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- USA Today: Cell phone SW for cause of crash
- Treatise on sale to 11/1
- MD: While protective sweep information made it into SW affidavit, there was PC without it
- N.D.Ga.: A Customs forensic search of a cell phone away from the border was still a border search
- CA6: State officer’s arrest for violation of federal MJ law likely wouldn’t violate 4A
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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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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)
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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: Good faith exception
TN: Riley would not be applied retroactively on post-conviction
In a post-conviction case, Riley wouldn’t be applied retroactively by statute to defendant’s cell phone search incident legal before it was decided. Sayles v. State, 2019 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 193 (Mar. 28, 2019). The stop was based on a … Continue reading
D.S.C.: Byrd on standing in a rental car not retroactively applied to search 7 months before
The officer was diligently pursuing the traffic stop albeit with a mixed motive about defendant being a drug suspect. Under Whren, this was reasonable. Byrd was decided seven months after the stop. Under pre-Byrd law, defendant had no standing, and … Continue reading
CT: 2010 CSLI in violation of state statute and later Carpenter suppressed
The state got prospective CSLI in 2010 which it ultimately admitted was obtained in violation of state statute. The statute, moreover, permitted the state’s discovery of CSLI on reasonable suspicion. Carpenter was violated, although it came in 2018, as well … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Even if Carpenter applies to a cell phone tower dump, the GFE applies
Even if Carpenter applies to cell phone tower dumps, which isn’t a certainty, the good faith exception applies. United States v. Pendergrass, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 222190 (N.D. Ga. Sept. 11, 2018), later opinion on reconsideration, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Two affidavits of 51 and 72 pages showed they were not “bare bones” and GFE applied
“In this case, Special Agent Dosch, a 22-year veteran of the DEA, submitted a 51-page and 72-page detailed affidavit in support of the search warrants which were based on surveillance, information from confidential informants, financial records, evidence including drug contraband … Continue reading
CA7: While the circumstantial evidence might support a SW or wiretap, it didn’t support guilt; reversed and dismissed
“We assume the government’s circumstantial evidence here might have supported a search warrant or perhaps a wiretap on Garcia’s telephone. It simply was not sufficient to support a verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for distributing cocaine. We reverse … Continue reading
TX11 applies GFE to SW based on a statute later held unconstitutional
In an opinion on remand from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Davis good faith applies to a search warrant issued under a provision of the Texas Penal Code later declared unconstitutional. Siller v. State, 2019 Tex. App. LEXIS 2227 … Continue reading
Tennessee finally adopts the good faith exception under Herring
Tennessee finally adopts the good faith exception. State v. McElrath, 2019 Tenn. LEXIS 100 (Mar. 12, 2019) (concurring-dissenting 1; concurring-dissenting 2):
CA1: Cell phones are not tracking devices, following CA7 & 3
“In affirming, we reject his arguments that there was error in the issuance of precise location information warrants (‘PLI warrants’) by a magistrate judge in Maine on a finding of probable cause, which allowed monitoring of the locations of Ackies’s … Continue reading
IN: Carpenter applies to a week of CSLI, but GFE and harmless error applies
In a case GVRd after Carpenter, Indiana finds Carpenter would be followed, but the good faith exception applied. Moreover, it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Zanders v. State, 2019 Ind. LEXIS 46 (Mar. 8, 2019):
NE: Search of the person here was valid an an inventory at the jail
The search of defendant’s person at the jail after his arrest was valid as an inventory search. State v. Garcia, 302 Neb. 406 (Mar. 8, 2019). “As set forth above, the undersigned does not agree with Defendant that the affidavit … Continue reading
D.Mont.: Federal telephonic SW not subject to suppression without bad faith
The stop, as told to defendant, was for a traffic violation, but there was reasonable suspicion for drug trafficking considering all that the officers knew. Therefore, using a drug dog was reasonable because a drug investigation was legally supported. Use … Continue reading
CA9: CSLI warrant was issued without PC, but it wasn’t so lacking that GFE should not apply
The government’s pre-Carpenter search warrant for CSLI was issued without probable cause, but it wasn’t so deficient that the good faith exception should not apply. United States v. Elmore, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 6507 (9th Cir. Mar. 4, 2019):
N.D.Cal.: Despite 2011 violations of statute on real-time CSLI and trap and trace orders, GFE requires no suppression for isolated negligence
Seven years before Carpenter, Salinas CA police violated statute in getting real-time CSLI and a trap and trace order to find defendant after a robbery. The statutory violation was negligence, but it was isolated and not systemic, and the other … Continue reading
AZ: Police relying on binding appellate precedent was subject to GFE
Police following state appellate precedent at the time of defendant’s blood test, later changed, was subject to the good faith exception. State v. Weakland, 2019 Ariz. LEXIS 56 (Feb. 25, 2019). Defendant filed what’s treated as a successor 2255 over … Continue reading
D.S.D.: SW affidavit merely referred to but not fully incorporated satisfied GFE on particularity
For the good faith exception to apply, it is only necessary that the affidavit be referred to in the warrant to save the warrant from a failure of particularity; it doesn’t need to be completely incorporated by reference. United States … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: GFE doesn’t apply to protective sweeps which must be objectively reasonable
The good faith exception cannot be applied to an overbroad protective sweep. [Yet, the court finds the exclusionary rule doesn’t apply for other reasons.] United States v. Garcia, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27861 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 22, 2019):
N.D.Ga.: No nexus shown for Facebook SW, but GFE applied
The District Court disagrees with the USMJ that there was probable cause and nexus for a search warrant for defendant’s Facebook page. But, reasonable judges disagree, and that is enough for the court to conclude that the good faith exception … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Knotted plastic bag of drugs in waistband was in plain view
Defendant was stopped for a traffic offense, and his tinted windows were way too dark and the officer couldn’t see inside. Defendant was told to lower the window, and he did. The officer could immediately see a knotted plastic bag … Continue reading
CA6: No successor 2255 for Carpenter
Petitioner seeks a 2255 successor habeas petition based on Carpenter. It’s denied because: It’s not newly discovered, and it wouldn’t even apply because of the good faith exception. In re Gipson, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 4457 (6th Cir. Feb. 14, … Continue reading