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Recent Posts
- D.R.I.: DOJ administrative subpoena for children’s medical records quashed; DOJ’s “presumption of regularity” is gone
- FL3: Feds raided with SW but wouldn’t provide state with affidavit or warrant; state fails in burden of proving search was valid, even pleading GFE
- NM: Prosecutor’s question about PC for arrest warrant being found improper, but not reversible error here
- CA4: Criminal seizure of evidence here not a 4A or due process violation
- E.D.La.: ICE SDT to Orleans Parish Sheriff for immigration status of detainees was valid
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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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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: Consent
N.D.Cal.: Collateral estoppel bars relitigation in federal court of 4A claim lost in state court
Plaintiff fully litigated his Fourth Amendment claim in state court and lost. Collateral estoppel bars him from pursuing a federal claim for the same thing. Pelton v. Amador, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 98995 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 24, 2026). Defendant faults … Continue reading →
E.D.N.C.: SW not required to look in def’s jail property bag and retrieve car keys
Inserting a key in a lock to see if it worked wasn’t a search. The key was in his jail property and lawfully taken from there. A warrant wasn’t required to get into his property bag. United States v. Miller, … Continue reading →
D.N.M.: Consent attenuated unreasonable search
Opening a box in defendant’s car was an unreasonable search, and it likely violated the Fourth Amendment. Defendant was later Mirandized and consented. After a thorough discussion of the caselaw, the court finds that the constitutional violation was slight [what … Continue reading →
OR: Voluntary consent to a blood draw after accident and pain meds in hospital
Defendant voluntarily consented to a blood draw for DUII at the hospital despite having been in an accident and received pain medication. State v. Miller, 375 Or. 173 (Apr. 23, 2026). There was probable cause to put a tracking device … Continue reading →
MS: Def consented to entry to look for his missing mother
Police entry onto defendant’s house and yard because his mother, who he lived with, was missing, and relatives called the police. After looking in the house for her, they found her decapitated in the back yard, then they got a … Continue reading →
E.D.Tenn.: Application for SW was considered in detention ruling
Here, the application for the search warrant was considered on the detention question. No motion to suppress yet filed (or would one be?). United States v. Evans, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31755 (E.D. Tenn. Feb. 17, 2026). Defendant’s valid stop … Continue reading →
OH10: Parole search of cell phone can occur even when it’s taken from the property room at jail
Defendant was in jail, and his PO went to the jail and got his phone from the property room to search it. This was a reasonable search under his parole search condition. State ex rel. Woodard v. Hoying, 2026-Ohio-1351 (10th … Continue reading →
VA: No REP in ALPR
Flock ALPR systems can’t be compared to Carpenter’s “near perfect surveillance.” Motion to suppress properly denied. There’s no reasonable expectation of privacy of public movement on the roads. Robinson v. Commonwealth, 2026 Va. App. LEXIS 199 (Apr. 7, 2026). In … Continue reading →
N.D.Ind.: Police arriving during ongoing 911 call justified entry on exigency
Officers arrived at the house the subject of an open 911 call during the emergency, and that authorized entry. United States v. Bray, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63142 (N.D. Ind. Mar. 25, 2026).* The court can’t tell from the body … Continue reading →
Cal.6: Community caretaking function can’t apply just to keep unlicensed driver from driving
“In this appeal, we examine the application of the Fourth Amendment’s community caretaking doctrine to vehicle impoundment. We consider whether a police officer’s decision to impound a driver’s vehicle pursuant to the Vehicle Code solely to prevent further illegal [unlicensed] … Continue reading →
MT: Owner of a stolen car can’t consent to search of defendant’s stuff in it
Defendant stole Dempsey’s car. The trial court decided he had no standing in a stolen car. The supreme court held that Dempsey’s third-party consent to search defendant’s stuff was invalid. State v. Flores-Reyes, 2026 MT 56 (Mar. 17, 2026). [Generally, … Continue reading →
IN: State rule that consent to search carries with it a right to consult counsel doesn’t apply to police in another state acting on their own
Conflict of laws: Indiana’s Pirtle rule that consent searches afford a right to consult with counsel doesn’t apply to police in another state that encounter defendant and get consent to search. Mendenhall v. State, 2026 Ind. App. LEXIS 81 (Mar. … Continue reading →
OH2: Driver’s running away terminated the stop
The stop was for investigation of prostitution, and the driver fled. “The record reflects that Carter intended to place Williams in his cruiser for safety reasons and for investigating suspected prostitution—and not merely for checking Williams’s license or for the … Continue reading →
Cal.6: GFE applies to California Electronic Communications Privacy Act searches
A dead co-conspirator’s phone was searched linking defendants to the crime. The police reasonably believed his mother had authority to consent to the phone. The California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA) (Cal. Pen. Code § 1546 et seq.) applies, and … Continue reading →
CA4: Surveillance video of def carrying suitcase showed his standing in it
Surveillance footage showed defendant carrying his suitcase, and that shows he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in it under Bond. United States v. Garcia, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 6876 (4th Cir. Mar. 5, 2026). Consent was to look inside … Continue reading →
D.D.C.: Illegal search on stop tainted consent
“On August 12, 2025, seven U.S. Marshals partially surrounded Defendant Judge Alston’s car over a minor parking violation. The Government concedes that before Alston gave any consent, a Marshal began illegally searching his car. Because that initial illegal search both … Continue reading →
CA4: Error to deny suppression motion without hearing where there’s disputed facts
The district court erred in denying defendant’s motion to suppress without a hearing when there were disputed facts. United States v. Moore, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 6196 (4th Cir. Mar. 3, 2026). Defendant consented orally and in writing to search … Continue reading →
E.D.Mich.: Typo in SW affidavit didn’t justify Franks hearing
A single error in a warrant affidavit that should be characterized as a typo and not a false statement doesn’t justify a Franks hearing. United States v. McClain, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39891 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 26, 2026). Defendant had … Continue reading →
OH8: Apt building maintenance workers consented to administrative elevator inspections
Cleveland’s city elevator inspector got permission from the maintenance persons at three apartment buildings in Cleveland to conduct regular inspections. This was all by consent. The court thus does not have to decide whether the inspections were also valid as … Continue reading →
MA: Unreasonable exit order under MA law led to invalid consent
An unreasonable exit order here led to alleged consent, but the court finds consent tainted by the order. No factors of attenuation favor the state. Commonwealth v. Robinson, 2026 Mass. LEXIS 49 (Feb. 13, 2026):