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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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--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (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
CA5: Since court upheld warrantless GPS before Jones, no 2255 relief
The Fifth Circuit upheld GPS tracking without a warrant prior to Jones, so defendant wasn’t entitled to 2255 relief under Davis good faith. (The government also argued that Stone v. Powell applied, which would be true, but the court didn’t … Continue reading
Slate: Search Party
Slate: Search Party by Nathan Freed Wessler: A 30-year-old loophole increasingly gives police officers a pass when they violate the Fourth Amendment. It used to be that when police violated a suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights through an unconstitutional search, evidence … Continue reading
Cal.1st: Davis good faith exception applied to a pre-McNeely DUI warrantless blood draw
Davis good faith exception applied to a pre-McNeely DUI warrantless blood draw. People v. Rossetti, 2014 Cal. App. LEXIS 950 (1st Dist. October 22, 2014). 911 call from a name eyewitness to shots fired did not need corroboration. “In general, … Continue reading
NE: Cell phone SW was overbroad for “[a]ny and all information” but still saved by GFE
The state relied at trial on search incident to justify a search of a cell phone, and Riley was decided while the appeal was pending, and it applies. There were no exigent circumstances for a search of the phone. But, … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Mistaken reference to SW attachment no. is saved by good faith exception
An FBI agent was under investigation for bribery for selling information about an investigation. The government showed probable cause for e-mail and cell phone search warrants. The SW cross-referenced Attachment II when it should have said III, and that was … Continue reading
D.Kan.: SW info was stale, so no good faith exception
“The validity of a warrant is not determined by ‘nit-picking’ discreet portions of the application. Rather, the test is whether, under the totality of the circumstances presented in the affidavit, the issuing judge had a ‘substantial basis’ for determining that … Continue reading
TX: Court of appeals erred in not considering GFE on a Fourth Amendment violation
The affidavit for the warrant failed to provide probable cause for the search, but the court of appeals erred in not attempting to apply the good faith exception. The case is remanded for that. McClintock v. State, 2014 Tex. Crim. … Continue reading
CA3: GFE for GPS can derive from old law, without binding authority
ACLU: Federal Appeals Court Rules Evidence Obtained From GPS Device Without Warrant Is Admissible: PHILADELPHIA – The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that evidence derived from warrantless use of a GPS tracking device can be used in court, … Continue reading
D.N.D.: Failure to record conversation with USMJ that address needed correction not ground to suppress
Officers discovered that the address in the search warrant was incorrect before the warrant issued, and the USMJ corrected it on the warrant. The failure to record that conversation while a Rule 41 violation and not a Fourth Amendment violation … Continue reading
D.Md.: GPS order could include rental cars for up to 60 days
A GPS warrant could issue for future rental vehicles for a fixed time frame. Defendant used weekly rented rental vehicles to transport drugs and there was no way of predicting what his next vehicle would be. United States v. Miller, … Continue reading
KY: Cell phone was “pinged” because of missing kids but they were found; def’s location to arrest not suppressed
Defendant’s children were missing and his wife was murdered, and he was a suspect. Police got an exigent circumstances “ping” authority for 48 hours on his phone under the SCA. 18 U.S.C. § 2702(b-c). The phone was off and the … Continue reading
OH6: Small amount of MJ in trash pull wasn’t PC for SW for evidence of cultivation or trafficking
Officers had three year old information that defendant was involved in marijuana cultivation, and nothing was done about it. A trash pull was done that produced a tiny amount of marijuana. The stale information had to be disregarded, and the … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa.: Pre-Jardines dog sniff permitted in circuit, so Davis GFE applies
Dog sniff outside a door was permitted by circuit case law, so Jardines doesn’t apply, Davis good faith does. United States v. Burston, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 121732 (N.D. Iowa September 2, 2014): Judge Scoles found that “[b]ecause the area … Continue reading
Cal.2: Pre-Riley cell phone search incident expressly authorized by case law so Davis GFE applies
The pre-Riley search of defendant’s cell phone was expressly permitted by California case law at the time of the search, so the good faith exception applies. People v. Macabeo, 2014 Cal. App. LEXIS 793 (2d Dist. September 3, 2014). Based … Continue reading
Cal.2d & SD: Pre-McNeely warrantless blood draws saved by Davis GFE
A 2011 DWI blood draw that today would violate McNeely is saved by the Davis good faith exception. People v. Youn, 2014 Cal. App. LEXIS 799 (2d Dist. August 15, 2014), ordered published September 5, 2014. The pre-McNeely warrantless blood … Continue reading
CA4: Davis saves pre-Jones GPS installations in the Fourth Circuit
Prior to Jones’s GPS ruling, Knotts governed all the GPS cases in this circuit, so Davis good faith has to apply to a 2011 GPS installation. United States v. Stephens, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 15920 (4th Cir. August 19, 2014):