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: February 2021
CA5: Some things were innocent in isolation, but they were RS on the totality
Some factors were innocent on their own, but the totality there was reasonable suspicion. United States v. Goodin, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 3881 (5th Cir. Feb. 10, 2021)*:
CA3: Failure to factually plead lack of PC or malice for a 4A malicious prosecution claim makes it fail
Karkalas v. Marks, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 3868 (3d Cir. Feb. 11, 2021):
IN: Cell phone seized under SW could be searched later than the deadline in the warrant
The state had the forfeiture claimant’s cell phone in hand, but didn’t actually search it within the limit of the warrant. This was reasonable, following Wolf v. State, 266 P.3d 1169, 1174 (Idaho Ct. App. 2011). Brown v. Eaton, 2021 … Continue reading
MA: State bears the burden of showing there is no investigatory purpose for an inventory
The state of Massachusetts bears the burden of showing there is no investigatory purpose for an inventory. Commonwealth v. Lek, 2021 Mass. App. LEXIS 19 (Feb. 11, 2021):
OR: “[J]ust keep your hands where I can see them” is a seizure
“[J]ust keep your hands where I can see them” is a seizure under the Oregon Constitution. State v. Soto-Navarro, 309 Ore. App. 218 (Feb. 10, 2021):
FL1: Screen shot of of meth on a scale on driver’s cell phone permitted dog sniff during writing of traffic ticket
Defendant was stopped for a traffic offense, and he was unusually nervous. Sitting on his left leg was a cell phone with the screen on showing a picture of meth on a scale. That justified a dog sniff while a … Continue reading
CA3: Crashing a fleeing car here wasn’t excessive force
Crashing a fleeing car here wasn’t unreasonable as excessive force. “Here, we agree with the District Court’s determination that no reasonable juror could find that the force used by Officer Biagini was excessive. It is beyond dispute that, in the … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Pro se motion to suppress of represented def doesn’t attach affidavits, say why 4A or statute violated, or cite any law; denied for having counsel
Defendant is represented by counsel, then files a motion to suppress. “Defendant’s pro se motion reflects a misunderstanding of court proceedings. The Defendant fails to specify which search warrant he objects to, fails to provide a copy, or copies, of … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Officer wasn’t required to wait around for alternative means to tow vehicle before impoundment
“It is true that defendant made multiple requests to contact AAA to tow his truck, and he eventually suggested arranging for his father or friends, who were purportedly nearby, to move his truck to avoid impoundment. There was no telling … Continue reading
CA11: Reasonableness doesn’t require a stop as soon as RS develops
An officer who observed a traffic offense and waited for defendant to drive another five blocks could reasonably still stop the car. “Although the officers did not initiate the traffic stop for seven minutes, and did not pull Brown over … Continue reading
TX3: Even if revenge porn statute was unconstitutional, that doesn’t nullify a SW issued for it
Defendant was indicted for a revenge porn threat. A search warrant was obtained for his phone to prove he had the picture in the threat. He argued the search warrant was void because the revenge porn statute was unconstitutional. Whether … Continue reading
CA1 upholds border search of electronic devices
Alasaad v. Mayorkas, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 3586 (1st Cir. Feb. 9, 2021):
NJ adopts standard for additional discovery of a potential Franks violation
New Jersey adopts a specific preliminary showing requirement for additional discovery of a Franks violation. State v. Desir, 2021 N.J. LEXIS 127 (Feb. 9, 2021). From the syllabus:
IL: When exigency forms is determined on the totality
On the totality of circumstances, there was exigency for the police entry, despite their delay. All in all, the delay was reasonable as information was learned, and then it was time to act. People v. Kulpin, 2021 IL App (2d) … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Tracing IP address to def does not require affiant exclude all other Internet users in area
Defendant was charged with stalking a former boss. A disguised email was traced by metadata to defendant’s router. His computer was searched, and the email was found. The question of probable cause for the search warrant does not require the … Continue reading
CA2: Later search of bag was inevitable discovery overcoming objection to first search
Even if the search of defendant’s bag was invalid, he was taken to the police station and his bag was validly searched again an inventory. United States v. Ruffin, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 3351 (2d Cir. Feb. 8, 2021). Defendant’s … Continue reading
CA10: De novo review overcomes a “skewed” finding of district court
Applying the Ornelas de novo review standard, the court reassesses the evidence and finds reasonable suspicion for the detention. The district court’s view of the evidence of reasonable suspicion was heavily skewed toward the government’s proof. Still, there is reasonable … Continue reading
NE: Three day old information vehicle was involved in a shooting was RS
There was reasonable suspicion for the stop of defendant’s vehicle on a three day old report of it being involved in a shooting. On appeal from a denial of a motion to suppress, the evidence from both the suppression hearing … Continue reading
AL: A visitor to premises targeted by a SW who is more than a “transient visitor” is subject to search
Defendant was a visitor at a house that was searched under a warrant for drugs. Her purse was searched, too. “Because Powers was more than a ‘transient visitor’ at Moyers’s house and had a known relationship to the premises, and … Continue reading