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- 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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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)
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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. 
Category Archives: Uncategorized
CA6: Habeas claim was truly 4A based and barred by Stone v. Powell
2254 petitioner’s habeas claim was based solely on the Fourth Amendment and wasn’t at all a due process claim as he says. Thus, it’s bared by Stone v. Powell, and the COA is denied. Hoffman v. Harris, 2017 U.S. App. … Continue reading
Recorder: DOJ: Google Won’t Fight New Warrants for Overseas Data
Recorder: DOJ: Google Won’t Fight New Warrants for Overseas Data by Ben Hancock The development marks a reversal of the company’s legal strategy on the issue of law enforcement access to data stored abroad.
CA9: “What is probable cause?” “What do you want it to be?”
Under the totality of circumstances, there was probable cause to search defendant’s truck under the automobile exception. Judge Kozinski dissents, finding nothing remotely approaching probable cause and finding this a dangerous case for the citizenry. United States v. Faagai, 2017 … Continue reading
The Hill: Motel 6: We aren’t sending customer lists to ICE anymore
The Hill: Motel 6: We aren’t sending customer lists to ICE anymore\ by John Bowden Motel 6 announced it will stop sending customer lists to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Wednesday after its corporate office was made aware of the … Continue reading
Well, something’s wrong, but the answer is*:
All the posts since 8/29 disappeared since 9 am. I made ten today. Just gone. Update: Remember we were down two days? A new version of WordPress, and on new server with better security. The information is available on the … Continue reading
CA2: Inconclusive x-ray by SW for body-packing drugs didn’t dissipate the PC for the SW
Defendant was arrested with probable cause, which he concedes, and officers got a search warrant for x-rays to see if he had drugs hidden in his body (“body packing”). After the x-ray was inconclusive, defendant was detained longer. The probable … Continue reading
IN: Even if frisk was unreasonable, defs’ assault on officers wasn’t excludable
Defendants committed battery on police officer, a new crime, even if the frisk of the person was illegal, it’s the new crime is not excludable. K.C. v. State, 2017 Ind. App. LEXIS 387 (Sept. 8, 2017). The timeline belied exigency … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: RS was too close a call, and, if the court doesn’t suppress, anybody could be stopped
Reasonable suspicion was a close call, but not enough to justify the stop. If the court doesn’t suppress, everything might end up as reasonable suspicion. United States v. Aguilera, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 145199 (S.D. Cal. Sept. 7, 2017)*:
WaPo: How Silicon Valley is erasing your individuality
WaPo: How Silicon Valley is erasing your individuality by Franklin Foer:
PA: Telling def to “come here” when officer perceived apparent curfew violation was not a substantial interference with liberty
Saying to defendant “come here” when the officer saw defendant on the street and suspected a violation of the curfew law was not a substantial interference with defendant’s liberty to be a seizure. Commonwealth v. Newsome, 2017 PA Super 290, … Continue reading
MA: Def had standing in a rent-by-the-hour room that police officers “froze” pending getting a SW
Defendant had standing in a rent-by-the-hour room. Officers were there for a sting, and they could “freeze” the premises to protect against destruction of evidence to get a warrant. Commonwealth v. Owens, 2017 Mass. App. LEXIS 121 (Sept. 11, 2017). … Continue reading
techdirt: Thanks To The DEA And Drug War, Your Prescription Records Have Zero Expectation Of Privacy
techdirt: Thanks To The DEA And Drug War, Your Prescription Records Have Zero Expectation Of Privacy by Tim Cushing:
M.D.Pa.: Even if Carpenter prevails in SCOTUS, it doesn’t matter pre-Carpenter
Even if Carpenter goes in favor of the privacy interest, it has no effect on CSLI searches that occurred before. A bench warrant that showed up for defendant’s arrest justified a search incident of his person. There was also probable … Continue reading
CO: A sealed box received in the mail could be searched under inventory of a car
Defendant’s vehicle was impounded because he was arrested for DUI at a gas pump. In the inventory, the officer saw parts (but not all) of an apparent methamphetamine lab. Also in the car was a sealed box received in the … Continue reading
NYTimes: Witness Warrants Were Misused in Queens and Elsewhere, Court Papers Say
NYTimes: Witness Warrants Were Misused in Queens and Elsewhere, Court Papers Say by Alan Feurer:
IN: Stop on erroneous BMV record registration expired was still reasonable under Heien
The officer here was driving around running LPNs, and defendant’s came back from BMV as “expired” even though that day was the last day of the registration, October 15, 2015. He stopped defendant, and several warrants surfaced on defendant. The … Continue reading
CA7: Officer’s “sucker-punch” and two minute beating of a “suspect” for no apparent reason violated 4A and supported officer’s civil rights conviction
Officer’s “sucker-punch” of store clerk then beating him for no apparent reason for two minutes justified his conviction for violating the store clerk’s Fourth Amendment rights. United States v. Brown, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 17403 (7th Cir. Sept. 8, 2017):
OH has two on exigency: meth lab and a burglary in progress
911 call of people inside a neighbor’s home with flashlights was at least reasonable suspicion of a burglary in process to justify a warrantless entry. State v. Head, 2017-Ohio-7473, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 3787 (5th Dist. Sept. 6, 2017). The … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: Quarles permitted unMirandized question about whether def was armed
A Charles and the public safety exception, a person stopped can be asked whether he’s armed. Here, defendant wasn’t in custody when he admitted he had a gun, and the question was valid anyway. United States v. Esparza, 2017 U.S. … Continue reading
Cal.App.Div., San Diego: Warrantless testing of second blood vial for drugs violated 4A
Two vials of defendant’s blood were drawn under implied consent. He was told the second would be kept for him, but it was separately tested for drugs. The second warrantless search of the blood violated the Fourth Amendment. People v. … Continue reading