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- E.D.Tenn.: Application for SW was considered in detention ruling
- TN: RS didn’t develop to continue stop; second stop based on first suppressed
- CA4: Traffic stop immediately became firearms investigation; suppressed
- CA10: Disagreement over spelling of street name didn’t make warrant fail particularity; GFE at least would apply
- VA: Statutory requirement to provide SW papers only applies to “places of abode”
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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)
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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) -
“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: geofence
MN: Geofence warrant was not particular
The Minnesota Constitution doesn’t categorically prohibit geofence warrants, but here the warrant was not particular as to all those swept up. Reversed and remanded to the court of appeals (rev’g State v. Contreras-Sanchez, 5 N.W.3d 151 (Minn. App. 2024)). State … Continue reading
Reason: The Supreme Court’s Next Big Fourth Amendment Case
Reason: The Supreme Court’s Next Big Fourth Amendment Case by Damon Root (“At issue in the April 27 oral arguments in Chatrie v. United States is something known as a geofence warrant. It’s a law enforcement tool in which a … Continue reading
Reason: Controversial Geofence Warrants Face Supreme Court Challenge
Reason: Controversial Geofence Warrants Face Supreme Court Challenge by J.D. Tuccille (“It sometimes seems technology provides a moving target for the Fourth Amendment, evolving new means of snooping on people while courts struggle to keep up. That’s the case with … Continue reading
NH: Trial court didn’t err in allowing officer to testify to what geolocation information meant here: def was in victim’s house
The victim found an intruder in his home, and called the police. The intruder got away. The police sought geolocation information from Google on all phones at the house, and defendant’s phone came up. The officer called defendant. This was … Continue reading
SCOTUS grants cert in geofence case, Chatrie v. United States
Chatrie v. United States, 25-112 (cert. granted Jan. 16, 2026). Question presented:
E.D.Wis.: Geofence warrant slightly different than Chatrie still in good faith
This geofence warrant was slightly different than Chatrie’s. Still, the good faith exception applies. “In this case, law enforcement acted pursuant to a warrant that was not so facially deficient that the executing officers could not reasonably presume it to … Continue reading
TX8 sustains geofence warrant
TX8, El Paso without much discussion sustains a geofence warrant. Also the warrants for the phone and social media accounts were issued with probable cause and were particular. Alvarez v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 6106 (Tex. App. – El … Continue reading
Geofence cert. petition filed 7/30
Chatrie v. United States, 25-112 (docket; petition; prior post): QUESTION PRESENTED This case concerns the constitutionality of geofence warrants. For cell phone users to use certain services, their cell phones must continuously transmit their exact locations to their service providers. … Continue reading
MA: Defendant fled his allegedly illegal stop, so he can’t argue attenuation when he discarded contraband in flight
The trial court erred in applying the attenuation doctrine here. Defendant claimed he was illegally stopped, but he fled and discarded contraband in flight. Commonwealth v. Diaz, 2025 Mass. LEXIS 300 (June 27, 2025). This geofence warrant was supported by … Continue reading
Bloomberg: Counsel Have Toolbox to Fight Geofence Warrants as Split Widens
Bloomberg: Counsel Have Toolbox to Fight Geofence Warrants as Split Widens by Pei Pei Cheng de Castro & Jennifer Hopkins:
N.D.Ga.: Despite a technical mistake in this geofence warrant, it’s sustained under GFE
The charge is murder in aid of racketeering, and a geofence warrant was used. The process is described below, and the application was defective at step 2, but not so defective that the good faith exception didn’t apply. At the … Continue reading
TechPolicy.press: A Model Framework for Regulating Geofence Warrants
TechPolicy.press: A Model Framework for Regulating Geofence Warrants by Vivek Krishnamurthy:
CA4 (en banc): Geofence warrant was in good faith; no decision on merits
The Fourth Circuit dodges deciding the merits of geofence warrants by going with good faith in a per curiam virtually summary affirmance with 124 pages of concurring and dissenting opinions. Having heard the excellent, spirited oral argument, this was where … 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
TX upholds geofence warrant
Wells v. State, 2025 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 210 (Apr. 2, 2025) (6-3) [somehow what we’ve come to expect from Texas]:
GA sustains a geofence warrant linking def to a murder
Georgia sustains a geofence warrant linking defendant to a murder. Jones v. State, 2025 Ga. LEXIS 39 (Mar. 4, 2025):
S.D.Miss.: Because CA5 prohibits broad geofence warrants, cell tower dump warrant unreasonable
USMJ concludes the Fifth Circuit’s geofence warrant case means a cell tower dump warrant is unreasonable. In re Four Applications for Search Warrants Seeking Info. Associated with Particular Cellular Towers, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32995 (S.D. Miss. Feb. 21, 2025):
Harv. L. Rev. Blog Essay: Much Ado About Geofence Warrants
Harv. L. Rev. Blog Essay: Much Ado About Geofence Warrants: United States v. Chatrie, 107 F.4th 319 (4th Cir. 2024) & United States v. Jamarr Smith, 110 F.4th 817 (5th Cir. 2024) by Jackie O’Neil:
E.D.Okla.: Geofence warrant held 4A violation with no GFE
The R&R recommended suppression of the geofence warrant. It is adopted. The warrant caused a wholesale search and was based on what appears to be a slipshod effort. Even the good faith exception didn’t apply. United States v. Fuentes, 2025 … Continue reading