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Recent Posts
- CA3: In seeking arrest warrants, officers need not present all exculpatory evidence to issuing magistrate unless it’s “conclusive”
- D.Idaho: Trial references to SW not barred, but govt limited in what it can say
- D.D.C.: PO’s alleged violation of probation regulations doesn’t warrant suppression if a reasonable mistake
- E.D.N.C.: SW not required to look in def’s jail property bag and retrieve car keys
- D.N.M.: Consent attenuated unreasonable search
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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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--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: April 2026
CA3: In seeking arrest warrants, officers need not present all exculpatory evidence to issuing magistrate unless it’s “conclusive”
Being tried and acquitted of murder, plaintiff sued the police who arrested her. She had an affirmative defense which led to the acquittal. Failure to present conclusive evidence of an affirmative defense to the issuing magistrate would be a probable … Continue reading
D.Idaho: Trial references to SW not barred, but govt limited in what it can say
Defendant’s motion to preclude the government from referring to being in his house on a search warrant is granted in part and denied in part under F.R.E. 403. The government cannot suggest that issuance of a warrant means any judicial … Continue reading
D.D.C.: PO’s alleged violation of probation regulations doesn’t warrant suppression if a reasonable mistake
Even if GPS monitoring by a Community Supervision Officer under D.C. law violated regulations, a reasonable mistake of law (Heien) overcomes the violation, and it is not suppressed. United States v. White, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 92214 (D.D.C. Apr. 27, … Continue reading
CA9: Boat tied to a dock is a vehicle for automobile exception even if someone lives on it
A boat tied to a dock is subject to the vehicle exception even if somebody lives on it. United States v. Jones, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 11866 (9th Cir. Apr. 24, 2026). Officers don’t have to piecemeal the exigency for … Continue reading
E.D.Okla.: Plain view of firearms under protective sweep sustained under Buie’s first prong
The plain view of firearms occurred under Buie’s first scenario, but not the second because it involved a search for a person and continued thereafter. Still, it’s sustained. United States v. McCary, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 91328 (E.D. Okla. Apr. … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: Search incident could be done on FTA arrest
Defendant was arrested on a state Capias for FTA issued in open court. The search incident to the arrest was valid. United States v. Barnhart, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 91284 (E.D. Va. Apr. 24, 2026). Defendant’s conviction is affirmed. There … Continue reading
SCOTUS: Geofence warrant oral argument Monday
Chatrie v. United States, 25-112 (cert. granted Jan. 16, 2026; argument April 27, 2026) (ScotusBlog). Question presented: Whether the execution of the geofence warrant violated the Fourth Amendment. It can be heard live at https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio/2025 10 am EDT. Update: Reason: … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: DEA agents tailing a car can request marked unit to make a traffic stop for violations they saw
DEA agents following defendant in an unmarked car observed traffic violations, and they requested a marked unit to make a stop, which was valid. United States v. Peterson, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90905 (S.D. Ohio Apr. 24, 2026).* A state … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: Officer’s adhering to particularity wasn’t a failure to uncover Brady information
“To the contrary, this testimony confirms only that Agent Evans’s forensic examination was circumscribed by the legal boundaries of the search warrant. Cox’s attempt to equate the examiner’s adherence to those boundaries with a failure to uncover exculpatory evidence is … Continue reading
W.D.Tenn.: Facebook SW for evidence of gang activity was particular enough, considering context
This Facebook warrant for information about gang activity was based on probable cause and was particular enough, considering the context of what the government was looking for. In any event, it wasn’t so bad that the good faith exception didn’t … Continue reading
CA10: Tribal and state court SWs: state judge wanted more information, but that didn’t make tribal warrant lack PC
Defendant lived on tribal lands with a co-occupant who was not Native American. Officers obtained two search warrants: one from a tribal court and one from a state court. The applications were identical. The state judge, however, wanted more information, … Continue reading
W.D.Wash.: SDT to Seattle Children’s Hospital was pretextual
On the government’s motion to alter or amend judgment, these health care fraud subpoenas to Seattle Children’s Hospital seek too much private patient information and are also found to be pretextual. In re Subpoena Duces Tecum No. 25-1431-016, 2026 U.S. … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: A filter team not required to examine seized photographs
A filter team wasn’t required to examine seized photographs. Overseizure doesn’t make a search unreasonable unless it was flagrant, and this wasn’t. United States v. Alford, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 87350 (N.D. Ga. Apr. 20, 2026). “Even if the pre-warrant … Continue reading
CA5: Officer’s touching parent’s arm to get her through a school door for four seconds was de minimis
In a school grounds dispute, a parent’s arm was grabbed for four seconds to move her through a doorway. “Under the circumstances, we cannot say that such de minimis force was ‘clearly’ excessive and unreasonable. … Dupuy knew that the … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Where 1 of 10 officers in a search wore a bodycam, that doesn’t mean the others couldn’t be credible
“Harris also questions the ‘credibility’ of the officers executing the search warrant because only 1 out of 10 officers … wore a body camera at any point during the search. But other than generalized complaints about the lack of body … Continue reading
CA9: Illegal arrest doesn’t justify dismissal of indictment
An illegal arrest doesn’t justify dismissing an indictment. He also did not show outrageous governmental conduct. United States v. Colfax, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 11426 (9th Cir. Apr. 22, 2026). The officer knew Dodge pickup trucks, and the registration on … Continue reading
DE: Doesn’t violate 4A to have bodycam on during SW execution
It doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment for a police officer to execute a search warrant with a bodycam on. Defendant cites no authority, either. State v. Williams, 2026 Del. Super. LEXIS 183 (Apr. 22, 2026):