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Recent Posts
- TN: RS didn’t develop to continue stop; second stop based on first suppressed
- CA4: Traffic stop immediately became firearms investigation; suppressed
- CA10: Disagreement over spelling of street name didn’t make warrant fail particularity; GFE at least would apply
- VA: Statutory requirement to provide SW papers only applies to “places of abode”
- D.Idaho: Not unreasonable for PO to hand over def’s cell phone to LEO for extraction after RS developed from Snapchat app
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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)
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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) -
“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: Ineffective assistance
CT: Last person to contact victim alive was PC for his phone
Defendant was sexually involved with the victim, and he apparently was the last person to see her alive, and had contact with her after she disappeared. That was probable cause. State v. Johnson, 2026 Conn. LEXIS 19 (Feb. 3, 2026). … Continue reading
N.D.N.Y.: Being told you’d be arrested for trespassing if you didn’t leave isn’t a seizure
Being told you’d be arrested for trespassing if you didn’t leave isn’t a seizure. Keith v. Romain, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13105 (N.D.N.Y. Jan. 21, 2026). Police responded to a bar on a ShotSpotter report, but it was for naught. … Continue reading
DC: Detention at park for talking to another person was without RS
Defendant was at a park with his child and he saw someone he knew who he went to and talked to. Police started coming for the other person, so he left him and went back to his child. Then two … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: No standing in mobile home defendant burned down
In direct appeal of his conviction, defendant was found not to have standing in the mobile home he burned because he no longer had any reasonable expectation of privacy in it. He’s Stoned out on habeas too. Sindone v. Miniard, … Continue reading
WI: Interlock device from 2008 BAC refusal proper civil penalty
Refusal of a BAC can legitimately have civil consequences without violating the Fourth Amendment per Birchfield. Here it was a 2008 refusal that led to an interlock in 2013 that was recently violated. State v. Sparby-Duncan, 2026 Wisc. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA7: 911 call about DV in progress in house was exigency for entry
“Here we conclude that, based on the undisputed facts, the officers had an objectively reasonable basis to believe that someone in Cannon’s home needed immediate aid and that there was a compelling need to enter without a warrant. The officers … Continue reading
NMI: “An arrest warrant is exhausted once used.”
“An arrest warrant is exhausted once used. Carlson v. Landon, 342 U.S. 524, 546 (1952); ….” After that, another must issue. The trial court didn’t err in requiring one. Commonwealth v. Superior Court, 2025 MP 14 (N.M.I. Dec. 23, 2025). … Continue reading
HI: Failure to argue PC at suppression hearing was waiver for appeal
Where the defense didn’t argue a lack of probable cause at the suppression hearing, that could not be raised on appeal. State v. Arbogast, 2025 Haw. App. LEXIS 617 (Dec. 23, 2025) (unpublished).* Defendant’s stop was reasonable and his spontaneous … Continue reading
CA6: Offer of proof required on missing suppression hearing witness for IAC claim
When claiming a witness wasn’t called at a suppression hearing as an ineffective assistance claim, there has to be an offer of proof as to what the witness would have testified to with a showing of how it would affect … Continue reading
W.D.La.: Can’t be ineffective for not arguing state constitution in federal criminal case
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not arguing the state constitution in a federal criminal case. United States v. Powell, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 256220 (W.D. La. Dec. 10, 2025). “Here, the affidavit detailed the information on which the officer relied, … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Use of biometrics to access a cell phone is not testimonial
The use of biometrics to access a cell phone is not testimonial. United States v. Blythe, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 231852 (D.D.C. Nov. 23, 2025) (interesting read). Just because defense counsel didn’t appeal a losing Fourth Amendment issue doesn’t make … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Fact drug dog wasn’t trained on fentanyl wasn’t defect when he alerted on it and cocaine
The drug dog wasn’t trained on fentanyl but alerted on it. It was trained on cocaine and did alert on it. That doesn’t make the dog unreliable. After probable cause developed, using the key fob to open the car wasn’t … Continue reading
OH5: Pleading guilty without seeing SW materials stated enough to get post-conviction hearing
The state’s plea offer was to plead without getting any discovery. Defendant adequately pled defense counsel was ineffective for counseling this, including waiving getting access to the search warrant materials. The trial court erred in denying a hearing. State v. … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Murder for hire scheme was exigency for entry; SW issued a day late not automatically stale
A murder for hire scheme was exigency for a warrantless search. Here, the officers thought the firearm would be moved imminently on December 31, 2024, but the warrant wasn’t signed until after midnight January 1, 2025. It wasn’t automatically stale, … Continue reading
D.N.D.: Tactical decision not to raise every 4A issue def can think up
Not raising before conviction all the conceivable Fourth Amendment claims defendant thought were useful was a reasonable tactical decision. Perez v. United States, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 220629 (D.N.D. Nov. 7, 2025). “As the trial court noted, approximately one minute … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Frisk that went inside defendant’s pants was unreasonable
A frisk that went inside defendant’s pants was unreasonable. United States v. Davis, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 202764 (E.D. Mich. Aug. 20, 2025). When a stop revealed a holster when the defendant got out of the vehicle, a further intrusion … Continue reading
CA2: Warrantless search of ptf’s Uber app history was a 4A violation
Warrantless search of a cell phone to access plaintiff’s Uber history stated a Fourth Amendment claim. Etere v. Nassau Cty., 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 25753 (2d Cir. Oct. 3, 2025). Even if defense counsel was ineffective for not challenging the … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Geofence warrant slightly different than Chatrie still in good faith
This geofence warrant was slightly different than Chatrie’s. Still, the good faith exception applies. “In this case, law enforcement acted pursuant to a warrant that was not so facially deficient that the executing officers could not reasonably presume it to … 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