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- Reason: The Founders Warned Against Secret Arrests. ICE Is Testing That Principle.
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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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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
CA3: Use of a police baton on legs to subdue struggling suspect was reasonable; SI of fleeing suspect reasonable and based on fact
Defendant was pulled over for possible speeding in a 25 mph zone, and he fled the car, tugging at his pants as he was running, strongly suggesting a gun in his pocket or waistband. One officer tackled him and had … Continue reading
OH9: Male driver’s consent to search car does not extend to female passenger’s purse; no apparent authority
The officer believed that the occupants of the car were having sex in exchange for money, but there was no probable cause or exigent circumstances, so the automobile exception did not apply. The male driver granted consent to search the … Continue reading
GA joins jurisdictions finding smell of raw marijuana PC
“Based on the foregoing cases, it appears to be widely accepted in numerous jurisdictions that a trained police officer’s detection of the odor of raw marijuana can be the sole basis for the issuance of a search warrant, and we … Continue reading
CAAF: AFB gate security officer wasn’t AFOSI, so his involvement was private search on day off
Defendant’s wife enlisted aid from a family friend at an Air Force base who was in the gate security forces, and he wasn’t a criminal investigator. At the time all this arose, she was there for social purposes. The court … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Marijuana flakes on passenger’s pants not PC as to everybody in car
Officers conduct admittedly pretextual stops in the downtown Orlando area to show police presence to deter crime. The car was stopped and the occupants told to put their hands up. Here, a seatbelt stop led to noticing marijuana flakes on … Continue reading
CA9: Parole search includes the car the parolee was driving when stopped
Defendant’s argument that a parole search of a parolee driving a car can’t include the car is rejected. A gun was found hidden under the cover the of gearshift lever. United States v. Bautista, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 4798 (9th … Continue reading
Cal.3: “Reason to believe” in administrative search law means same as PC
Treating an examination of an insurance company’s unclaimed property as an administrative search, “reason to believe” in the California unclaimed property law is no greater than probable cause to get a search warrant, following Lincoln Bank & Trust Co. v. … Continue reading
TX11: Odor of alcohol alone is not probable cause
Odor of alcohol alone is not probable cause. “Trooper Johnson simply was not asked about any physical observations that he made of Appellant’s eyes, speech, or movement; nor was he asked what effect, if any, these observations may have had … Continue reading
GA: Consent to DNA paternity test for sex with 12 year old didn’t bar use of test in criminal case
Defendant’s consent to a DNA test for a paternity test for impregnating a 12 year old didn’t preclude using the evidence in a criminal investigation for having sex with her. Defendant had to know that was possible. Andrews v. State, … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Even the most minor traffic offense justifies a stop
A motorcyclist failing to yield to a pedestrian justifies a traffic stop. “Patterson suggests that the commission of such a minor traffic offense did not justify the stop. This position is flatly contrary to established law.” Defendant was wearing a … Continue reading
CA2: Single incident of viewing CP on computer was not PC to believe CP on computer; GFE applies, however
A single access to child pornography from an IP address linked to defendant was not enough to find probable cause that the defendant had child pornography on the computer. The good faith exception, however, was sufficient to sustain the warrant … Continue reading
MA: Where possession of 1 oz of MJ is a civil infraction, seeing that much in a car doesn’t support a search
Seeing only enough marijuana to be a civil infraction is not probable cause for an automobile exception search of a car. Commonwealth v. Sheridan, 2015 Mass. LEXIS 102 (February 27, 2015):
D.V.I.: No reasonable expectation of privacy in a cell phone in a jail cell
A person in jail has no reasonable expectation of privacy in a cell phone found hidden in the cell, prison contraband, and a warrantless search of the cell phone is proper. United States v. Boyce, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23129 … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Arrest of man talking to def outside house before drug raid was without PC; knew nothing of him
Defendant’s arrest, as a man on the street near a house that was to be raided, was without probable cause. Merely getting a bag from the target before the raid wasn’t enough. They really had nothing on him. United States … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Where a business and the apt over it shared an IP address, SW for business was overbroad, but saved by GFE
Where the evidence showed that a business and an apartment shared an IP address, the affidavit for the search warrant for the business for child pornography traced back to that IP lacked probable cause. However, the good faith exception saves … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: CP hunting software doesn’t have to be shown to be 100% reliable for PC
Child pornography targeting software doesn’t have to be shown to be all that reliable to establish probable cause for a search warrant. United States v. Naylor, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19760 (S.D.W.Va. February 19, 2015) [Look, if a 25% reliability … Continue reading
MO: PC lacking and SW was stale, but GFE exception saves it anyway
The affidavit for the search warrant here failed for two reasons. First, it failed to show a substantial basis for finding probable cause from two informants’ information that was not properly corroborated [although later court says they kind of corroborate … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Dilated pupils without impaired driving seen by a DRE officer still not PC
Officer’s testimony that he was a drug recognition expert didn’t support probable cause here that defendant was under the influence when driving because there was also no evidence of impairment. United States v. McAuley, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 181937 (W.D.N.Y. … Continue reading