Archives
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Recent Posts
- IL: A backpack is not as personal a repository of stuff as a purse or wallet; officers ordered it left in vehicle for safety reasons and it was inventoried
- DE: Cell phone SW was limited by time and data sought, so it was not a general warrant
- MD: Under Bruen, mere possession of a handgun outside the home is no longer RS; Terry stop doesn’t include looking in a bag
- MO: When officers came with an arrest warrant, def’s admission he had a firearm justified the entry
- PA: Shining flashlight into hole in a shoebox was a search; there was a REP in the closed box
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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)
--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
CA11: “[T]he presence of contradictory evidence does not bar a finding of probable cause”; It must refute it
“[T]he presence of contradictory evidence does not bar a finding of probable cause.” It must refute it. Scott v. City of Miami, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 14381 (11th Cir. June 11, 2025):
D.Mont.: Civil demand for BAC test in Indian country did not violate HIPAA
The FBI’s civil demand from the BIA for BAC records from a hospital did not violate HIPAA. United States v. Cree Medicine, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 110982 (D. Mont. June 11, 2025):
ABA: Stop and Frisk: Appropriate or Unconstitutional?
ABA: Stop and Frisk: Appropriate or Unconstitutional? by Oran Lott Bullock & Yolanda Means (“Stop and frisk is both a symbol of proactive policing and a flashpoint for civil liberties advocates. Central to the debate is the threshold of ‘reasonable … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Only “some temporal reference” is required to avoid staleness
The affidavit for search warrant shows sufficient references to recent time to show it was not stale. “Put plainly, the Sixth Circuit does not require a search warrant affidavit to include the temporal specificity which Hardaway suggests is necessary. Rather, … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: ALPR does not equate with CSLI
The use of Automatic License Plate Readers to track movements of defendant’s car can’t (yet) equate with Carpenter’s CSLI. Maybe someday, but not here. There are many differences on this record. United States v. Sturdivant, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109054 … Continue reading
D.Colo.: This collection of unsubstantiated information wasn’t RS
Defendant’s search incident of his car for proof of insurance was without probable cause. As for reasonable suspicion, his change in demeanor once he found out a search of the car was going to occur didn’t contribute to reasonable suspicion. … Continue reading
GA: SW affidavit came in at trial; argument waived
Defendant’s argument about admission of a search warrant affidavit at trial was deemed abandoned even for plain error review. Coston v. State, 2025 Ga. LEXIS 123 (June 10, 2025).* (Caution readers: I had this issue just this year: The prosecution … Continue reading
Arnold & Porter: People Are Not Documents: Texas Court Rules That Administrative Inspection Warrants Cannot Be Used for Immigration Raids of Businesses
Arnold & Porter: People Are Not Documents: Texas Court Rules That Administrative Inspection Warrants Cannot Be Used for Immigration Raids of Businesses by Mohamed Al-Hendy, Lee M. Cortes, Jr., Ryan Hartman & Murad Hussain:
OR: State didn’t develop alternative search theory just by mentioning it
The state didn’t sufficiently develop search incident as an alternative theory to sustain the search merely by mentioning it. State v. Ribota, 341 Or. App. 32 (June 4, 2025). There is a fact question for trial for excessive force, and … Continue reading
Reason: Denver Case Highlights the Potentially Deadly Hazards of Police Raids Based on Secondhand Information
Reason: Denver Case Highlights the Potentially Deadly Hazards of Police Raids Based on Secondhand Information by Jacob Sullum (“Michael Mendenhall wants the Supreme Court to reconsider a precedent that allows home invasions based on nothing but hearsay.”). Cert. petitions almost … Continue reading
Marshall Project: How AI-Powered Police Forces Watch Your Every Move
Marshall Project: How AI-Powered Police Forces Watch Your Every Move by Jamiles Lartley (“Artificial intelligence is changing how police investigate crimes — and monitor citizens — as regulators struggle to keep pace.”)
TechPolicy.press: A Model Framework for Regulating Geofence Warrants
TechPolicy.press: A Model Framework for Regulating Geofence Warrants by Vivek Krishnamurthy:
NM: Aguilar-Spinelli are still followed here and they were satisfied
Aguilar-Spinelli is still followed in New Mexico, and its strictures were met here. Motion to suppress properly denied, and court of appeals reversed. State v. Perea, 2025 N.M. LEXIS 91 (June 5, 2025):
D.Md.: Delaying three years to indict after seizure compromised defense enough that speedy trial was violated
Defendant’s backpack was searched in 2017, but he wasn’t indicted until 2020, and his case lingered. The officer’s testimony about the search is hazy and inconclusive enough that the court finds cause to dismiss for a speedy trial violation. The … Continue reading
CA9 en banc: It’s settled that shooting again a man with a knife who’s already down is excessive
On qualified immunity, it’s been settled for a decade that shooting and killing a man with a knife when he’s already down for the first four shots would be excessive force under Zion v. County of Orange, 874 F.3d 1072 … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Pole camera law settled here, even if state court suggests it could differ somewhat
This court is bound by circuit authority from 2009 and 2022 en banc that pole camera surveillance is valid, even if this judge was sympathetic to the argument and the state court might rule differently. United States v. Crisostomo, 2025 … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: Paying “rent” in drugs is a business transaction didn’t give a REP here
Paying daily “rent” in drugs is a business transaction without standing. “Although Jackson was an overnight guest insofar as he slept on the couch in the living room, he told law enforcement officers in his interview that he paid McCallister … Continue reading
CA9: No warrant required for CI to record def
No warrant was required for the CI to record defendant, following White (1971). United States v. Sudbury, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 13921 (9th Cir. June 6, 2025). The state can’t be compelled to seek to unseal the CI’s testimony for … Continue reading
D.Alaska: Objection to only part of USMJ’s R&R is waiver of rest
Objection to the USMJ’s probable cause finding but not application of the good faith exception is waiver on the latter. United States v. Baldwin, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 106406 (D. Alaska June 4, 2025). The legality of the protective sweep … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: If you’re moving to suppress, at least say what is to be suppressed
Defendant moves to suppress without saying what it is that should be suppressed. [So why not just find it moot?] Defendant raises a Franks challenge and a lack of probable cause. He doesn’t prevail on either. United States v. Alhemoud, … Continue reading