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- 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)
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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 2021
NY Kings Co.: Exclusionary rule not applied in civil case to end tenancy under rent control statute
Defendant was convicted of surreptitiously recording a tenant in another apartment with planted wireless camera. Some evidence in the criminal proceeding was suppressed. In a civil case to void his tenancy under the rent control laws, the exclusionary rule is … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Nexus shown for SW of business premises for drugs
“Applying this standard, the Field Affidavit is clearly not a bare bones affidavit. Intercepted phone calls, physical surveillance and trash pulls, along with information learned from confidential sources, would allow a reasonable officer ‘employing a healthy dose of common sense’ … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Alleged ambiguity in whether nighttime search authorized resolved by all the circumstances in favor of it
It wasn’t obvious that the search warrant did not permit a nighttime search, and it was presented to the state judge at night involving a shooting that night. The circumstances were apparent that the search was to happen then. Moreover, … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: GFE overcomes lack of nexus; officer unaware of some facts didn’t commit Franks violation
The Franks hearing established that the officer didn’t know that certain things happened during the investigation, so the officer wasn’t withholding information or misleading the court. Probable cause and nexus is [less than] tenuous: “This evidence, standing alone, does not … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Nexus shown to business from alleged drug transactions outside
Nexus was shown to a business where drug transactions outside appeared to have continued inside, or at least the participants went inside right after. In any event, the good faith exception applies. United States v. Scott, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
MA: No REP in unlocked basement of apt building
After a police foot chase, officers entered an unlocked basement of an apartment building and found a firearm that looked like one they were looking for. Defendant can’t show a reasonable expectation of privacy in the basement because everybody in … Continue reading
OH12: State’s “reasonable mistake of fact” justification for stop has to be raised in trial court first
The state didn’t rely on a “reasonable mistake of fact” justification for the stop in the trial court, so it can’t for appeal. State v. Turner, 2021-Ohio-541, 2021 Ohio App. LEXIS 564 (12th Dist. Mar. 1, 2021). Defendant had some … Continue reading
OH12: Officer responding to a mistreated dog call could walk to fence and look through then seize dog on exigency
An officer responded to an animal abuse complaint of a maltreated dog in defendant’s backyard. He parked in the driveway and walked to the door to inquire. No answer. He could see a fence with a missing board from the … Continue reading
NE requires suppression issue be renewed when evidence admitted at trial
Failure to renew a suppression issue decided against you pretrial when the evidence is admitted is waiver in Nebraska. Besides, the issue on appeal would lose on the merits because the officer had reasonable suspicion for the stop and then … Continue reading
SD: Local officers called tribal officers and respected tribal authority before arresting def
Defendant was wanted for assault and found at an Indian casino hotel on a reservation. They took him into custody and towed his vehicle. The search of his hotel room and vehicle by search warrants was reasonable and respected tribal … Continue reading
OH1: Order to get out of car doesn’t unreasonably extend a traffic stop
An officer’s order to get out of the car during a traffic stop does not expand the stop, and it is reasonable. Agreeing in the trial court that the stop was valid bars litigating it on appeal. State v. Jackson, … Continue reading
D.Minn.: IAC Franks proffer rejected as lacking sworn affidavits or any credibility at all
Defendant’s 2255 claimed that defense counsel was ineffective for not making a Franks challenge. Defendant’s offer of proof is rejected as just without any credibility at all in light of the record previously made. United States v. Petruk, 2021 U.S. … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Def gets access to SW materials, but govt can redact informant’s info
The target of a search warrant long ago served is entitled to unsealing the affidavit, but the government can redact the affiant’s name and identifying information. United States v. Storage Room Numbers, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 35977 (E.D. N.Y. Feb. … Continue reading