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- PA: Shining flashlight into hole in a shoebox was a search; there was a REP in the closed box
- CA5: Accidentally shooting the man who disarmed the shooter from a residence was not a constitutional violation
- CA9: False evidence to arrest violates due process
- CA6: The SW affidavit here was thin, but it wasn’t completely bare bones, so GFE applies
- D.Minn.: Extending stop to run ALPR information on car was with RS
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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: Franks doctrine
OH7: Search incident proper after concealed weapon found on def
Defendant was searched and arrested for a concealed weapon. That did not prohibit the officers from further searching his personal effects in his clothes. State v. Zepernick, 2021-Ohio-719, 2021 Ohio App. LEXIS 724 (7th Dist. Mar. 4, 2021). 2254 petitioner’s … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Franks challenge succeeds: no PC of trafficking, stale, and no GFE
Defendant prevails in his Franks challenge. The police withheld that defendant was at worst a suspect in personal use of marijuana, but made it look like he was a trafficker when they had no evidence of it. That means that … Continue reading
CA6: Def doesn’t show arrest was delayed to facilitate better protective sweep
The protective sweep finding defendant’s guns on execution of his arrest warrant was reasonable. Defendant does not show that the officers intentionally delayed his arrest with the purpose of exploiting a protective sweep. United States v. Cammon, 2021 U.S. App. … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Just because defense counsel finds an omitted fact interesting doesn’t make it “material”; not all facts need be included
The 121 page affidavit for search warrant for evidence of drug trafficking was neither stale nor lacked nexus. Defendant’s Franks challenge also fails for lack of a substantial preliminary showing. United States v. Briggs, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44653 (E.D. … Continue reading
WY: Mere citation to state constitution without cogent argument for different treatment is waiver
Citation alone to the state constitution’s search and seizure without cogent argument for differentiating Fourth Amendment cases is waiver. The totality of information before the officer in the traffic stop justified it. Elmore v. State, 2021 Wyo. LEXIS 48 (Mar. … Continue reading
D.Conn.: When govt raises an exception to warrant requirement, def must rebut in briefing, but cell phone seizure shown unjustified
In response to defendant’s motion to suppress, the government argued search incident, which the defense didn’t rebut in the papers. Motion denied in part. Defendant’s cell phone seizure is suppressed, however, because the government didn’t show justification for its seizure. … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Not all exculpatory evidence needs to be in the affidavit for SW under Franks
Omission of two allegedly exculpatory pieces of information from the affidavit for search warrant didn’t undercut the probable cause shown by what was there. Not all exculpatory information needs to be provided: “Moreover, it is unreasonable to expect a police … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: 4A arrest claim also subject to Stone bar
Defendant’s 2254 claim that his arrest was without probable cause on mistaken identity is foreclosed by Stone v. Powell the same as Fourth Amendment search claims. “The opportunity, regardless of whether it is acted upon at the state level, is … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: GFE overcomes lack of nexus; officer unaware of some facts didn’t commit Franks violation
The Franks hearing established that the officer didn’t know that certain things happened during the investigation, so the officer wasn’t withholding information or misleading the court. Probable cause and nexus is [less than] tenuous: “This evidence, standing alone, does not … Continue reading
D.Minn.: IAC Franks proffer rejected as lacking sworn affidavits or any credibility at all
Defendant’s 2255 claimed that defense counsel was ineffective for not making a Franks challenge. Defendant’s offer of proof is rejected as just without any credibility at all in light of the record previously made. United States v. Petruk, 2021 U.S. … Continue reading
CA1: SWs are directed at places, too, and def didn’t need to be connected in the affidavit
Defendant made a Franks challenge. Removing the allegedly offending material still left probable cause. Defendant’s argument then was that the remainder still didn’t point to him, but that’s not the law: Search warrants are directed at places, too, not just … Continue reading
CA1: Dist.Ct. erred in suppressing inventory which followed SOP
Defendant was stopped for a lane violation, and it turned out he had no DL. He wasn’t arrested but the vehicle was impounded and searched incident to that, even though defendant would likely go with the tow truck driver to … Continue reading
N.D.Tex.: Def counsel wasn’t obliged to argue a Franks issue to the jury at trial; that’s presumptively strategy
Defense counsel wasn’t obliged to raise a Franks issue in closing argument. That’s quintessentially a strategic decision. “The Supreme Court has recognized that ‘judicious selection of arguments for summation is a core exercise of defense counsel’s discretion,’ and counsel ‘is … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: State court’s findings on PC [not appealed] not binding on federal court
A state court’s findings of lack of probable cause to proceed with some charges against the defendant isn’t binding on federal courts. “Based on the evidence presented at the hearing, including the 911 calls, bodycam footage, and the credible and … Continue reading
FL1: Screen shot of of meth on a scale on driver’s cell phone permitted dog sniff during writing of traffic ticket
Defendant was stopped for a traffic offense, and he was unusually nervous. Sitting on his left leg was a cell phone with the screen on showing a picture of meth on a scale. That justified a dog sniff while a … Continue reading
NJ adopts standard for additional discovery of a potential Franks violation
New Jersey adopts a specific preliminary showing requirement for additional discovery of a Franks violation. State v. Desir, 2021 N.J. LEXIS 127 (Feb. 9, 2021). From the syllabus:
D.N.M.: Tracing IP address to def does not require affiant exclude all other Internet users in area
Defendant was charged with stalking a former boss. A disguised email was traced by metadata to defendant’s router. His computer was searched, and the email was found. The question of probable cause for the search warrant does not require the … Continue reading
CA2: Later search of bag was inevitable discovery overcoming objection to first search
Even if the search of defendant’s bag was invalid, he was taken to the police station and his bag was validly searched again an inventory. United States v. Ruffin, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 3351 (2d Cir. Feb. 8, 2021). Defendant’s … Continue reading
MD: 911 call led to plain view
911 was called by defendant’s mother about his possible cardiac arrest. When the officer arrived, defendant was alert and fine, and his drugs were in plain view. Their seizure was valid. Glanden v. State, 2021 Md. App. LEXIS 80 (Feb. … Continue reading