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- 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”
- D.Idaho: Not unreasonable for PO to hand over def’s cell phone to LEO for extraction after RS developed from Snapchat app
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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)
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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: Exclusionary rule
CT: Exclusionary rule does not apply in animal welfare cases which are civil
The animal control officer did a welfare check on animals at a house and entered the curtilage to look in a window. The exclusionary rule does not apply in animal welfare cases. NE Conn. Council of Gov’ts Animal Servs. ex … Continue reading
W.D.Ark.: Exclusionary rule doesn’t apply to sentencing
The exclusionary rule doesn’t apply to sentencing. Owen v. United States, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42184 (W.D. Ark. Jan. 20, 2026) (recognizing rule). The officer here blocked defendant’s parked car while he was in it, so that was a stop. … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: It’s not actually required a cell phone be involved in a crime; it’s whether it is likely it was
It’s not constitutionally required to show that a cell phone was actually used in a crime for probable cause to search it. It’s enough that it likely could have. “A law enforcement-affiant’s personal expertise combined with attestation to a defendant’s … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Postal workers have no REP in their work trucks
Postal workers have no reasonable expectation of privacy in their work trucks. It’s owned by the USPS and others always have access and they well know they are subject to surveillance on the job. United States v. Ayala, 2026 U.S. … Continue reading
GA: Visitor has no REP in common areas of host’s home
The MV’s grandmother suspected defendant was molesting her granddaughter. She placed a video camera in the living room. It was obvious with a red light on it, and there was a sign that a camera was in use. He moved … Continue reading
CA9: No QI for knowingly presenting material false testimony in support of a warrant
No qualified immunity for knowingly presenting material false testimony in support of a warrant. Gibson v. City of Portland, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 2646 (9th Cir. Jan. 29, 2026). As to Franks: “Even if there were a material omission, inclusion … Continue reading
OR: Being ordered to walk backwards toward officer with hands up is a seizure
The juvenile being ordered to walk backwards to the officer with hands up is a seizure, and here it was with reasonable suspicion. P.L. v. C.P.L. (In re C.), 346 Or. App. 499 (Jan. 22, 2026) (argued 18 months ago). … Continue reading
VA: Exclusionary rule does not apply in animal cruelty forfeitures
The exclusionary rule does not apply in animal cruelty forfeitures, distinguishing One 1958 Plymouth Sedan v. Pennsylvania. Mogensen v. Cty. of Rockbridge, 2026 Va. App. LEXIS 46 (Jan. 27, 2026). Defendant’s stop for a broken taillight lacked reasonable suspicion because … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: The exclusionary rule doesn’t apply to grand jury evidence
Under Calandra (1974), there’s no basis for dismissing an indictment because it might be based on an illegal search. The search was valid anyway because it was based on the consenter’s apparent authority. United States v. Jones, 2026 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
N.D.N.Y.: Def’s immigration arrest was unreasonable and the product is suppressed
Defendant’s immigration arrest was unreasonable and the product is suppressed. United States v. Juarez-Lopez, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 269401 (N.D.N.Y. Dec. 18, 2025)*:
MA: Overly long GPS monitoring as a condition of probation can be 4A unreasonable
“Whether GPS monitoring as a condition of probation is a reasonable search turns in part on its duration, and the Commonwealth bears the burden of demonstrating that GPS monitoring is reasonable for the entire ordered duration. Notwithstanding the requirement in … Continue reading
VA: Exclusionary rule doesn’t apply in revos
The exclusionary rule, along with a host of other things, doesn’t apply in revocation proceedings. Commonwealth v. Jackson, 2025 Va. LEXIS 57 (Nov. 20, 2025) (citing treatise § 9.16). The collective knowledge doctrine applies to traffic stops. United States v. … Continue reading
CA6: Business’s sole other employee had apparent authority to consent
Plaintiff’s adult child was the sole other employee of the business, and he had apparent authority to consent to a search. For all practical purpose, he’s in charge, too. Rockwood Auto Parts, Inc. v. Monroe Cty., 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
TX13: Even if hemp and MJ smell similar, smell is still PC
The Dallas Court of Appeals “concluded that the odor of marijuana emanating from a vehicle gave an officer probable cause to search the vehicle and its occupants, even though the odor of marijuana is indistinguishable from the odor of hemp.” … Continue reading
UT: State’s use of federal administrative subpoena to gather records for state sex crime does not require suppression
Getting the feds to administratively subpoena records for a sex offense involving a minor allegedly in violation of the Utah Electronic or Data Privacy Act (EIDPA) didn’t require suppression. State v. Andrus, 2025 UT 32 (Aug. 7, 2025):
W.D.N.Y.: Protective sweep was unjustified, and SW based on what seen was suppressed
Defendant had managerial control over the business property searched enough that he had standing to challenge its search. The security sweep of the second floor was not reasonable and, to the USMJ, “ma[de] no sense”; there was no articulable reason … Continue reading
MO: Uncorroborated anonymous tip wasn’t PC and GFE doesn’t apply
Uncorroborated anonymous tip: “Because the affidavit relies almost entirely on an uncorroborated anonymous tip and includes no information regarding the tipster’s reliability or the specific details of the anonymous tip, it failed to supply the warrant-issuing judge with a reasonable … Continue reading
CA9: No REP in data in planted GPS device
Downloading data from a planted GPS device violated no reasonable expectation of privacy. McNeely v. Loeschner, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 9537 (9th Cir. Apr. 22, 2025). The facts of the planted device are below: McNeely v. City of Sparks, 2024 … 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
Cal.1st: Exclusionary rule doesn’t apply to DL suspensions
The exclusionary rule doesn’t apply to DL suspension proceedings. Kazelka v. Cal. Dep’t of Motor Vehicles, 2025 Cal. App. LEXIS 196 (1st Dist. Mar. 27, 2025). Officers responded to a shots fired call in a Bronx apartment and entered and … Continue reading