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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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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: Search incident
FL2: Search incident of backpack for being in park after hours invalid
Defendant was stopped for sitting in a park with his bicycle after hours, a violation of a county ordinance. The search incident of his backpack for this offense violated the Florida Constitution. Booker v. State, 2020 Fla. App. LEXIS 5718 … Continue reading
D.Mont.: Search incident for violation of no-contact order unjustified
The USMJ’s order is affirmed. The motion to suppress the search warrant is denied because there was probable cause. The search incident for evidence of violation of a no-contact order was properly ordered suppressed. United States v. Watson, 2020 U.S. … Continue reading
IL: Even if def had a MMJ card, there was PC because loose bud showed it wasn’t in its container
Even if the officer presumed defendant was in legal possession of cannabis pursuant to Illinois MMJ Act, the facts established probable cause that evidence of a crime was in the vehicle. The officer saw a loose “bud” in the backseat … Continue reading
NJ: GSR subject to search incident
Swabbing defendant’s hands for GSR at the police station shortly after arrest was valid as a search incident. The detectives called the assistant state’s attorney on duty, and he advised that they didn’t need a warrant because of the ready … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Def’s jacket was subject to search incident even though he was handcuffed and couldn’t reach it
Defendant’s jacket was subject to search incident, and his handcuffing didn’t eliminate the officer’s ability to do so. United States v. Certain, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42273 (E.D. Ky. Mar. 11, 2020), adopting, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44077 (E.D. Ky. … Continue reading
OR: PC backpack contained evidence of theft; search incident permitted despite it being dropped over fence when police approached
Defendant was carrying a backpack that police had good reason to believe contained evidence of a theft. When the police came up, the backpack was tossed over a fence but was nearby. Dropping the backpack over the fence did not … Continue reading
CA2: SI of backpack for a subway fare violation was unreasonable, but a search was inevitable as inventory
Defendant was arrested by NYPD for using a student fare MetroCard, and a computer search showed he was a transit recidivist. His backpack was searched. While it was an invalid search incident, he was taken to the precinct house and … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Def’s car was towed and inventoried, but searching his backpack was unreasonable when he wasn’t arrested
Defendant’s vehicle was being towed because he was an unlicensed driver, and he wasn’t being arrested. He could accompany the vehicle. The officer inventoried the car and then searched his backpack. The backpack search wasn’t reasonable because he wasn’t being … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Search incident of def’s room on his arrest was valid even though he’d just been removed
The search incident of defendant’s room was valid because it occurred shortly after his arrest when he was still there, despite his being handcuffed which doesn’t per se make a search incident invalid. “Because defendant failed to allege facts which, … Continue reading
D.Mont.: Def was arrested for DUI; so, already detained, a dog sniff wasn’t unreasonable
Defendant was arrested for DUI, and the court finds, based on United States v. Hunnicutt, 135 F.3d 1345, 1350 (10th Cir. 1998), that “detention of the driver at the scene to accomplish a canine sniff is generally reasonable where the … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: An open container doesn’t permit a search of an entire car under automobile exception or search incident
An open container in a car doesn’t grant the police the authority to search the entire vehicle for another open container. It is implausible to believe that another would be found outside of the passenger compartment. United States v. Thomas, … Continue reading
VA: Search of speeder’s purse violated Gant and denied sovereign immunity
Plaintiff was arrested and in handcuffs in a police car for speeding. The officer searched her purse in the car, and all this was post-Gant and no evidence of speeding would be found in the purse. This was beyond mere … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: FIPF arrest justifies search incident
Defendant’s arrest for being a felon in possession justified his search incident. United States v. Westfall, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 217329 (E.D. Mo. Dec. 18, 2019).* Defendant’s detention was without reasonable suspicion and unreasonably extended. A probation officer was working … Continue reading
California SCt overrules prior authority: search incident of car no longer reasonable for not having DL
California overrules prior case that a search incident of a car, here the driver’s purse, was permissible for identification documents when a driver says she didn’t have a driver’s license. Meth was found in the purse. California seems to be … Continue reading
WA: A purse and a closed pouch within are subject to search incident
Defendant was subject to a valid search incident, and that included not only her purse, but also a pouch within her purse. State v. Richards, 2019 Wash. App. LEXIS 2772 (Oct. 29, 2019). Officers saw defendant and others and ordered … Continue reading
WA: Breath for BAC is not subject to search incident doctrine
Defendant was arrested for another reason, and police did a search incident of his breath for DUI. That’s not a proper purpose. City of Vancouver v. Kaufman, 2019 Wash. App. LEXIS 2616 (Oct. 15, 2019). The search warrant appears based … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Search incident permitted for offense of walking in the street at night
Search incident for walking in the street instead of on the sidewalk was permissible and that produced keys. Alternatively, officers had reasonable suspicion for a “protective patdown” based on other factors. United States v. Cunningham, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164331 … Continue reading
CA9: When defendant is being “detained” and not under arrest, search incident doesn’t apply
The inventory of defendant’s vehicle violated LVMPD’s limited inventory policy, and it is found unreasonable. The government’s search incident alternative wasn’t presented to the trial court. Even assuming it was not waived, this was during a “detention” on less than … Continue reading