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- MI: Lifetime SO registration and GPS monitoring was reasonable
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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: Reasonable expectation of privacy
NY1: Search incident of a “booster bag” at time of arrest outside a store was reasonable
Defendants were involved in store thefts with a “booster bag” where they were going into the stores and making off with stuff in bag and then transferring it to a rolling suitcase on the street. When the police observed a … Continue reading
GA: No REP in a police interview room where a call was overheard and recorded
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a police interview room. Defendant had been Mirandized and left alone in the room, knowing he was not free to leave, and told he was a suspect in a crime. He made … Continue reading
MT: 911 call about drunk driver was corroborated when car found
A 911 call reported a potential drunk driver. When the car was found, the officer’s observations were at least reasonable suspicion justifying a stop. Indreland v. Mont. DOJ, 2019 MT 141, 2019 Mont. LEXIS 226 (June 18, 2019). Defendant was … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: No REP in an open office where others were free to come and go and document was taken at police insistence
Here the court considers a post-verdict motion to suppress. The court noted that there were kernels of cause for a motion to suppress, albeit a private search of an office, but the complete picture didn’t develop until trial. Giving he … Continue reading
PA: Computer repair tech’s finding CP on computer was private search; police didn’t exceed it
Defendant took his computer in for repair. The computer tech determined the hard drive was failing, and he consented to replacement and moving the files. The tech found child porn and told the police. They came and their view of … Continue reading
IL: GPS monitoring of food trucks to keep them 200′ from restaurants was reasonable
The City of Chicago requires GPS monitoring of food trucks to make sure they stay 200′ away from a regular restaurant or in food truck zones is reasonably related to the city’s interest in promoting viability of restaurants in the … Continue reading
TX3: Def retained a REP in a hotel room he was evicted from because he wasn’t aware of consequences
Defendant still had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his hotel room when he was evicted by police for violating policy, but there was no showing that he knew the consequences of violating policy. Smoking marijuana in a hotel room … Continue reading
TX3: Dashcam audio of ptf on her porch over her objection cannot be public record
Plaintiffs were the subject of police recordings on her porch during a welfare check. Others sought a public records request for her dashcam recordings and audio of the conversation. Mrs. King was a former member of the Texas legislature and … Continue reading
TX: After Franks hearing that removed information from the affidavit, there is no heightened standard of PC
After removing false information after a Franks hearing, the standard of review of probable cause remains the same. There is no heightened standard of probable cause after Franks. Hyland v. State, 2019 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 542 (June 5, 2019). … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Eight months of constant pole camera digital recording of all comings and goings from defendants’ house violated their reasonable expectation of privacy under Carpenter
The government intends to use at trial parts of eight months of constant pole camera digital recording of all comings and goings from defendants’ house. Such recording and preserving it violated their reasonable expectation of privacy under Carpenter and chilled … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: There’s no REP in the cell or room of the state’s mental hospital
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the cell or room of person under civil commitment. It’s not a jail and there are limited constitutional protections inside. Leonard v. Coalinga State Hosp., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88170 (E.D. Cal. … Continue reading
Conservative HQ: Obama-Appointed Judge Allows Democrats To Subpoena Trump Business Records [a 2019 political take on the third-party doctrine]; opinion
Conservative HQ: Obama-Appointed Judge Allows Democrats To Subpoena Trump Business Records. In a ruling that should chill the heart of every American who values his Fourth Amendment rights, Obama-appointed DC District Court Judge Amit Mehta has refused to quash a … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: No REP in a pole camera’s view in a public place
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy as to a pole camera on business property in a public area. United States v. Gbenedio, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 83682 (N.D. Ga. Mar. 29, 2019). The alleged fact of a telephone call … Continue reading
Law & Crime: Robert Kraft Gets Huge Win: Judge Blocks Spa Video, Says Evidence Was Illegally Obtained
Law & Crime: Robert Kraft Gets Huge Win: Judge Blocks Spa Video, Says Evidence Was Illegally Obtained by Alberto Luperon: A Florida judge decided to suppress police surveillance footage of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft from a prostitution case, … Continue reading
OR: Under state constitution, REP remains in trash picked up and searched other than at dump
Trash collectors picked up defendants’ trash and took it to a place where the police could search it. Under the state constitution, defendants retained a reasonable expectation of privacy in their trash. “On review, we hold that defendants retained protected … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Def who left property in sister’s house without plan to ever return lacked standing, and she had apparent authority to consent
Defendant stored property with his sister in her house for extended periods of time. Here, he lacked standing to challenge the search of his stuff in her house, and she had apparent authority to consent to the search. United States … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: Beverly Hills Airbnb unit disclosure ordinance isn’t barred by Patel
The City of Beverly Hills has an ordinance requiring registration of properties subject to rental through Airbnb. The Apartment Association attempts to analogize the information sought in City of Los Angeles v. Patel, but it doesn’t come near. “In sum, … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Airbnb has REP in nonpublic usage data for its rentals
“The Court finds Airbnb has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the nonpublic usage data for its listings—especially when paired with additional information such as the location of the unit—and that the City cannot lawfully require disclosure of that information … Continue reading
Outside the Beltway: Virginia Judge Rules Automated Collection Of License Plate Data Illegal
Outside the Beltway: Virginia Judge Rules Automated Collection Of License Plate Data Illegal by Doug Mataconis: A Virginia Judge has ruled that automated license plate collection systems violate state law.
Just Security: CBP’s New Social Media Surveillance: A Threat to Free Speech and Privacy
Just Security: CBP’s New Social Media Surveillance: A Threat to Free Speech and Privacy by Raya Koreh: