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- VA: Search incident between def’s shorts and underwear was reasonable
- Reason: Border Cops Seize Nurse’s Phone Filled With Psychiatric Patient Information
- MI: Handcuffing uncooperative def at scene of accident wasn’t unreasonable
- S.D.Ga.: Def’s car in driveway next to sidewalk was not on curtilage
- S.D.Ind.: Post search database search of occupants of a place didn’t show SW affidavit was false at time it issued
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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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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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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)
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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: Probable cause
DE: After the first SW was overbroad, officers got a second narrower warrant which had an independent source from the first
When the search warrant was found overbroad, a second warrant was issued based on the same information that was far narrower. It was valid because of its independent source. The alleged false statement in the DNA warrant wasn’t. State v. … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: A keycard found on def in a search incident for something else not suppressed
A keycard on defendant was properly seized incident to arrest. It wasn’t evidence of the crime of the arrest, but it was of another crime. United States v. Croom, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 231419 (N.D. Ala. Dec. 2, 2024), adopted … Continue reading
IA: Rental inspection ordinance not facially unconstitutional; administrative warrants required
The city’s rental property inspection ordinance does not fail under the state constitution’s search and seizure clause because it is not facially void in all circumstances. Administrative warrants can be obtained when there’s a proper showing. Singer v. City of … Continue reading
IN: Facebook SW production authenticated records for trial
The search warrant production helped authenticate defendant’s Facebook records for trial. Anderson v. State, 2024 Ind. App. LEXIS 351 (Dec. 20, 2024). The fog line statute requires a driver to stay “as nearly as practicable entirely within a single lane” … Continue reading
IA: Federal supervised release search standards apply when leading to state prosecution
Conflict of laws: Where defendant’s supervised release search was by federal officers, federal law controls in state court, not state law. State v. Young, 2024 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 106 (Dec. 20, 2024). A motion to reconsider denial of a Fourth … Continue reading
NV: No suppression for a delayed return of SW
State law says that the product of search warrants can be suppressed when they were wrongfully executed. That says nothing about a delayed return, and the search won’t be suppressed for that reason. Alvarez v. State, 2024 Nev. LEXIS 69 … Continue reading
IL: Investigative alert based on an underlying finding of PC satisfies 4A
A Chicago PD investigative alert based on an underlying finding of probable cause satisfies the Fourth Amendment and the state constitution. Prior case law is overruled. People v. Clark, 2024 IL 127838, 2024 Ill. LEXIS 836 (Dec. 19, 2024):
DE: PO’s failure to comply with juvenile probation search regulations on parental involvement justified suppression
The state’s policy on parental involvement in juvenile probation searches wasn’t complied with, and the juvenile’s home search is suppressed. The state’s assertion of exigency is rejected. Sharp v. State, 2024 Del. LEXIS 412 (Dec. 16, 2024). The court won’t … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Cover story at time of justified stop didn’t make it unreasonable
Months of electronic surveillance gave probable cause for defendant’s stop and search. Police use of a cover story for the stop was reasonable to prevent other co-conspirators from finding out. United States v. Arrington, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 222969 (E.D. … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: PC and nexus to cell phone shown by drug deal arranged on an app
Probable cause and a nexus to defendant’s phone was shown because of arranging drug transactions through its apps. United States v. Hughes, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 219482 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 4, 2024). Probable cause didn’t have to be decided because … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: Requiring a building demolition permit doesn’t state a 4A claim
Requiring plaintiff to get a demolition permit of a building fails to state a claim because “Plaintiffs’ legal theory that the … actions result in a violation of their fourth amendments rights is unclear and conclusory.” Macy v. San Bernardino … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Def’s arrest based on drunkenness was without PC
It’s clear from the testimony that the officer intended to arrest defendant, but it was without probable cause that he was so drunk he was a danger. The motion to suppress is granted, but the grounds change slightly on the … Continue reading
D.Nev.: In a § 242 prosecution, defense expert can’t testify to PC
In a § 242 prosecution for violating civil rights, the defense proposed expert is barred from opinion on whether probable cause existed for the arrest. “Whether a given set of facts constitutes probable cause to arrest or charge for a … Continue reading
IL: Arrest on recalled AW not suppressed where officers checked and rechecked it
Officers checked a law enforcement database and found an arrest warrant on defendant. They rechecked. Afterward, it turned out the warrant had been recalled but was still in the system due to a clerical error. The court will not suppress … Continue reading
VA: Furtive movements during stop justified protective sweep of car
Furtive movements during a traffic stop added to reasonable suspicion of a potential weapon. Bazemore v. Commonwealth, 2024 Va. App. LEXIS 659 (Nov. 12, 2024).* “Under our highly deferential standard of review, it also created a sufficient—if weak—nexus between Deeble’s … Continue reading
MA: Three SWs building on each other to ultimate PC
Here there were three search warrants. The second built on the first, and the third on the second, leading to a computer search that was founded on defendant disposing of a body. “When considering the foregoing details together, there was … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Remedy for illegal search is to move to suppress, not to dismiss the case
A ground to suppress a search belongs in a motion to suppress, not to dismiss the indictment. United States v. Bailey, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 198707 (E.D. Pa. Oct. 31, 2024). The search warrant didn’t provide the address of the … Continue reading
IN: Search of passenger’s bag in car before handing it over so he could leave was reasonable when there was PC as to the car
After a traffic stop of a rental vehicle produced a marijuana smell, the driver and passenger were detained. The passenger was shortly let go and asked for his bag from the car. The officer’s search of the bag before handing … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Search incident of bag of handcuffed suspect surrounded by six officers was unreasonable
Search incident of bag of a handcuffed defendant surrounded by six officers and being attended by paramedics was unreasonable. “The Government argues that Allen could have slipped free of his handcuffs and lunged for the bags, but such gymnastics are … Continue reading