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- VA: Statutory requirement to provide SW papers only applies to “places of abode”
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- MN: Geofence warrant was not particular
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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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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (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) -
“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: Apparent authority
MO: Homeowner had apparent authority to consent to search his basement where def had been living for 12 days
Police were investigating the defendant for child pornography, and located him at a friend’s house where he’d been living in the basement for 12 days. Because of the layout of the basement and its access, the court finds that the … Continue reading
M.D.La.: When multiple people with apparent authority are present, just one can consent
When multiple people with apparent authority are present, any one of them can consent. Here, the credible evidence shows that three did. Defendant’s Randolph argument is rejected. United States v. Bourgeois, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18927 (M.D. La. Feb. 9, … Continue reading
D.Nev.: No actual or apparent authority to consent shown; presence of gun in motel room not exigency per se
Actual authority to consent and apparent authority in a motel room are two different things. Here, the government can’t show either on this record. The possibility of a gun in the room is not an exigent circumstance. United States v. … Continue reading
CA8: Smell of MJ from car was PC
Defendant was stopped for no license plate and weaving. When the window came down, the smell of marijuana was apparent. The driver appeared under the influence. The passenger became agitated, and that confirmed to the officer he was too. A … Continue reading
D.Me.: Third party consenter’s apparent authority included the attic
“Contrary to Defendant’s argument, Ms. Barry had common authority over the property. She lived in the home with Defendant and their minor child, and shared a bedroom with Defendant. Consistent with the fact she resided in the home and had … Continue reading
LA5: Adult grandson lived with grandmother; she could consent to his room because he didn’t pay rent
Defendant lived with his grandmother, but he didn’t pay rent. He was arrested and taken away, and she consented to a search of his room. “[T]he consenting party, Ms. Gant, was the sole owner of the property subject to the … Continue reading
CA9: How can a mere visitor have apparent authority to consent to search premises? She can’t
The District Court clearly erred in crediting that a mere visitor had apparent authority to consent to a search of a house. United States v. Chavez, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 23301 (9th Cir. Dec. 27, 2016):
W.D.Mo.: Officers could rely on hotel manager’s apparent authority to consent to opening work locker
Defendant had a limited reasonable expectation of privacy in his hotel work locker and its contents, and officers got the manager to open it. It was reasonable for the officers to believe that the hotel manager had apparent authority over … Continue reading
MO: Reliance on apparent authority was objectively reasonable
It was objectively reasonable for the officer to believe the officer’s testimony that the officers had apparent authority to enter the basement area where defendant was staying. “Defendant argues on appeal that Ms. Latcher did not reside in the home … Continue reading
CA9: Arrest for any offense will do as long as there were facts for some offense
Following Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146, 153 (2004), “an officer’s ‘subjective reason for making the arrest need not be the criminal offense as to which the known facts provide probable cause.’” Brincken v. Voss, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 21101 … Continue reading
UT: Roommates had apparent authority to consent to search of a room they seldom entered, but they could, and that’s the point
The state had two justifications for the entry. First, the other occupants had the ability to consent to entry into the room even though they didn’t regularly go there. Second, blood on the floor showed exigency. Met v. State, 2016 … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Landlord had apparent authority to consent because of writ of possession
Defendant’s landlord had a writ of possession from a state court and had evicted him from the premises. He called the police and the police saw the writ of possession, and they had no reason to question it. The court … Continue reading
NY4: Consent form filled out by police wasn’t proof of control of the premises; facts otherwise too vague
Defendant’s consent form was written by the police with boilerplate language, and the consent form is not sufficient evidence of control of the place searched. For all the proof shows, he was just somewhat familiar with the place and there … Continue reading
A.F.Ct.Crim.App.: Seizing cell phone before search authorization was granted was inevitable discovery
Based on a female airman’s complaint, AFOSI developed information that defendant had sex with her when she was too intoxicated to consent. She believed that he had pictures on his cell phone. OSI was seeking a search authorization for his … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Def’s GF who shared home who called police on him had apparent authority to consent
Defendant disavowed control over a bedroom in the single family home he lived in, and he had standing in the house as a whole and thus standing to challenge seizure of the gun found in that bedroom. The police here … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Def’s sister had keys to his storage units, and inquiry by the police led them to reasonably believe she had apparent authority
Defendant’s sister still had apparent authority to consent to search of his storage unit even though she didn’t know the access codes and she’d never been there. After inquiry by the police, it was reasonable for them to believe that … Continue reading
CA11: Police get QI for entry on a civil assist to recover property from former lover’s house
Police officers had qualified immunity for entry into plaintiff’s home with his estranged lover who came back with the police to assist to recover her belongings. Plaintiff’s guns were seized because he was under a domestic abuse injunction to not … Continue reading
FL1: Passenger’s detention may be extended because of RS as to driver
A passenger is stopped with the vehicle he or she was in. The length of that stop depends upon what happens with the driver and passenger, and it can be extended lawfully as to the passenger because of reasonable suspicion … Continue reading