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- D.Utah: Minor time detours to writing up a traffic ticket didn’t unreasonable extend this stop; the dog was quickly on its way
- KY: Despite lack of nexus, SW sustained under GFE
- CO: DNA could be seized from trash
- CA8: Nebraska statute allowing SWs to cross state lines doesn’t violate 4A
- WA: Sweat patch as condition of release violated state constitution’s privacy provision
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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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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
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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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (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: Ineffective assistance
D.Mont.: Possession of a camera phone was violation of release conditions and justified PO search
Defendant had a release condition to stay away from children, but he babysat two and he let them use his cell phone connected to his computer. This was reasonable suspicion for a search of the cell phone and computer for … Continue reading
M.D.La.: A couple of pills in the car not easily identifiable as controlled substances didn’t justify a search
Defendant’s frisk was justified by reasonable suspicion. The search of his person, however, was not justified: Some pills in the car that weren’t easily identified as controlled substances does not mean that defendant was committing a crime. United States v. … Continue reading
IA: Where IAC claims based on persuading for overruling of settled law, def counsel hardly ineffective
Defendant’s argument on post-conviction that defense counsel should have argued for overruling of state authority on the search incident and automobile exception doctrines because of subtle changes in the law isn’t grounds for post-conviction. All that shows is that the … Continue reading
C.D.Ill.: Long term borrower of car has standing
One who borrows a car for a long time has standing. “And the Court is persuaded that society is prepared to accept as reasonable a person’s subjective expectation of privacy in a car borrowed for months on end from a … Continue reading
CA1: Successor 2255 for cell phone search prior to Riley denied
Defendant sought a successor 2255 habeas petition on the ground his lawyer failed to properly litigate a cell phone search issue before Riley was even decided. Denied: no showing of prejudice. In re Conroy, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 25139 (1st … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: Not moving to suppress wasn’t IAC where he wasn’t charged with the stuff from the alleged illegal search
Defendant in his 2255 could not show that defense counsel was ineffective for not moving to suppress drugs that never formed the basis of a charge against him. He was arrested for prior offenses, and then he gave up drugs … Continue reading
Cal.1: Telling def to keep hands out of pockets and move to sidewalk was not a seizure
Defendant was not detained when officers asked him to keep his hands out of his pockets and to step onto the sidewalk. The encounter did not become a detention until the officers used force to grab defendant’s arm and told … Continue reading
TN: Procedural errors in handling the paperwork of a SW after execution are overlooked if no prejudice
Alleged mishandling of the paperwork on a search warrant for new DNA in a cold case hit could have resulted in a motion to suppress, but it’s not obvious that it would be granted because procedural defects in the return … Continue reading
UT: Defense “counsel was [not] ineffective for not filing a motion to suppress based on an unresolved proposition of law.”
“We cannot conclude that Edgar’s trial counsel was ineffective for not filing a motion to suppress based on an unresolved proposition of law.” State v. Edgar, 2017 UT App 53, 2017 Utah App. LEXIS 53 (March 23, 2017):
D.Minn.: USMJ recommends Playpen warrant be suppressed
R&R recommends Playpen warrant be suppressed. United States v. Carlson, 16-cr-00317-JRT-FLN (D. Minn. March 23, 2017). Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not challenging the particularity of the search warrant in this case. “In our view, the warrant describes the character … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Defense counsel’s choice of questions during suppression hearing was a strategy choice
Defense counsel’s handling of the suppression hearing and the questions asked was within the strategy choices of counsel. And, even if defendant had a real point here, he can’t show he was prejudiced by anything that wasn’t put into evidence. … Continue reading
DE: Heavy foot traffic between a house there is PC as to doesn’t make the other subject to search
Heavy foot traffic between two homes is not indicative of criminal activity even where there is plenty of probable cause as to one. The other home is not guilty by association. State v. Harding, 2017 Del. Super. LEXIS 113 (March … Continue reading
N.D.Fla.: No IAC for failure to challenge stop when there was plenty of PC
Officers had a wealth of probable cause from consensually monitored conversations to stop the vehicle defendant was riding in. Therefore, defense counsel couldn’t be ineffective for not making a meritless motion to suppress for lack of PC. United States v. … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Not subpoenaing drug dog’s records not shown to be IAC for lack of prejudice
Defense counsel not subpoenaing the drug dog’s records wasn’t prejudicial where defendant can’t show that the drug dog’s use would be disallowed in the case. “There is no reason to believe that any additional information would have altered the probable … Continue reading
MA: Impoundment unreasonable in purported “high crime” area that was partly residential with other cars already there; Swiss Army knife not an indicator other weapons in car
Defendant was stopped and arrested in a “high crime” area [which apparently didn’t include stripping cars]. The area was partly residential and other cars were parked on the street, too. That alone didn’t make it reasonable to have to impound … Continue reading
MS: No IAC for not pursuing an obvious scrivener’s error; warrant issued same day it was applied for
The search warrant was clearly issued September 4th. The typo “Aug.” was on some of the papers, but reading the entirety of the paperwork, it was obvious this was only a scrivener’s error. The warrant was issued the same day … Continue reading
CA9: States court’s rationale for rejecting 4A claim subject to “unreasonable application” clause of § 2254(d)(1) on habeas
On federal habeas, the state court’s determination that defense counsel was reasonable in not filing a motion to suppress was subject to the “unreasonable application” clause of § 2254(d)(1). The state court’s denials were not an unreasonable application of the … Continue reading
TN: Def’s post-conviction burden is to show that the motion to suppress would have prevailed
On a post-conviction petition that defense counsel was ineffective, the defense has to put on proof to show that there is some reason to believe that the motion to suppress would have been granted if it had been pursued at … Continue reading
TX11: Smell of MJ from car and def’s person justified search of both
The smell of marijuana coming from a car and then defendant’s person when he got out is probable cause to search both. Defendant said he smoked all the marijuana five hours before the stop. Then he was found chewing it, … Continue reading