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- D.Me.: Yes, more investigation could have been done, but there’s still PC on what there was
- CA3: Brady doesn’t apply to SW materials
- E.D.Mich.: Person a cell phone was given to as gift could consent to search
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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)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Outline of 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: Reasonable suspicion
NY2: Def’s stop exceeded reasonableness; search reversed
Defendant’s stop exceeded the time necessary for its completion and became unreasonable. The product of the search can’t be used to justify it. [All the serious counts are reversed. Note: Defendant was convicted Sept. 26, 2013, 49½ months before this … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Parking on the wrong side of the street justifies a traffic stop
Defendant’s car didn’t appear (at first because it was compliant) to have a paper temporary tag. It was also parked on the opposite side of the street where it was facing oncoming traffic in violation of the traffic laws. That … Continue reading
OR: Def’s motion to suppress that he was subjected to an “unlawful warrantless arrest” sufficiently put the state on notice that it had to show PC
Defendant was walking four blocks from the area of a disturbance talking on a cell phone. When officers confronted him and commanded he stop, he “bladed up” and reached for a back pocket, making the officers fear he was armed. … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Was all this a “reasonable” mistake under Heien? Doesn’t matter because there was RS for other reasons
The court goes on at length about the reasonableness of the officers’ interpretation of use of a turn signal and the application of the state “practicable lane” statute under the reasonableness standard of Heien, then concludes there was reasonable suspicion … Continue reading
D.S.D.: If bad driving alone wasn’t RS, his leaving a drug house and being known have prior drug arrests made it RS
Here, defendant allegedly drove left of center and he challenges that as the basis of the stop. The court doesn’t agree and goes one further, prior drug arrests and just leaving a drug house added to the driving was reasonable … Continue reading
KS: That def’s relative owned a black Explorer and it had been parked at def’s house wasn’t RS to stop it
Stopping a car because a relative of the wanted defendant owned it and it had been seen at defendant’s house wasn’t reasonable suspicion for a stop. State v. Carr, 2017 Kan. App. LEXIS 78 (Oct. 27, 2017):
CA6: Plf’s stipulation there was PC in his criminal case that led to dismissal was judicial estoppel to bringing a civil case on the same facts
Plaintiff’s stipulation there was probable cause in his criminal case that led to dismissal was judicial estoppel to bringing a civil case on the same facts. Grise v. Allen, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 21358 (6th Cir. Oct. 26, 2017). The … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Calling for drug dog whose sniff didn’t extend stop at all was reasonable
Calling for a drug dog during processing the paperwork of a traffic stop that produced a dog sniff before the stop was over was reasonable. United States v. Harry, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 174689 (N.D. Iowa Oct. 23, 2017), adopted, … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Window tint violation observed at night in a “split second”
Defendant’s window tint was the basis for a stop at night, and the officer got only a “split second” look at the car but couldn’t see inside. That’s at least reasonable suspicion. [Yes, it’s possible.] United States v. Bogan, 2017 … Continue reading
NY: Threshold arrests remain valid in NYS
Defendant’s arrest at his threshold when he answered his door was valid. The court declines to overturn its “longstanding rule.” People v. Garvin, 2017 NY Slip Op 07382, 2017 N.Y. LEXIS 3201 (Oct. 24, 2017). There was reasonable suspicion defendant … Continue reading
NM: Citizen informant’s call about erratic driving was RS for stop when the vehicle was found
Citizen informant’s call to the police about erratic driving was reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop when the car was found. State v. Tidey, 2011-NMCA-068, 2017 N.M. App. LEXIS 103 (Oct. 17, 2017). The stop was justified by a lane change … Continue reading
D.Haw.: 20 day delay in getting SW for backpack was unreasonable
The seizure of defendant’s backpack for 20 days without seeking a search warrant was unreasonable. It infringed on defendant’s possessory interest, even though he did not seek return of the backpack. United States v. Uu, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 170636 … Continue reading
VT: Where no testimony supports the trial court’s finding of fact, the finding is clearly erroneous
“One of the findings could be based only on testimony from the officer: ‘Although [defendant’s girlfriend] had not expressly stated that [the officer] could come into the house, he interpreted her action as inviting him in.’ There is no testimony … Continue reading
MS: SW request was for blood alcohol but SW said drugs too; warrant not unreasonable or overbroad
The showing of probable cause for defendant’s blood testing specified alcohol, but the warrant actually said alcohol or drugs could be tested for. This was not unreasonable considering defendant’s driving which was a part of the probable cause. Roberts v. … Continue reading
CA5: Minivan and FedEx truck meeting up twice in commercial parking lots at 2am when FedEx is never there is RS
Officers had reasonable suspicion for stop of a minivan and a FedEx truck because they met up in a commercial parking lot at 2 am, and the officer on patrol in that area had never seen a FedEx truck at … Continue reading
D.Utah: Officer apparently still had DL when consent sought; motion to suppress granted
The record doesn’t show when defendant got his license and paperwork back from the officer before consent was sought, but it all appears that consent was sought when defendant and his passenger would not feel free to leave [or able … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Human eye may see what video doesn’t capture, so video not conclusive against officer’s basis for stop
The dashcam video doesn’t support what the officer testified to seeing, but it was a different angle, and the court finds that people can see what a video cannot (citing authority). The audio supports the officer’s basis for the stop, … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Probation search of cell phone was reasonable condition
Search of defendant’s cell phone as a probation search condition was reasonable. United States v. Canady, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 169069 (E.D. Cal. Oct. 12, 2017). The officer did not have reasonable suspicion for a seizure of defendant’s vehicle because … Continue reading