With Phone, Laptop Searches at US Customs
CNS: Judges Grapple With Phone, Laptop Searches at US Customs by Thomas Harrison (“The First Circuit struggled Tuesday with a policy that lets border agents look through the phones or laptops of travelers returning from abroad.”)
Crime Online: School principal ordered to pay $3.6M for sharing students’ nude pictures online
Crime Online: School principal ordered to pay $3.6M for sharing students’ nude pictures online by Jacquelyn Gray (“A former principal in Kentucky who is serving a nine-year federal prison sentence was ordered last week to pay $3.6 million for confiscating … Continue reading