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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)
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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: August 2021
N.D.N.Y.: Stone also bars arrest claims
Lack of probable cause for an arrest is also not cognizable in habeas under Stone v. Powell. Shortell v. Kickbush, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 146938 (N.D.N.Y. Aug. 5, 2021). Defendant’s 2255 search and seizure IAC claim is really just an … Continue reading
CA4: Where the vehicle was seized with PC, the fact it took 13 days to search it in the impound lot wasn’t a 4A violation
“Additionally, when a warrantless search of a vehicle could have been conducted on the scene pursuant to the automobile exception, a warrantless search is also justified after the vehicle has been impounded and immobilized as long as probable cause still … Continue reading
MA: No REP in MBTA fare card information and station videos that put def near scene of murder
The third-party doctrine should not be mechanically applied to MBTA (CharlieCard) fare card information under this court’s precedents. Nevertheless, there was no subjective reasonable expectation of privacy in the information. It only tracked his movements on the transit system, not … Continue reading
WaPo: Apple plans to scan iPhones to find sexual predators. Some fear the software could be weaponized.
WaPo: Apple plans to scan iPhones to find sexual predators. Some fear the software could be weaponized. By Reed Albergotti (“The new push pits Apple against civil liberties activists and appears to contradict some of the company’s own long-held assertions … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: The fact the search violated the state constitution isn’t a factor on legality of the search in federal case
In a federal criminal case, the fact the search violated the state constitution isn’t a factor on legality of the search under the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Breeden, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 145729 (E.D.N.C. Aug. 4, 2021). Various factors … Continue reading
MA: SW for firearm permitted frisk of people inside for weapons
A search warrant for defendant’s premises permitted a frisk of his person for firearms when the object of the search warrant was firearms. Commonwealth v. Suggs, 2021 Mass. App. LEXIS 91 (Aug. 4, 2021). The jury verdict for choking the … Continue reading
W.D.La.: Court credits testimony officer could smell MJ as def’s vehicle drove by
“Corporal Moak testified that he smelled the odor of marijuana coming from the vehicle when he passed it on a narrow street. After the traffic stop was initiated and Moak approached the vehicle, he detected the ‘overwhelming’ odor of marijuana … Continue reading
OH4: Automatic frisk of anyone officer got out of a car violates Terry
The officer’s policy to frisk anybody he gets out a vehicle, without regard to reasonable suspicioin they are armed, is unreasonable under Terry. However, “the totality of the circumstances present in the case sub judice supports the application of the … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Affidavit for SW showed home was base of DTO
The collection of information for probable cause for the warrant included a reasonable inference that defendant’s home was a base of operations for a drug trafficking operation, and this was nexus. United States v. Jackson, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 144185 … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Corroborated anonymous 911 call about street corner drug dealing was RS
An anonymous 911 call about drug dealing at a Chicago intersection corroborated by officers’ observations was reasonable suspicion under Navarette. The caller also said she’d be calling back and 911 captured the number. There was little risk the caller couldn’t … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: CSLI tracking by state court order was reasonable under federal law despite alleged state law violation
Defendant’s cell phone location information search was reasonable and constitutional under federal law despite an alleged violation of state law. United States v. Coles, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 143548 (M.D.Pa. Aug. 2, 2021). There was probable cause for the search … Continue reading
NJ declines to follow Heien under state constitution
NJ declines to adopt a reasonable mistake of law justification for an automobile stop and resulting search. At issue was a traffic law barring license plate frames that cover information on the plate that resulted in 100,000 stops per year. … Continue reading
CNN: Florida judge orders destruction of suppressed video evidence in Robert Kraft case
CNN: Florida judge orders destruction of suppressed video evidence in Robert Kraft case by Rebekah Riess, Gregory Lemos & Amir Vera (“A Palm Beach County, Florida, judge ordered the destruction of video evidence previously suppressed in the case against New … Continue reading
OH1: Years old info of drug dealing coupled with current trash pull showing drug use was clearly stale; no GFE
Years old information of drug dealing in another county coupled with a trash pull of recent drug use (not trafficking) was stale, and the search warrant was clearly lacking probable cause. Therefore, the good faith exception does not apply. State … Continue reading
WaPo: Opinion: Privacy is a fiction in the Internet age. A priest’s case proves it.
WaPo: Opinion: Privacy is a fiction in the Internet age. A priest’s case proves it. (“The top administrator of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops resigned last month after a newsletter used data from his cellphone to confirm his use … Continue reading
CA8: Officer holding DL for a few minutes wasn’t an unreasonable seizure
Where defendant turned over his DL when the officer requested it and it wasn’t returned right away while records were checked, it was [apparently] on defendant to ask for it back. This wasn’t a seizure. United States v. Lillich, 2021 … Continue reading