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Recent Posts
- IN: Overdose call led to EMS telling police what they saw and that led to SW
- NY1: A mental health defense waives REP in the medical records about it
- MA: When a likely Franks violation comes out at trial, def gets to reopen the suppression issue
- RI: Challenge to one sentence of 8-page cell phone records SW fails; totality has to be considered
- WaPo: Subpoena bill would curtail secretive tool used to target government critics
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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: May 2026
IN: Overdose call led to EMS telling police what they saw and that led to SW
EMS responded to an overdose call, and they reported what they saw inside which led to police getting a search warrant. Leon v. State, 2026 Ind. App. LEXIS 171 (May 20, 2026). “Missouri courts have indicated that the question of … Continue reading
NY1: A mental health defense waives REP in the medical records about it
When the accused raises a mental health defense, he waives any reasonable expectation of privacy in the records. S.M. v. City of N.Y., 2026 NY Slip Op 03248, 2026 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3413 (1st Dept. May 21, 2026).* “[T]he … Continue reading
MA: When a likely Franks violation comes out at trial, def gets to reopen the suppression issue
When a likely Franks violation comes out at trial, defendant gets to reopen the suppression issue. Here, the officer’s false statement he was present for a third controlled buy satisfied Franks and was excised. Defense counsel showed that it couldn’t … Continue reading
RI: Challenge to one sentence of 8-page cell phone records SW fails; totality has to be considered
Defendant’s challenge to the search warrant for his cell phone records focused on one sentence adding nothing to the calculus. On the totality, the 8-page affidavit showed probable cause for the cell phone records. State v. Pinkerton, 2026 R.I. LEXIS … Continue reading
WaPo: Subpoena bill would curtail secretive tool used to target government critics
WaPo: Subpoena bill would curtail secretive tool used to target government critics by John Woodrow Cox (“The bipartisan legislation, which comes after a Washington Post investigation, would also limit the federal government’s ability to obtain phone records without a judge’s … Continue reading
CA2: Taking 3-day-old son from mother affected father’s 4A & 14A rights too
Plaintiff stated a claim for relief under the due process clause and Fourth Amendment for the City taking his 3-day-old son from his mother based on actions of her other boyfriends without any court order. He was three years getting … Continue reading
TX14: Affidavit for SW gets deferential standard of review by both the trial court and appellate court
The affidavit for search warrant gets a deferential standard of review by both the trial court and appellate court. Gaither v. State, 2026 Tex. App. LEXIS 4588 (Tex. App. – Houston (14th Dist.) May 19, 2026). “The federal district court … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Just because one officer smelled tobacco in def’s pipe didn’t mean others couldn’t sniff, too
Just because one officer sniffed defendant’s pipe and smelled tobacco, that didn’t mean other officers couldn’t sniff too and come to a different conclusion. United States v. Gearheart, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109593 (E.D. Cal. May 18, 2026).* The odor … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Emergency disclosure requests in Buffalo Tops grocery shooting were valid
The emergency disclosure requests (EDRs) for information about the 2022 allegedly racially motivated Tops grocery store shooting in Buffalo were valid. Officers were looking for potential co-conspirators. United States v. Gendron, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109541 (W.D.N.Y. May 18, 2026). … Continue reading
W.D.Okla.: 49 lbs fentanyl suppressed for Rodriguez violation
49 pounds of fentanyl suppressed because the stop was extended without reasonable suspicion. United States v. Salazar, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109153 (W.D. Okla. May 18, 2026):
NV: Leaving traffic stop without one’s DL is not an offense here
Defendant was stopped and produced his DL, “surrender[ing]” it to the officer as required by law. He left on his own without it. That’s not an offense. Carter v. State, 2026 Nev. LEXIS 34 (May 14, 2026). A prison strip … Continue reading
OH6: Exclusionary rule applies to constitutional violations, not statutory ones
The exclusionary rule only applies to constitutional violations, not statutory ones.State of Ohio/City of Or. v. Hendricks, 2026-Ohio-1796 (6th Dist. May 15, 2026).* Under Stone, “The only relevant question for this federal habeas Court is whether Butler was given a … Continue reading
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KS: Petr’s disclaimer of seized cash was a lack of standing in a forfeiture
Claimant’s disclaimer in the money should have been decided first, not the merits of the search. It’s essentially a lack of standing. State ex rel. Kansas Highway Patrol v. $381,620 in U.S. Currency, 2026 Kan. LEXIS 125 (May 15, 2026). … Continue reading
WaPo: AI license plate cameras tore this town apart and led to a state of emergency
WaPo: AI license plate cameras tore this town apart and led to a state of emergency by Annie Gowen (“In Troy, New York, residents and city officials are at odds over police use of Flock cameras, which some call a … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: No constitutional obligation for officers to keep investigating past having PC
“To the extent that Plaintiffs’ claim is based on Defendant Pelham’s failure to conduct a more thorough investigation before seeking a warrant, it likewise fails. Plaintiffs allege that Defendants ‘failed to undertake minimally adequate investigative steps before seeking a warrant[.]’ … Continue reading
Today is the 72d anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education
Today is the 72d anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, May 17, 1954. Not a 4A case, but so important to our constitutional history.
GA: No REP in what a security camera saw that def installed in friends’ house when he was there sexually assaulting their daughter
Defendant was a friend of the family, and he came over to install an additional security camera inside the house. Later, that camera caught him sexually assaulting one of the girls. He had no reasonable expectation of privacy despite spending … Continue reading
DC: Def seized when blocked on sidewalk not just when taken down
Defendant was seized when he was blocked by officers when he was walking, not just when he was taken down to the sidewalk. Greer v. United States, 2026 D.C. App. LEXIS 168 (May 14, 2026). Defendant was stopped because his … Continue reading