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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
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- 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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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)
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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: Search incident
MD: DUI arrest is generally justification for a search incident for the cause of intoxication
A DUI arrest is generally justification for a search incident of the interior of the vehicle for whatever made defendant intoxicated under Gant. “Although we may not be able reconcile these divergent holdings, it is clear that (1) an officer’s … Continue reading
TX1: Cell phone was properly seized incident to arrest because def was attempting to leave the place of detention
Defendant was stopped after coming out of a bathroom when a 13 year old boy told his mother that a man in the bathroom flashed something shiny at him under the stall wall. When the officer confronted him, he was … Continue reading
M.D.La.: Search incident couldn’t be used to justify search here days after the controlled buy that gave cause
The search incident doctrine can’t be used to justify a search incident to a warrantless arrest days after the event that gave the probable cause. The arrest can’t be manipulated like that. An arrest warrant could certainly have issued, but … Continue reading
CA9: Drug arrestee was handcuffed face down; search incident of backpack next to him was valid under Gant
Defendant was arrested for drug offenses, and he was face down and handcuffed behind his back with his backpack next to him. The quick search incident of the backpack for weapons stopped once it was apparent there were none was … Continue reading
MD: DUI arrest supports SI for source
A DUI arrest provides probable cause that evidence of intoxication will be found in the vehicle, so a search incident to arrest is justified. Taylor v. State, 2015 Md. App. LEXIS 102 (July 30, 2015). Officers executing a search warrant … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Search incident of car valid where def on ground being searched when officers looked for gun
Defendant was wanted for a recent shooting with a shotgun, and the USM fugitive squad was in on the manhunt. When they found him, they stopped the car and had him on the ground next to the car with the … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Bootstrapping a minor offense into a search incident is generally unreasonable, but govt met its burden here
Defendant was seen tossing a green beer bottle and officers attempted to step in front of him to stop him to inquire into the littering. Instead of talking to them, he pushed past them, and that made them concerned he … Continue reading
IA: Search incident of locked safe in car unreasonable
Defendant was arrested in his car, and the police conducted a search incident of it. A locked safe was in the car, and the police opened it without a warrant. The search of the safe was unlawful under the state … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Def didn’t lose REP in car by loaning it out
Defendant retained his expectation of privacy in his car even though he loaned it to somebody else. On the totality of circumstances, there was probable cause for a search of the car under the automobile exception. United States v. Williams, … Continue reading
IN: Smell of burnt MJ from car allows officer essentially to detain all
Defendant juvenile was a passenger in the back of a car stopped at 1:30 am, and there was a smell of burnt marijuana coming from the car. Under Pringle, that gave the officer cause to get everybody out of the … Continue reading
KS statute tracks Chimel on search incident, and cell phone search was unreasonable (even before Riley was decided)
Defendant was stopped for a headlight being out in 2009. He ended up getting arrested and handcuffed for an open container and then possession of marijuana. The officer got his cell phone and scrolled through it asking about drug transactions. … Continue reading
MO: Trial court erred in suppressing car search incident without also considering automobile exception
The trial court erred in applying the search incident doctrine to defendant’s vehicle search and suppressing when the state also argued the automobile exception. Remanded for consideration of that issue, too. State v. Walker, 2015 Mo. App. LEXIS 501 (May … Continue reading
WA: A patdown of a runway juvenile before putting him in the patrol car was reasonable, but the full search of the person was not
A patdown of a runway juvenile before putting him in the patrol car was part of the community caretaking function. A complete search, however, was not. No weapon was found during the patdown, and the search of the pockets afterward … Continue reading
TX7: Riley applied to cell phone search incident where it came down between trial and appeal
Search incident cannot support a cell phone search under Riley. Riley came down between trial and appeal, so it applies here because the issue was preserved. Carter v. State, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 4271 (Tex. App. – Amarillo April 27, … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Text messages to 11 year old boy for sex was justification for warrantless seizure of cell phone
The seizure of defendant’s cell phone incident to his arrest was reasonable. Defendant was accused by an 11 year old boy of sexual conduct on Fort Campbell, and the FBI and Army CID investigated and got enough information to have … Continue reading
NC: Open container in plain view permitted a search incident for more evidence
Defendant’s stop led to plain view of an open container. That justified a search incident for more because, after all, the console could hold beer cans, even if the officer could have merely issued a citation. State v. Fizovic, 2015 … Continue reading
IL: Officer staying on porch after completion of business was unauthorized, and def couldn’t be conviction of obstruction after that
Defendant’s obstructing a peace officer conviction had to be reversed because, while an officer could initially enter defendant’s porch, once he found no evidence of a crime, staying there was an unauthorized act which defendant could lawfully obstruct. People v. … Continue reading
OR: Probable cause for arrest for burglary and furtive movements toward backpack made its search subject to search incident
The officer had objective evidence that the juvenile was involved in a burglary and a theft of an Xbox. When confronted he acted furtively and seemed like he was distancing himself from a backpack. That justified a search of the … Continue reading
GA: Mistaken belief def was on probation made search invalid; no GFE in GA, either; suppressed
The officer mistakenly believed that defendant was still on probation, but he wasn’t. The probation search was unlawful, and the good faith exception doesn’t apply in Georgia. State v. New, 2015 Ga. App. LEXIS 115 (March 12, 2015). The officer … Continue reading