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- CA3: Ptf was arrested on an apparent but recalled warrant, then officers confirmed it and let him go; the arrest was reasonable
- N.D.Ohio: Failure to serve state SW within state mandated time not 4A violation
- NY1: Gunshot through floor from apartment above was exigency
- Reason: Most Civil Forfeiture Victims Never See the Inside of a Courtroom
- CA8: Admission of anonymous tip that led to stop violated Confrontation Clause
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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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--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: Protective sweep
D.Neb.: Protective sweep justified by arrest on weapons charges, somebody peeking through blinds, and sounds from inside
Officers executing an arrest warrant for weapons charges had reasonable suspicion for a protective sweep based on sounds from the basement and somebody peeking through the blinds. United States v. Alatorre, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69171 (D.Neb. May 26, 2016). … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Omission of details of a protective sweep not Franks issue where magistrate had to know about it
Police officer’s omission of details of a protective sweep from an affidavit for a search warrant did not support a Franks claim as to how he reported responding to a 911 shots fired call. The protective sweep wasn’t even hidden; … Continue reading
NJ: A rifle case on a felon’s porch seen in a protective sweep qualifies for plain view; its incriminating nature is immediately apparent
Defendant was arrested in his house, and a protective sweep of the porch was valid. In plain view was a rifle case, and defendant was a felon in possession. It was reasonable to seize the rifle. State v. Cope, 2016 … Continue reading
KS: Mailed package with contraband to address justifies SW for address
A package in the mail addressed to a house that has suspected contraband in it justifies an anticipatory warrant for the whole house. State v. Mullen, 2016 Kan. LEXIS 242 (April 22, 2016). Defendant’s furtive movements during a traffic stop … Continue reading
M.D.Ga.: Anticipatory warrant’s condition clearly occurred so search valid
The triggering condition in the anticipatory warrant clearly occurred, and the warrant was timely executed. United States v. Bright, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51979 (M.D.Ga. April 19, 2016).* Aside from other indicators of driving under the influence defendant consumed a … Continue reading
CA8: Protective sweep of a camper was reasonable because another was inside when def was arrested
Defendant was supposed to sell methamphetamine from his camper at a campsite to an undercover officer, but he declined, so the officer attempted to arrest him outside the camper on an outstanding warrant and he fled. He went to the … Continue reading
OH5: Entry permitted by 911 call of unresponsive person; protective sweep factually unjustified
A 911 call about an unresponsive man was justification for a warrantless entry into defendant’s apartment, but no facts justified a protective sweep once inside. Heroin in bedroom suppressed. State v. Levengood, 2016-Ohio-1340, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS 1227 (5th Dist. … Continue reading
MA: If arrest invalid, inventory based on it is too
Defendant’s arrest was invalid, so the inventory of his car was invalid. Commonwealth v. Williams, 2016 Mass. Super. LEXIS 19 (Wooster Feb. 18, 2016). The protective sweep here was invalid, but that did not require suppression of the search. Excising … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Def was a potential suspect in a series of robberies, and he gave cause for an exigent circumstances into a hotel room after he kicked in the door; plain view sustained
An Hispanic male wearing somewhat distinctive clothing committed four robberies around Tampa. Surveillance video put a vehicle at one of the robberies, and officers found it and surveilled it at a motel parking lot. A couple was around the vehicle … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Def invited in by homeowners’ daughter without their knowledge had standing
Defendant had standing in the homeowner’s house where he’d been invited in by the daughter and spent the night many times. The protective sweep here was objectively reasonable. United States v. Nelson, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28209 (D.Kan. March 3, … Continue reading
D.Mont.: Govt had insufficient evidence defendant lived at place searched to enter with arrest warrant
The police had insufficient evidence defendant resided at the place searched to justify entry under an arrest warrant. “The government contends that the following facts, in combination, were sufficient to establish probable cause that Doney lived at 108 Buena Vista: … Continue reading
CA2: Protective sweep justified in executing arrest warrant for murder suspect
The protective sweep of defendant’s Florida home was justified because he was wanted for murder during a drug trafficking crime. Officers saw pictures of defendant with gang members, and defendant consented to their seizure. United States v. Guerrero, 2016 U.S. … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: 30 minute delay of stop for drug dog unreasonable
The stop was admittedly justified for a traffic offense, but the officer intentionally delayed ten minutes the writing of the traffic ticket, apparently to give more time for the drug dog to arrive. The dog arrived over thirty minutes into … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: “I know what you’re looking for, and all I have is a little weed” is reasonable suspicion
Officers in a “semi-marked vehicle” saw defendant on a street corner, and pulled up and stopped and asked him in a conversational tone what he was doing. “Defendant responded that he had just left the liquor store, that he already … Continue reading
D.Minn.: RS and PC as to a car doesn’t require knowing the name of driver
Reasonable suspicion that a vehicle was involved in a crime didn’t require that officers have knowledge of who the driver was. Here, the RS ripened to PC so the length of the stop didn’t matter. The car search was justified … Continue reading
CA5: Protective sweep generally can go between a mattress and box springs
It is not unreasonable for an officer to conclude generally that a protective sweep between a mattress and box springs is necessary. Here, there were factual indications that somebody else might be in the room further supporting it. [And plenty … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Protective sweep was for evidence not persons, but there was an independent basis for the SW
The protective sweep in this case was not a look for persons but evidence, and the body cam audio supports that conclusion. However, there was an independent basis for a search warrant, and the motion to suppress guns found in … Continue reading
LA4: Protective sweep before def arrested in pajamas reentered to get dressed was reasonable
Defendant was arrested in his pajamas, and it was appropriate for the police to conduct a protective sweep for others before he was permitted to get dressed to leave. A shotgun was validly found propped against the wall in the … Continue reading