Archives
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Recent Posts
- VA: 12 second question about drugs didn’t unreasonably prolong the stop that was going to take a while anyway
- E.D.Tenn.: Application for SW was considered in detention ruling
- TN: RS didn’t develop to continue stop; second stop based on first suppressed
- CA4: Traffic stop immediately became firearms investigation; suppressed
- CA10: Disagreement over spelling of street name didn’t make warrant fail particularity; GFE at least would apply
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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) -
“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. 
Daily Archives: February 28, 2026
D.N.M.: Suit over search in pending criminal case barred by Heck
Plaintiff’s first Fourth Amendment claim failed under Heck. He amended the complaint and still doesn’t overcome it. His claim of failure to train in serving search warrants is conclusory and doesn’t state a claim either. Flores v. Wood, 2026 U.S. … Continue reading
CA11: 4A doesn’t require “in the presence of the officer” for misdemeanor arrest
While Georgia law requires a misdemeanor offense be in the presence of the officer, the Fourth Amendment does not. The arrest was constitutionally valid. Middlebrooks v. Kasmar, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 5855 (11th Cir. Feb. 27, 2026). There was information … Continue reading
NH: Trial court didn’t err in allowing officer to testify to what geolocation information meant here: def was in victim’s house
The victim found an intruder in his home, and called the police. The intruder got away. The police sought geolocation information from Google on all phones at the house, and defendant’s phone came up. The officer called defendant. This was … Continue reading
TX14: No REP in electronic monitoring while on pretrial release
Defendant on electronic monitoring as a bond condition has no reasonable expectation of privacy in the GPS information. Hawkins v. State, 2026 Tex. App. LEXIS 1874 (Tex. App. – Houston (14th Dist.) Feb. 26, 2026) (substituted opinion on rehearing), UPDATE: … Continue reading
IN: Inventory here was valid despite fact car was first impounded but then not towed after all
The inventory search of this car in anticipation of impoundment was overall reasonable, despite the fact that the car ultimately was not impounded. It might prove pretext, but it didn’t here. [This is fact heavy, and interesting reading.] Stokes v. … Continue reading
DC: “police had probable cause to believe that Mr. Turner’s bullet-riddled car might contain bullet fragments from the shooting”
“There can be little question that the police had probable cause to believe that Mr. Turner’s car contained evidence of a crime. Four cars parked along the street, including Mr. Turner’s Lexus, were struck by bullets in a drive-by shooting. … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: When an officer has PC for a stop and search, the 4A doesn’t require that it happen at the earliest possible time
When an officer has probable cause for a stop and search, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t require that it happen at the earliest possible time. It doesn’t become “stale” that fast, and here it was ongoing: driving on a suspended DL. … Continue reading
WI: Google’s scans of user content for CSAM is a private search
It’s a private search when Google scans user consent for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and then it reports to law enforcement what it finds. It is not required to search, only to report what it finds. [Note that the … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Traffic stop with shots fired call led to valid protective sweep of car for weapon on RS
“After reviewing the evidence, the arguments of the parties, and the relevant law, the undersigned finds that the officers had both probable cause to believe Defendant had committed traffic violations and reasonable suspicion to stop the vehicle in connection with … Continue reading
MN: No REP in text message in recipient’s device
The sender of an electronic message has no reasonable expectation of privacy in it where it ends up. State v. Bonnell, 2026 Minn. LEXIS 69 (Feb. 25, 2026):
CA8: Duty to warn of use of police dog was clearly established
Officers sicced a police dog on plaintiff who was fleeing, but without warning. Use of a police dog usually requires a warning. “The warning requirement was clearly established by the time of Cameron’s arrest. As we stated in Adams, Kuha … Continue reading