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Recent Posts
- 404 Media: Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Using Flock to Stalk People
- Cal.1: Entry by robot, drone, tear gas, and flash bang was with PC after def refused to come out on a 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.
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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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Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
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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)
--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (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
Cal.4: Prompt detour to drug investigation after traffic stop violated Rodriguez
This started as a lawful traffic stop, but the officer promptly detoured to a drug investigation and used a drug dog when defendant refused consent, and Rodriguez was violated. People v. Gyorgy, 2023 Cal. App. LEXIS 536 (4th Dist. July … Continue reading
MT: Threats to officer after saying he’d get a SW admissible at trial
The officer told defendant he’d get a telephonic warrant for a blood draw, and defendant responded with threats to follow him home. They were admissible at trial. State v. Hardin, 2023 MT 132, 2023 Mont. LEXIS 701 (July 11, 2023). … Continue reading
EFF: Even the Government Thinks It Should Stop Buying Corporate Surveillance Data
EFF: Even the Government Thinks It Should Stop Buying Corporate Surveillance Data by Andrew Crocker (“Courts should respect Fourth Amendment precedent by continuing to disallow the government from buying personal data without a warrant.”)
TX3: SI of suitcase of arrested person was reasonable
Search incident of defendant’s suitcase that came to the police station with him was reasonable when he was arrested at a motel he hadn’t checked into yet. The police didn’t know what was in there, and safety was also a … Continue reading
WI: Seizure at door on RS violates 4A
Seizure at the threshold of a home on reasonable suspicion violates the Fourth Amendment which requires probable cause. State v. Cundy, 2023 Wisc. App. LEXIS 761 (July 13, 2023):
NY3: Where no information anyone else could be inside, no justification for protective sweep after def’s arrest
The police had no information even suggesting that another person was in the premises, and a protective sweep after defendant was arrested was unjustified. People v. Hadlock, 2023 NY Slip Op 03819, 2023 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3839 (3d Dept. … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Rodriguez requires separate offense with RS
“Therefore, to extend the stop past this point to deploy his K9 partner, Frizko, even by mere minutes, Trooper Rauenhorst would have needed an additional, separate reasonably articulable factual basis upon which to believe a different offense was in need … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: CI’s controlled buy doesn’t have to be on video to support PC
There’s no constitutional requirement that the informant’s controlled buy be on video to support probable cause. United States v. Salter, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 119269 (M.D. Ala. June 7, 2023), adopted, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 115746 (M.D. Ala. July 6, … Continue reading
E.D.Ark.: Ptf’s Facebook posts shooting guns supported use of flashbang during drug raid
Plaintiff’s Facebook posts of her shooting guns on her property supported the use of flashbang devices when her house was subjected to a drug raid by the SWAT team. Davenport v. City of Little Rock, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 119102 … Continue reading
CA8: Even if def’s Mexican confession was obtained by alleged torture, the UN Convention Against Torture doesn’t have a suppression remedy
Defendant was arrested in Mexico and subjected to searches and interrogation which he claimed amounted to torture. Relying on the United Nations Convention Against Torture, he contended it shocked the conscience. There is no authority for the CAT to apply … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Dismissal not the remedy for a 4A violation
“But in any event, even where Fourth Amendment violations have occurred—which, the Court takes pains to restate, is not the case here—a dismissal of an indictment is generally not the appropriate remedy. United States v. Morrison, 449 U.S. 361, 365-66, … Continue reading
DE: Where SW was for clothing worn in shooting, nexus shown to def’s home
Where the search warrant sought clothing worn during a shooting, nexus was shown to where defendant lived. State v. Johnson, 2023 Del. Super. LEXIS 324 (July 7, 2023). There was probable cause for plaintiff’s arrest for harassment of another person. … Continue reading
E.D.La.: Leaving the wrong SW at the scene of the search is not a ground to suppress
Leaving the wrong search warrant at the scene of the search is not a ground to suppress. United States v. Major, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 116569 (E.D. La. July 7, 2023). The CI had no track record, but his story … Continue reading
WIRED: Why We Don’t Recommend Ring Cameras
WIRED: Why We Don’t Recommend Ring Cameras by Adrienne So (“They’re affordable and ubiquitous, but homeowners shouldn’t be able to act as vigilantes.”):
CADC: In the RS calculus, the officer’s experience has significant value
In the reasonable suspicion calculus, the officer’s experience has value. United States v. Douglas, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 17171 (D.C. Cir. July 7, 2023) (per curiam, but 2-1), Randolph, J., concurring:
CA3: Saying “this is not my backpack” when shown it during traffic stop is abandonment
“Small abandoned his legitimate expectation of privacy in the backpack. Although Small arguably demonstrated a subjective expectation of privacy by attempting to hide the backpack under his seat (though this act could also be viewed as an effort to physically … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Compelled use of fingerprint to open cell phone not testimonial
Seeking to have defendant use his fingerprint to unlock his cell phone was not testimonial. The Second Circuit hasn’t ruled yet. “Nevertheless, the Court is persuaded by the weight of authority in other circuits, which holds that the compelled use … Continue reading