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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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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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Section 1983 Blog -
"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: When there are multiple grounds supporting a search, appellant has to respond to all
An appellate court can affirm denial of suppression on any ground supported by the record. And, when the district court finds multiple independent grounds to deny suppression, the appellant has to rebut all of them. Here, the district court found … Continue reading
CA6: State officers can enforce federal law
The search of defendant’s car was based on the alleged federal crime of possession of a small amount of marijuana, and a gun was found, and he was a felon in possession. State officers can arrest for violations of federal … Continue reading
CW34 West Palm Beach: U.S. citizen detained in Florida under new immigration law, released after 48 hours
CW34 West Palm Beach: U.S. citizen detained in Florida under new immigration law, released after 48 hours by Grace Bellinghausen (“A 20-year-old U.S. citizen was unlawfully detained by ICE for two days following a traffic stop near the Florida border. … Continue reading
Paul Revere’s ride was 250 years ago tonight
Per Wikipedia.
CA8: No evidence supported plaintiff’s arrest for DUI; no QI, no SJ
Plaintiff’s arrest without probable cause for driving under the influence survived summary judgment and the qualified immunity defense. Looking at the video, there is nothing that supports probable cause for plaintiff’s arrest. The defendant officers and city used a “divide … Continue reading
CrimLawProf: Let’s Be Reasonable About Geofence Warrants
CrimLawProf: Let’s Be Reasonable About Geofence Warrants by Stephen E. Henderson (“For years, I wrote a lot about the Fourth Amendment and new technologies (see summary in this note 6), so I was very pleased with the inflection point Carpenter … Continue reading
Pole cameras FYI
Out of curiosity, I did a Lexis search of pole cameras. They’ve shown in 30 opinions so far in 2025.
D.Alaska: Despite SW affidavit’s failures, search of car otherwise valid under automobile exception
The showing for the search warrant for defendant’s car and cell phone was completely deficient. As to the car, its search is sustained under the automobile exception instead, but the phone extraction is suppressed. United States v. Carlton, 2025 U.S. … Continue reading
CA8: Dog’s instinctive head in the car window wasn’t a trespass
The dog touching the car was instinctive and not handler directed. Therefore, it’s not a trespass. There’s some doubt in the existing rule in this circuit, but not here. United States v. Munoz, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 8808 (8th Cir. … Continue reading
NYC Formal Opinion 2025-1: A government lawyer may refuse a superior’s order to lie in court.
NYC Bar Formal Opinion 2025-1: A government lawyer may refuse a superior’s order to lie in court. “May” not “shall.” So, what about the ethical duty to report the superior for requesting the lie?
M.D.Ala.: When a car search is based on smell of MJ, it doesn’t matter that none was found
When a search is based on the smell of burnt or fresh marijuana, it doesn’t matter that none was found. United States v. Powell, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 70597 (M.D. Ala. Mar. 13, 2025):
CO: PC a gun was in car permits search of trunk
Defendant was a suspect in a shooting incident. He was found outside a car. There was probable cause to believe the gun was inside the passenger compartment or trunk, even though the windows were down and the trunk closed when … Continue reading
CA4: No downward variance for 4A violation in revocation of supervised release
Defendant was on supervised release and revoked. No downward variance because the search violated the Fourth Amendment and led to dismissal of that separate case. United States v. Corbett, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 8758 (4th Cir. Apr. 14, 2025). “In … Continue reading
Bloomberg Law: Bootleggers, Cops, and Cars: How Driving Became a Privacy Trap
Bloomberg Law: Bootleggers, Cops, and Cars: How Driving Became a Privacy Trap by Cassandre Coyer, Tonya Riley & Jorja Siemons about automatic license plate readers in Norfolk VA. A subheading: “Data a Modern Car Can Collect”:
NYTimes: This Company’s Surveillance Tech Makes Immigrants ‘Easy Pickings’ for Trump
NYTimes: This Company’s Surveillance Tech Makes Immigrants ‘Easy Pickings’ for Trump By Paul Mozyr, Adam Satariano & Aaron Krolik (“Geo Group, a private prison firm that makes digital tools to track immigrants, becomes one of the Trump administration’s big business … Continue reading
CalMatters: Border Patrol to retrain hundreds of California agents on how to comply with Constitution
CalMatters: Border Patrol to retrain hundreds of California agents on how to comply with Constitution by Wendy Fry and Sergio Olmos. Oh? They are the best source? Update: Then this Sunday: San Diego Post: California immigration raids slammed as racial … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: PC was shown for a warrant for five cell phones for use in trafficking drugs
Probable cause was shown for a warrant for five cell phones for use in trafficking drugs. “The presence of the phones near drugs also gave rise to an inference that any phones associated with the defendant (in cars he drove … Continue reading
D.Md.: Is product of SW for Md. home of Jan.6 def leading to FIPF case covered by Jan.6 pardon?
Does defendant’s January 20, 2025 pardon for being a Jan. 6th Capitol defendant cover his being charged with being a felon in possession in his home when a search warrant for the Jan. 6th case was executed at his house? … Continue reading