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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)
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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
E.D.Ark.: Parole search waiver included curtilage of house
Plaintiff’s parole search waiver for his house includes his curtilage. Kennedy v. White Cty., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180862 (E.D. Ark. Sep. 16, 2025). Admission of a photograph of defendant’s house taken from off the property did not violate the … Continue reading
OR: PC for one computer isn’t PC for another
The computer search here wasn’t authorized by the probable cause showing, and it wasn’t harmless error. Probable cause for one device doesn’t permit search of all. State v. Schult, 343 Or. App. 376 (Sep. 10, 2025). “Here, Boudreau’s Franks argument … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: Handcuffing DV detainee was reasonable, but search of his bag was without RS
Officers responding to a 911 call about alleged domestic violence in public handcuffed defendant. This was reasonable at the time. Reasonable suspicion for a search of the cross body bag on him was lacking. He was handcuffed, there was no … Continue reading
E.D.La.: AirBnb permittees have no REP in information already voluntarily provided to city
AirBnb and its permittees don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy in information that was already essentially turned over to the city in getting permits in the first place. Bodin v. City of New Orleans, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 174172 … Continue reading
CA9: A successful Franks challenge means deletion of offending material and not addition of what was missing
“Welch successfully challenged five statements in the search warrant affidavit, and the district court did not clearly err in rejecting his challenge to several additional statements. Having found that Welch made the necessary showing with respect to the five statements, … Continue reading
UT: Parole absconder’s purse could be searched
The officer said he searched the passenger’s purse in the car as part of the inventory and not as a search incident. In any event, she was a parole absconder, and it could be searched for that reason. State v. … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Franks: “defendants must do more than construct self-serving statements that refute the warrant affidavit”
United States v. Ruiz-Ruiz, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 158695 (D.P.R. Aug. 14, 2025):
N.D.Ill.: A mistake on the address was made up for by other detail; no Franks violation
“To the extent the lack of an address lessens a warrant’s particularity, the other information more than makes up for it. … In this case, Walters highlights one factual error: No glass door bearing the numbers ‘13624’ existed when the … Continue reading
CA7: Omission of snitch’s criminal history wasn’t material compared to the detail
Omission of the CI’s criminal history and that he was already in trouble with the law wasn’t material here for Franks purposes. The detail overcame it. United States v. Hecke, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 19836 (7th Cir. Aug. 6, 2025):
VA: Drugs on the person during a stop led to PC for vehicle
The patdown of defendant’s person produced drugs. That gave probable cause to search the car too. McCoy v. Commonwealth, 2025 Va. App. LEXIS 445 (Aug. 5, 2025). The state gets a hearing on whether there was additional information they had … Continue reading
TX1: Ambiguous statement wasn’t false under Franks
Was this ambiguity a “reckless” “false statement” under Franks? No. Rosales v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 5608 (Tex. App. – Houston (1st Dist.) July 31, 2025):
TX4: Reformed affidavit in Franks challenge still had PC
Assuming defendant’s Franks argument was valid, he got a hearing, a paragraph of the affidavit was deleted, and probable cause still remained. Affirmed. Del Toro v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 5255 (Tex. App. – San Antonio July 23, 2025).* … Continue reading
OH9: Grant of motion to suppress off bodycam video reversed, officer’s testimony not inconsistent
The granting of the motion to suppress is reversed as not based on competent or credible evidence. The bodycam doesn’t fully support the officer’s testimony there were furtive movements before he got up to the driver’s window, but the bodycam … Continue reading
GA: 404(b) adult porn seized in CP case more prejudicial than relevant
Not strictly a Fourth Amendment case, but interesting: Defendant’s place in a child molestation case was searched and adult porn was seized. The porn was admitted over objection as 404(b) evidence, and it was prejudicial and completely inadmissible because it … Continue reading
TX7: SW sworn to before wrong officer still in GF
The search warrant affidavit was not sworn to before a judge as required by the statute, but it was sworn to before an officer with the authority to take oaths. That was sufficient for the good faith exception to apply. … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Heck bar has to be pled in first defensive pleading
The Heck bar is an affirmative defense that has to be pled by defendants under F.R.C.P. 8(c). Megna v. Musial, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 127980 (E.D. Wis. July 7, 2025). Defendant’s driving justified his stop. State v. Craven, 2025 Wash. … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Someone actually succeeds in a Franks challenge
Defendant succeeds in a Franks challenge: Defendant’s case arose because the officer swore that defendant matched a surveillance video of a robbery. He really believed it, but he was wrong because there were obvious reasons to discount his belief. The … Continue reading
CO: Three-day delay between seizure of defendant’s car and getting SW for it was reasonable
Three-day delay between seizure of defendant’s car and getting a warrant to search was reasonable. People v. Mills, 2025 CO 47, 2025 Colo. LEXIS 572 (June 30, 2025). Defendant’s cell phone was linked to his prostitution/human trafficking case, so there … Continue reading