November 2025 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Archives
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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com / The Book
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-25,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 500,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 47,000 posts since 2003 (30,000+ on WordPress as of 12/31/24) -
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Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
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Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
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Eighth Circuit
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D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
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LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
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General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
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)
ACLU on privacy
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
Section 1983 Blog -
"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] -
“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
---Pepé Le Pew -
"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, Little Rock 
Category Archives: Dog sniff
N.D.Ala.: Nailed down plywood sheet wasn’t subject to removal under protective sweep but other exigency for search shown
Police entered because of a hostage situation. Removal of a nailed down plywood cover wasn’t valid as a protective sweep, but it was under exigent circumstances. United States v. Cooks, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 83992 (N.D.Ala. April 28, 2017), adopted, … Continue reading
N.D.Tex.: Defendant doesn’t show that the officer’s waving his hand near the car was a handler cue to the dog
Defendant doesn’t show that the officer’s waving his hand near the car was a handler cue to the dog. It was part of the dog training. The stop wasn’t unreasonably extended because defendant wasn’t answering questions, and he even produced … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Driveway not curtilage for dog sniff of car
Relying on United States v. Beene, 818 F.3d 157 (5th Cir. 2016) (posted here), defendant’s car parked on the driveway in front of his home was subject to a dog sniff as if it was on the street. Because of … Continue reading
MD: Drug dog’s reliability is not subject to de novo appellate review
Whether a drug dog is reliable is a question committed to the trial court. It is not subject to de novo review on appeal. Grimm v. State, 2017 Md. App. LEXIS 413 (April 26, 2017). In this death case, there … Continue reading
D.Utah: Officer asked dispatch not to report records check so he could do dog sniff; they sent it 7-8 seconds after dog alerted, and this didn’t “measurably extend” stop
Dog alert in 7-8 seconds after dispatch called with the results of the record check did not “measurably” extend the stop, although the officer asked dispatch to hold off so he could do the dog sniff. “Though Trooper Wood asked … Continue reading
WV: Drug dog arrived and worked before ticket was finished; neither occupant had DLs, so the dog didn’t lengthen the stop
“As in Brock, the record on appeal in the instant case shows that the mission of the traffic stop was not completed at the time the dog sniff occurred. Officer Boggess testified that he was only approximately ‘three-quarters of the … Continue reading
OH3: Drug dog on scene in 1 min didn’t prolong the stop
Defendant was stopped for window tint, and the drug dog arrived within one minute. The dog sniff did not delay the stop because no response had yet been received from dispatch. State v. Wade, 2017-Ohio-1319, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 1340 … Continue reading
D.Me.: CC fraud case led to PC def’s computer had “victim information” on it
Defendant was arrested for credit card fraud, and he had a computer in his vehicle. There was probable cause as to his computer and reasonable to issue a search warrant for “victim information.” United States v. Febles, 2017 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
D.Del.: Dog sniff at a storage unit not a search
A dog sniff at a storage unit didn’t violate any reasonable expectation of privacy. It isn’t the same as curtilage of the home. Defendant’s attempt to show a Franks discrepancy because he originally rented C43 but moved two weeks later … 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
CA5: Interstate bus passenger had no standing against a dog sniff of the luggage compartment
An interstate bus passenger had no standing against a dog sniff of the luggage compartment of the bus. United States v. Rodriguez-Lara, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 3774 (5th Cir. March 2, 2017):
S.D.N.Y.: One officer nearly immediately running dog around car while second dealt with stop was reasonable
One officer running a dog around a car while the license was being checked was reasonable. The dog, of course, alerted. United States v. Dominguez-Villa, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20949 (S.D. N.Y. Feb. 14, 2017). “Between the female passenger’s attempt … Continue reading
VA: Jardines not retroactive on state habeas review
Defendant’s conviction was final ten months before Jardines was decided by SCOTUS. “Therefore, because the controlling legal landscape when Oprisko’s conviction became final did not dictate that use of a drug-sniffing dog within the curtilage of private property was a … Continue reading
CO: Dog alert for MJ still justifies a search of a car, even in a MMJ and recreational use state
Even in a recreational and medicinal marijuana state, the smell of marijuana picked up by a dog is probable cause including a search of the trunk. The court rejected the claim that the dog would alert on both legal and … Continue reading
CA8: As long as drug dog gets there before the traffic ticket is done, it’s all good
From the circuit that brought us Rodriguez, a drug dog on the scene within two minutes of a traffic stop and writing a ticket for no DL was reasonable. “Thus, there is no evidence that the dog sniff unlawfully prolonged … Continue reading
CT: Dog sniff at door of condominium violates sanctity of home under state constitution and 4A
A drug dog sniff in the common areas of a condominium violated the state constitution. The Second Circuit held that as to the Fourth Amendment in 1985 in United States v. Thomas, 757 F.2d 1359 (2d Cir. 1985), and other … Continue reading
IN: Dog alert on car that leads to search that came up empty didn’t permit strip search of the occupants
A drug dog alerted on defendant’s car, so the police searched it, coming up empty. That alone did not justify taking the occupants in to the police station for a strip search. Thomas v. State, 2016 Ind. App. LEXIS 457 … Continue reading
CA5: 45 minute empty-handed search after dog alert didn’t dissipate the probable cause
Defendant was stopped for a traffic offense, but the officers had been briefed on defendant by the DEA. (The pre-Jones GPS monitoring of defendant’s car for 73 days is valid under Davis.) He wouldn’t make eye contact, his hands were … Continue reading