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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)
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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: June 2021
VA: Owner’s suspended DL supported stop under Glover
Officers had reasonable suspicion under Glover to believe the driver of a vehicle was the owner who had a suspended DL. Mitchell v. Commonwealth, 2021 Va. App. LEXIS 89 (June 8, 2021). “Calvert’s comments to police to shoot him and … Continue reading
CA2: No 4A extraterritorial jurisdiction over Switzerland enforcing its own law against Americans in Switzerland
An extraterritorial seizure of art work and antiquities in Switzerland of American citizens doesn’t involve the Fourth Amendment. International law has not adopted the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause standard. There is no justification shown for applying the Fourth Amendment to … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Arrest in common area of apt building not on curtilage
Defendant’s arrest in a common area of an apartment building was not on the curtilage. United States v. Anderson, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 106278 (N.D. Ill. June 7, 2021). Defendant’s Franks challenge fails as to what was omitted from the … Continue reading
PA: Reasonable inference for stop that owner with suspended DL was driving vehicle
The officer had reasonable suspicion to stop defendant’s vehicle on the inference that the driver was the owner who had an outstanding warrant. The court declines to adopt a higher standard for reasonable suspicion under the state constitution. Commonwealth v. … Continue reading
BBC: ANOM: Hundreds arrested in massive global crime sting using messaging app
BBC: ANOM: Hundreds arrested in massive global crime sting using messaging app (“More than 800 suspected criminals have been arrested worldwide after being tricked into using an FBI-run encrypted messaging app, officials say. [¶] The operation, jointly conceived by Australia … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Social workers must comply with 4A
Social workers must comply with the Fourth Amendment, and they can plead exceptions. Scharbrough v. South Central Ohio Job & Family Servs., 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105993 (S.D. Ohio June 7, 2021)*:
CA8: GPS info can provide RS as to def’s location whether or not it’s admissible at trial
GPS information as to defendant’s location can be reasonable suspicion despite defendant’s claims it might not be admissible at trial. United States v. Martin, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 16822 (8th Cir. June 7, 2021):
CA8: If firearms are “tools of the trade” of drug dealers, so are cell phones
Defendant’s using his cell phone to arrange a drug transaction justified a search warrant for it. If firearms are “tools of the trade,” then so are cell phones. United States v. Eggerson, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 16823 (8th Cir. June … Continue reading
WI: Holding def’s DL without RS made the stop unreasonable while drug dog was summoned
“On the certified question, we conclude that the answer depends on the totality of circumstances surrounding an encounter. Further, while VanBeek was not seized when Officer Oetzel took her driver’s license to run a records check, VanBeek was seized when … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Delayed stop and furtive movements justified vehicle frisk
“The Court concludes that the protective sweep exception applies. When the officers first attempted to pull Canada over, Canada took an abnormal amount of time to stop his vehicle, despite a clear roadway with no obstructions. The officers testified that … Continue reading
MD: Tracking “court order” didn’t need to be called a “warrant” to be one
A “court order” for tracking defendant’s vehicle satisfied the warrant requirement, and it didn’t have to be called a search warrant. It was issued with probable cause, and the good faith exception applied. Whittington v. State, 2021 Md. LEXIS 255 … Continue reading
CA6: SW affidavit can suggest CI’s lack of credibility, but here it was overcome
It is possible for a search warrant affidavit to suggest the lack of credibility of the CI, but, here, the CI’s credibility was corroborated by other facts and her willingness to be identified. United States v. Woods, 2021 U.S. App. … Continue reading
WV: Exclusionary rule would not be applied in administrative child abuse proceeding for protection of children
The exclusionary rule does not apply to child abuse allegations in administrative proceedings. The court declines the request to apply it despite the rule that it doesn’t apply in civil cases generally because of harm to the children. In re … Continue reading
CA7: Omission of CI’s criminal history was “unfortunate” but not material for Franks
“[W]e agree with the district court that the ‘omission of information about the sources’ backgrounds, criminal histories, or motives does not change the probable cause determination.’ See also United States v. Sims, 551 F.3d 640, 645 (7th Cir. 2008) (omission … Continue reading
IN: Plain view applied to vehicle seizure in driveway
Plain view justified the seizure of defendant’s van in his driveway, even assuming it was on the curtilage. It was immediately apparent to the officers it was criminal evidence. Combs v. State, 2021 Ind. LEXIS 358 (June 3. 2021). n.5:
NY1: Cross-examination about potential suspects let go from scene of search opened door to suppressed statement
Defendant’s cross-examination about others not ultimately charged after the search opened the door to his suppressed statement. “First, defendant elicited that although the police arrested him and the other two persons who were in his apartment at the time a … Continue reading
CA3: Ghostwritten SW affidavit not a Franks violation because there was indisputably PC
A police officer’s admission at trial that the affidavit for search warrant was ghostwritten for him didn’t show a Franks violation because there clearly was probable cause. United States v. Ware, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 16568 (3d Cir. June 3, … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: DMV’s computer mistake def’s DL was suspended doesn’t invoke the exclusionary rule under Evans
DMV’s computer mistake defendant’s DL was suspended doesn’t invoke the exclusionary rule under Evans. United States v. Salazar, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103027 (N.D. Ohio June 2, 2021). Defendant’s “regenerating” activity in selling heroin made the warrant application not stale. … Continue reading