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- CA10: Disagreement over spelling of street name didn’t make warrant fail particularity; GFE at least would apply
- VA: Statutory requirement to provide SW papers only applies to “places of abode”
- D.Idaho: Not unreasonable for PO to hand over def’s cell phone to LEO for extraction after RS developed from Snapchat app
- AtL: Sotomayor Apologizes For Possibly Hurting Kavanaugh’s Feelings Over The Racial Profiling He Invented
- 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
IN: Parent can consent to search of minor child’s bedroom
“As a matter of first impression in Indiana, we hold that it is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment for an officer to rely on the voluntary consent of a minor’s parent to search the minor’s bedroom inside the parent’s home.” … Continue reading
CA4: Landlord could consent; defendant had been evicted and locks changed
Defendant had been evicted from his apartment by the landlord who had changed the locks. He had also expressed to her a desire to vacate and was leaving unwanted stuff behind. The landlord could not produce the key because her … Continue reading
C.D.Ill.: Calls to wife showed exigency for potential removal of drugs hidden in safe in house
Defendant’s calls to his wife showed there was exigency in the contents of a safe at their house because he wanted it moved immediately. That was exigency. Also, she had apparent authority to consent. United States v. Simmons, 2015 U.S. … Continue reading
CA11: Wife having computer password showed her apparent authority over it
It was reasonable for police to believe that defendant’s wife had apparent authority to consent to providing the password to them to search his laptop. He argued that he gave it for the limited purpose of fixing a printer problem, … Continue reading
N.D.Fla.: Showing up at a prearranged drop point, a motel room, was RS
Showing up at a prearranged drop point, a motel room, was reasonable suspicion that the defendant was there with the drugs. United States v. Mendoza, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109526 (N.D.Fla. August 18, 2015).* A worker’s gesture was not consent … Continue reading
D.Mont.: Mother couldn’t consent to adult son’s room; not reasonable for police to believe she had apparent authority
Mother could not consent to search of adult son’s room. “This court is less persuaded by the presumption of control given to parents in Rith when the child at issue has been an adult for over two decades.” “Based on … Continue reading
CA10: Unnecessarily overlong detention while handcuffed when it was apparent ptf not the man wanted was clearly established as a 4A violation
Plaintiff was detained too long after it was obvious that he was not the person they were looking for with the same last name during a familial dispute. That right was clearly established. There was no other independent justification. Martinez … Continue reading
ID: Where hotel room occupant consented to search, no apparent authority shown for backpack that belonged to another in the room
Officers came to a motel room to arrest a person named in an arrest warrant they suspected was inside. After 30 minutes of surveillance, they went to the door and a lady answered and said she’d rented the room. Inside … Continue reading
CA7: WI law of hotel ejectments reasonably relied on by officers to conduct hotel room search after arrest
Defendant was arrested as a parole absconder also known to be a forger and identity thief, and there was a printer in the backseat of his car. He was in a hotel room in Wisconsin, not registered in his name. … Continue reading
TX2: Defense argument at “Catch-22”: If he lived there, arrest warrant good enough to enter; if not, other person consented
Defendant’s argument about the place entered being his home was a “Catch-22” for him. If he lived there, the arrest warrant authorized entry to get him, and the plain view was valid. If he didn’t, the other occupant had authority … Continue reading
OH9: Male driver’s consent to search car does not extend to female passenger’s purse; no apparent authority
The officer believed that the occupants of the car were having sex in exchange for money, but there was no probable cause or exigent circumstances, so the automobile exception did not apply. The male driver granted consent to search the … Continue reading
MT: Officers entering on a civil standby for a roommate moving out made a valid plain view of MJ grow
Officers were called for a civil standby to assist a woman from moving out of a house where she feared trouble from her roommates. It was objectively reasonable to believe her based on her conversation and because she had a … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Co-owner of a business couldn’t consent to opening safe officers knew was owned solely by other co-owner
Codefendant consented to a search of shared business premises. His general consent to search the basement did not extend to breaking open a safe that both said was defendant’s because he had no joint control over the safe. United States … Continue reading
OH6: DNA at crime scene matched to def via CODIS, and that justified SW for more to confirm
A cigarette butt at the crime scene had defendant’s DNA on it according to CODIS, and that supported a search warrant for defendant for confirmatory DNA. State v. Williams, 2015-Ohio-405, 2015 Ohio App. LEXIS 375 (6th Dist. January 30, 2015). … Continue reading
CA11: Def’s silence when driver was asked to consent to search of a bag on passenger side floorboard was apparent authority
Defendant had standing to contest the search of his bag in a car, even though he wouldn’t have standing in the rest of the car. The driver had apparent authority to consent to a search of the bag and it … Continue reading
GA: No apparent authority to consent to search of roommate’s locked bedroom door where no key
Defendant lived with his uncle, and he kept the door to his bedroom locked. The officers could not objectively rely on the uncle’s consent where he had no key, and officers had to use a knife to jimmy the door … Continue reading