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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
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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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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: Protective sweep
NH: Protective sweep applies to vehicles
Because defendant was known to have weapons and associated with violent persons, a protective sweep of his SUV was permissible under the Fourth Amendment and the state constitution. State v. Francis, 2015 N.H. LEXIS 38 (May 12, 2015). Hand-to-hand drug … Continue reading
CA3: Three connected cases
When the officer went to an apartment in response to a shots fired call, and defendant came running out knocking the officer over, that was reasonable suspicion to detain him. The crack in his hand was dropped. United States v. … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: Protective sweep was justified just after door opened on knock-and-talk, but court doesn’t even tell us why
Thirteen police came to defendant’s house, and four came on the porch for a knock-and-talk. His wife answered and opened the door three feet. She stepped back and officers entered to conduct a protective sweep. After explaining the reasonable suspicion … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Apt was small enough that protective sweep was valid, even to balcony
While the record isn’t clear, the apartment here appears to be small enough that a protective sweep validly covered all the space inside, including the balcony near where defendant was arrested. United States v. Washington, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43617 … Continue reading
D.Alaska: Seizure of a video recording from a child’s bedroom during a drug search warrant was an overseizure and suppressed
The protective sweep of the house before actual arrival of the search warrant was valid because an additional person stuck a head out the window when the officers first knocked, and they had to be sure there wasn’t another. [Since … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Def arrested and handcuffed after hot pursuit into house still justified sweep for his gun
The initial entry into defendant’s home was justified by hot pursuit, but other officers followed after the detention, and a protective sweep was conducted. Because it was reasonably feared defendant was armed and the gun hadn’t been located, a sweep … Continue reading
IA: Burnt aluminum foil in plain view in a car is probable cause for a search
Burnt aluminum foil in plain view in a car is probable cause for a search. State v. Johannes, 2015 Iowa App. LEXIS 25 (January 14, 2015). Officers assembled outside a hotel room after neighbors complained that there was yelling and … Continue reading
OH8: Although officers were invited in by apparent consent, protective sweep was justified in dark room with a closet
Officers received a call about a person being held at gunpoint at a house. Dispatch noted to itself that this might be a prank call, but didn’t tell the officers that. They got to the house and were let in. … Continue reading
D.Me.: Protective sweep permissible during knock-and-talk where RS was evident
Police conducted a knock and talk at defendant’s hotel room. They were there investigating sex trafficking and found drug paraphernalia in the hallway outside the room. After they were admitted to the room, a protective sweep was permissible. Buie involved … Continue reading
CA3: Neither SI, exigency, nor protective sweep permitted re-entry to locate gun
A protective sweep had already occurred and defendant had been removed from his house in handcuffs and the house secured. A gun was suspected as unaccounted for, so they went back to look for it, and this was unreasonable. The … Continue reading
OH6: Reaching only for glove compartment not a “furtive gesture”
Only reaching toward the glove compartment is not a “furtive gesture.” The police secured defendant in the back of a police car and later searched the glove compartment, and it was not a lawful protective frisk of the car under … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: A pretextual traffic stop can’t be used to remove a tracking device
The government doesn’t have the authority to have its officers simply stop a motorist under the guise of a traffic stop to remove a tracking device. Because tracking devices are always removed surreptitiously, there is no law on this anywhere. … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Strong ether odor big factor in PC for a meth lab
The Eighth Circuit has long held that the odor of ether is a strong factor in probable cause for a methamphetamine lab. Here, the affidavit for the search warrant recounted many other factors in his past drug history. At the … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Danger not defused, so officer could conduct frisk; it’s “akin to the doctrine of a ‘protective sweep'”
I’ve analogized a frisk of a car authorized under Long as a ‘protective sweep,’ which is usually of a dwelling. Here, a court does too: Officers responded to a use of force report that had been not completely defused. When … Continue reading
OH5: Meth lab was in a building not on the curtilage
The meth lab on defendant’s property was not on the curtilage. It was a separate building away from the house. State v. Schorr, 2014-Ohio-2992, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS 2933 (5th Dist. July 2, 2014).* The officer here was justified in … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Closet in small apartment was proper subject of a protective sweep
A closet was the proper subject of a protective sweep during a warranted arrest in a small apartment. It took defendant a while to answer the door, and there was a noise from the closet. Buie specifically recognizes this. United … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Protective sweep invalid
Defendant was arrested outside and asked to go inside to get warm. They all sat in the kitchen. There was no reason for one officer to decide to walk through the rest of the house because there was no proffered … Continue reading