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Recent Posts
- Cal.1: Entry by robot, drone, tear gas, and flash bang was with PC after def refused to come on an SW and AW
- CA8: Def’s connection to property searched was so tenuous he had no standing; no one claimed to know him
- D.Mass.: Inventory valid despite there being no impoundment policy
- CA6: The smell of burnt MJ in a car is still PC for driving under influence even where personal possession is legal.
- CA2: Failure to read a SW isn’t a 4A violation without overseizure
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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)
--Outline of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (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. 
Author Archives: Hall
CA10: Inventory fails circuit’s standards, and seizure of machine gun reversed
Defendant didn’t have to show an investigative pretext for the impoundment of his vehicle and the finding of the machine gun. He prevails on the Tenth Circuit’s Sanders standard. “United States v. Sanders, 796 F.3d 1241, 1243 (10th Cir. 2015) … Continue reading
D.Haw.: Def’s use of known alias to rent property gave standing
Rental of storage unit in one of defendant’s known aliases gave him standing. United States v. Eberhart, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 222575 (D. Haw. Dec. 14, 2023). Defendant’s Franks challenge fails for lack of the proffer of good reason. Aside … Continue reading
OH7: No standing in package with assumed names
Defendant lacked standing in a package shipped under and to assumed names, neither of which could be linked to him as a known alias. State v. Herbert, 2023-Ohio-4490, 2023 Ohio App. LEXIS 4311 (7th Dist. Dec. 11, 2023). “We think … Continue reading
CA6: Def’s getting CI’s call and driving to controlled buy and home was nexus for SW
Defendant’s being in his home when he received a call from the CI for a controlled buy and then his driving to the buy and back was sufficient nexus. United States v. Badley, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 33031 (6th Cir. … Continue reading
CA8: Def’s condition (“rotting teeth, quick speaking, profuse sweating, and rapid, shallow breathing”) plus odd travel plans was RS
Defendant’s condition (“Baltes had observed Betts’s symptoms of drug use: rotting teeth, quick speaking, profuse sweating, and rapid, shallow breathing.”), a torch lighter, and unusual travel plans added up to reasonable suspicion to extend the stop. United States v. Betts, … Continue reading
WaPo: It’s time to end the third-party doctrine (opinion)
WaPo: It’s time to end the third-party doctrine by Robert Frommer:
UT: Prosecutor’s trial comment on def’s refusal to give passcode to phone violated 5A
Defendant refused to reveal the passcode to his cell phone, and the police never got into it. He was charged with kidnapping, and he claimed that there was no kidnapping and that she consented to come with him. At trial, … Continue reading
OH7: Taking backpack of arrestee to handcuff doesn’t make it not subject to search incident
“Appellant had the bag on her back at the time the officer arrested her for obstructing official business. The officer’s removal of the bag from the arrestee in order to handcuff her did not eliminate his ability to search the … Continue reading
D.N.J.: Expert saying drug dog not reliable not a Franks issue
Defendant’s expert report that the drug dog here wasn’t reliable doesn’t make a Franks challenge. Besides, there was good faith as to it. United States v. Estevez-Castillo, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 221601 (D.N.J. Dec. 13, 2023). That officers created the … Continue reading
Today is Bill of Rights Day
December 15, 1791
Reason: Congress Renews Warrantless Digital Spying Program until April
Reason: Congress Renews Warrantless Digital Spying Program as Part of $886 Billion Spending Bill (“Section 702 will continue until April, when Congress will have another shot at seriously reforming a program that desperately needs it.”)
NYT/ProPublica: The Failed Promise of Police Body Cameras
NYT/ProPublica: The Failed Promise of Police Body Cameras by Eric Umansky (“When body-worn cameras were introduced a decade ago, they seemed to hold the promise of a revolution. Once police officers knew they were being filmed, surely they would think … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Former President’s name in SW materials for Parnas and Giuliani disclosed because it came up in an impeachment
In Lev Parnas’s case, the search papers are partially unsealed as to former President Trump’s name but kept under seal as to others. He is a public figure, and the others are not. As to Trump, most of this came … Continue reading
Google obviating geofence warrants?
Google posted this yesterday: Updates to Location History and new controls coming soon to Maps. Google will not be keeping geolocation data. So, are geofence warrants going to be a thing of the past? Google says it won’t have the … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Bullet holes in a car isn’t RS without more
On remand from the Ninth Circuit to reconsider defendant’s argument on prolonging the stop, the court finds that his finally producing registration ended that part of the officer’s inquiry. Defendant’s car was also “riddled with bullet holes” but that wasn’t … Continue reading
WaPo: Pharmacies share medical data with police without a warrant, inquiry finds
WaPo: Pharmacies share medical data with police without a warrant, inquiry finds by Drew Harwell (“The revelation could shape the debate over Americans’ health privacy as states move to criminalize abortion and drugs related to reproductive health.”)
C.D.Ill.: No RS car with SC plates and tinted windows violated IL law
There was no reasonable suspicion that the window tinting on a car with South Carolina plates found in Illinois violated Illinois law. United States v. Timms, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 220195 (C.D. Ill. Dec. 8, 2023).* Plaintiff state prisoner’s § … Continue reading
OH11: Using a flashlight during execution of SW still “plain view”
Using a flashlight during the search of defendant’s home did not negate plain view during execution of the warrant. State v. Washington, 2023-Ohio-4484, 2023 Ohio App. LEXIS 4302 (11th Dist. Dec. 11, 2023). Defendant was a suspect in a fake … Continue reading