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- OH7: Magistrate signing SW for something outside of territorial jurisdiction not a 4A violation
- OH2: Stop outside the officer’s jurisdiction doesn’t violate 4A
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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)
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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
NC: Inconsistent stories from the passenger and driver alone isn’t RS
The passenger’s and driver’s stories weren’t inconsistent enough to justify reasonable suspicion. There were no other facts justifying suspicion of criminality. The officer asked about weapons, but he said that was common for a 4 am stop. State v. Nicholson, … Continue reading
MT: Other than def’s parking on a used car lot being suspicious, no other fact developed to show RS
Defendant’s vehicle was parked on a used car lot, but nothing else was going on. The officer who spotted the car called for backup and four officers came up to the vehicle from behind. Parking on the lot alone was … Continue reading
TX: Officer’s training and experience must be considered in the totality of RS
The court of appeals failed to consider and credit the officer’s training and experience in considering the totality of circumstances that the officer had reasonable suspicion under the Fourth Amendment to continue to detain defendant after the purposes of the … Continue reading
OH10: Stopping the first person officers see after hearing gunshots was without RS
Officers heard gunshots and stopped the first person they saw. That essentially was a stop on a hunch and without reasonable suspicion. State v. Hairston, 2017-Ohio-7612, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 3934 (10th Dist. Sept. 14, 2017). “Here, the team of … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Def’s keys under him when arrested were properly seized incident to arrest; testing key in a lock wasn’t a search
Defendant’s keys were on the ground under him when he was arrested face down and handcuffed behind his back. They were seen when he was lifted up to stand. They were seized incident to his arrest, and inserting the key … Continue reading
OH1: Leaving drug house under surveillance for two weeks was RS
It was reasonable suspicion for defendant to visit a house under surveillance for two weeks as a drug house with detailed collection of information about comings and goings. State v. Donohue, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 3668 (1st Dist. Aug. 25, … Continue reading
OH2: Officer didn’t delay the stop for drug dog; it arrived two minutes into the stop [and effectively coerced consent]
While the stopping officer was running background checks, a second officer with a drug dog arrived, and the first officer asked for consent to search, planning to use the drug dog if consent was denied. The trial court held that … Continue reading
OH10: Extraterritorial arrest didn’t violate state statute
Defendant’s extraterritorial arrest within the state did not violate state law. Remanded and the state constitutional question can be raised again. State v. Roby, 2017-Ohio-7331, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 3622 (10th Dist. Aug. 24, 2017). “In this case, Mincey does … Continue reading
PA: Random suspicionless stops of boats on inland waters for safety inspection is unreasonable
Surveying apparently all the cases and statutes, Pennsylvania decides that random suspicionless stops of boats violate both the Fourth Amendment and the state constitution. The court distinguishes stops on the open seas upheld in United States v. Villa monte-Marquez. “Thus, … Continue reading
WI: Eight prior OWIs and failing FST is reasonable suspicion
Defendant’s eight prior OWI convictions and being on extended supervision and failing a FST was reasonable suspicion. State v. Wortman, 2017 Wisc. App. LEXIS 622 (Aug. 23, 2017). Defense counsel was not ineffective for not moving to suppress his stop … Continue reading
Two on RS: CA1 criminal case and a WI cop firing case
The stop and frisk all happened here within seconds, and the court finds that, while the question is close and not free from doubt, the evidence supports the district court’s conclusion that there was reasonable suspicion for the stop and … Continue reading
NC: Question is RS for a traffic violation, not that one actually occurred
Defendant was driving on a snowy evening and pulled out from a traffic light and fishtailed, the rear of his truck heading for a sidewalk, but he regained control without going off the road. The trial court found reasonable suspicion … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Basis for traffic stop doesn’t need to be decided where there was independent RS
There’s no point in quibbling here over the basis of the traffic stop because the officer had reasonable suspicion of drug trafficking, too. United States v. Mejia-Palacio, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 128922 (E.D. Ky. July 25, 2017), adopted, 2017 U.S. … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Extraterritorial Gmail SW enforced
A search warrant for Google email stored extraterritorially will be enforced. In re Search Warrant No. 16-960-M-1, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 131230 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 17, 2017). The request to search did not come during an unavoidable lull in the … Continue reading
W.D.Wash.: The mosaic theory is rejected as to P2P computer searches
A search warrant is not required before using a P2P child pornography acquiring program Roundup eMule. The mosaic theory is rejected as to P2P computer searches. United States v. Blouin, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 129886 (W.D. Wash. Aug. 14, 2017). … Continue reading
CA1: No RS for a protective sweep just because def was suspected of drugs
The government had no evidence of violence or reason to believe that there was anybody else in the apartment to justify a protective sweep. The crime alone, suspected drug trafficking, didn’t provide it. United States v. Delgado-Pérez, 2017 U.S. App. … Continue reading
CA8: RS on totality to frisk a gang member in the middle of a rival gang’s territory
Gang officers had reasonable suspicion to frisk defendant when they encountered him outside an apartment building occupied by rival gang members in the middle of another gang’s territory. He was standing between two illegally parked cars talking to occupants of … Continue reading
D.Kan.: The question is not whether following too close statute was violated; it’s whether there was RS it was violated
On deciding reasonable suspicion for following too close, “[d]eciding the issue presented by these motions does not require the court to decide whether Mr. Acevedo violated [the statute]. Instead, it requires the court to decide whether Lt. Stopper had an … Continue reading