September 2026 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Archives
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Recent Posts
- WaPo: Americans have turned against police cameras that track license plates, new survey shows
- W.D.Tex.: What is the duty of the neutral and detached magistrate?
- D.Me.: Yes, more investigation could have been done, but there’s still PC on what there was
- CA3: Brady doesn’t apply to SW materials
- E.D.Mich.: Person a cell phone was given to as gift could consent to search
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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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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
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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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (2012)
ACLU on privacy
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Section 1983 Blog -
"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
CA7: Two 911 calls about a road rage incident led to PC to search defendant’s car
A road rage incident was called into 911 twice by a woman involved who said the other driver was a man blocking her path, beating on her car window and shouting obscenities, and displaying a gun. When police arrived, they … Continue reading
KY declines to suppress parole search where violation of some procedural rule but not the Fourth Amendment
Defendant was subject to a parole search condition, and the search violated some internal policy of the Department of Corrections. It did not, however, violate the Fourth Amendment, and the court holds that the policy violation did not require that … Continue reading
OH3: A court order issued with PC and otherwise complying with the Fourth Amendment doesn’t have to be called a “search warrant” to be effective
A court ordered GPS device was placed on defendant’s vehicle. His movements watched online and facts the police had learned added up to reasonable suspicion for a stop. [If they had PC for a tracking warrant, why not for the … Continue reading
IA: Dispute as to facts doesn’t matter where def’s version supports RS
Even believing the defendant’s version of the facts, there was reasonable suspicion. Therefore, the credibility question doesn’t have to be decided. State v. Gallardo, 2015 Iowa App. LEXIS 803 (September 10, 2015). The only issue on the search here is … Continue reading
ID: Def was arrested twice without a complaint or probable cause for contempt; reversed
Defendant was arrested twice, both times without probable cause or a complaint being filed. For that and other reasons, defendant’s finding of contempt is reversed. State v. Juarez, 2015 Ida. LEXIS 235 (September 9, 2015):
NJLJ: Marijuana Smoke Still Means Probable Cause, Court Says
NJLJ: Marijuana Smoke Still Means Probable Cause, Court Says by Michael Booth: New Jersey’s decision to allow the use of medical marijuana does not mean that the smell of marijuana smoke no longer creates probable cause for police to make … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: It is a reasonable inference that drug dealers keep their stashes at home
It is a reasonable inference that drug dealers keep their stashes at home, and that supports a search warrant of their home. United States v. Kelly, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 117523 (M.D.Pa. September 3, 2015):
SC: Turning computer over to repair tech when it wouldn’t boot was waiver of REP in the data because the hard drive needed repair
Defendant turned her computer over to a repair technician when it wouldn’t boot. He was copying files from the hard drive to backup the data before attempting to fix it, and he saw a questionable image suggesting child exploitation. Coincidentally, … Continue reading
OH2: The driver matched the description of the owner of the vehicle, so ordering him out was reasonable when a warrant came back for owner
Defendant’s LPN showed that the owner was the same person who had committed criminal trespass. The driver matched the general description of the owner, so that justified getting the driver out. State v. Goines, 2015-Ohio-3505, 2015 Ohio App. LEXIS 3427 … Continue reading
OH5: Citizen informant’s DUI tip line call wasn’t specific enough about DUI to support a stop
Defendant’s wife called a DUI tip line that he was driving having consumed alcohol. An officer stopped him without waiting for a traffic offense, which he would usually do. While she was an identified citizen informant, the tip was not … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Where def’s laptop and cell phone immediately revealed child porn in a border search, the Ninth Circuit’s Cotterman case is inapplicable
The border search of defendant’s laptop and phones was manual and quickly found child pornography, so the court does not have to follow United States v. Cotterman, 709 F.3d 952 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc) which required reasonable suspicion for … Continue reading
CA: A police car pulling behind a car with emergency lights on is a stop
A police car pulling behind a car with emergency lights on is a stop. One can’t refuse to pull over and just keep going. Here, the officer was investigating a domestic complaint, and the stop was justified. Reasonable suspicion developed … Continue reading
VI: Arrest for possession of an unlicensed firearm required knowledge that the defendant had no license, not just that he possessed a firearm
Defendant’s arrest for possession of an unlicensed firearm in the Territory required knowledge that the defendant had no license, not just that he possessed a firearm. Motion to suppress granted. People v. Pryce, 2015 V.I. LEXIS 91 (Super.Ct. July 27, … Continue reading
S.D.Ill.: A blood trail at a house 2½ hours after a shooting with missing participants was exigency
The previous night there was a shootout in East St. Louis in defendant’s neighborhood, some shots a block from defendant. Two people ended up in the hospital, neither associated with defendant’s address. In investigating at defendant’s house 2½ hours later, … Continue reading
MA: Asking def what was in his mouth was a seizure without RS (it was a baggie of crack)
Officers encountered defendant on the street. He mumbled when he talked to them, and they asked what was in his mouth. That became a seizure. “We conclude that a reasonable person would not have felt free to terminate the encounter, … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: CSLI in mid-2014 was subject to GFE
The government’s warrantless collection of cell site location data in mid-2014 was not clearly contrary to any established law, so the government’s actions were in good faith. The court also follows the fact they were third-party records. United States v. … Continue reading
ME: Sufficient evidence supported searching passengers, too
Based on information that defendants’ car had drugs heading into Maine, the car was stopped and the occupants searched. It was all with probable cause, and Pringle controls the search of the passengers because it was reasonable to believe they … Continue reading
AZ: The smell of burnt marijuana in a car may be PC; burden on def to show MMJ card
Arizona’s First District Court of Appeals distinguishes Sisco from the Second District from four days earlier: The smell of burnt marijuana in a car is different, and the burden is on the defendant to show he’s a MMJ user. State … Continue reading