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- 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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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)
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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
S.D.N.Y.: Exclusion warranted for stop without RS
Two plainclothes officers jumped out of a car and approached to men who fled. The court finds the officers didn’t identify themselves. This wasn’t reasonable suspicion, and the court finds exclusion warranted for the police conduct. United States v. Bell, … Continue reading
OH5: Def’s refusal to stop digging in pockets during traffic stop was RS for frisk
Defendant’s erratic behavior during a stop was reasonable suspicion when he also refused to stop digging around in his pockets. State v. Imani, 2017-Ohio-8113, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 4469 (5th Dist. Oct. 5, 2017). The trial court did not err … Continue reading
NM: Def raised the Birchfield issue in trial court, and it applied even though case not decided until on appellate review
Birchfield applied to a case on appeal where defendant raised the issue at trial and Birchfeild came down during appellate review. State v. Vargas, 2017 N.M. LEXIS 71 (Oct. 5, 2017). When defendant was told to “take a seat” in … Continue reading
OH Ct.Claims: Ptf prison visitor didn’t prove her strip search was justified or unreasonably conducted
Plaintiff failed to prove her visitor strip search claim against the prison guards involved. The search was based on sufficient particularized suspicion that drugs were coming in through this visitor. The court finds she didn’t remember signing the form about … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Leaning in a car window to talk in a high crime area isn’t RS
Somebody leaning in defendant’s car window to greet him and then get in the car, even in a high crime area, is not remotely suspicious. The stop was without reasonable suspicion. United States v. Lynch, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 161717 … Continue reading
ID: Stop was lengthy but still reasonable as stuff developed
The stop was lengthy, but it was still reasonably conducted to pursue legitimate investigative ends as stuff developed during the stop. State v. Fenton, 2017 Ida. App. LEXIS 73 (Sept. 29, 2017). The officers’ encounter with defendant wasn’t a seizure. … Continue reading
IL: Stop of a witness to a homicide led to RS for frisk
Defendant was seized as a witness to a homicide, not as a suspect. Once stopped, however, reasonable suspicion developed that he was in possession of a firearm, and a frisk was permitted. In re Tyreke H., 2017 IL App (1st) … Continue reading
CA5: Thumping a spare tire, even if a search, was with RS and reasonable under 4A
“Here, the agent articulated several observations which, based on his eight years of experience at this checkpoint, indicated that the truck’s spare tire contained contraband. Viewing this testimony in the light most favorable to the Government, and giving due deference … Continue reading
IA: Officer’s inquiry into a backpack unreasonably extended the stop
Defendant was stopped because there was a plastic film over his license plate that made one of the letters illegible in headlights. The purpose of the stop was complete within 3-4 minutes. The officer, however, suddenly became interested in a … Continue reading
TX14: SW seizure of things besides child pornography to show def’s connection to the premises did not make the search unreasonable
The affidavit for the search warrant for defendant’s home and computer for child pornography was based on probable cause. The seizure of things besides child pornography to show defendant’s connection to the premises did not make the search unreasonable. (§ … Continue reading
CA9: Rodriguez taint from one stop affected a later one where the first officer had to let the vehicle go when the dog was delayed
The district court did not err during a civil forfeiture action when it granted a claimant’s motion to suppress $167,070 a sheriff’s deputy found in a mobile home the claimant was driving, ordered the Government to return the money, and … Continue reading
D.Colo: No REP in prison cell or photographs of inmate’s body in a prison murder case
Defendant was charged with murder of another inmate in ADX Florence. He had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his prison cell from a search, and photographing his body was reasonable and not an invasion of privacy. United States v. … Continue reading
W.D.La.: Dismantling car battery within scope of consent to search car when drugs suspected there
Merely touching the fog line isn’t a safety factor, but the Louisiana courts have sustained that as a reason for a stop, so this court finds this stop reasonable. Defendant consented to a search of the car, and that would … Continue reading
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