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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
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
MA: Riley applies under state const. to digital cameras
A digital camera, like a cell phone, can be seized incident to an arrest, but it can’t be searched without a warrant. While SCOTUS hasn’t applied Riley to digital cameras, the state constitution here affords the same protection to digital … Continue reading
LA2: A host of RS: (1) no DL or paperwork on car; (2) suspicious travel plans; (3) extensive criminal history of driver and passenger; (4) not knowing passenger’s name
“As previously noted in [the first appeal of this case,] Tpr. Sharbono’s testimony provided the articulable facts that raised his suspicions of other illegal activity: (1) Manning had no driver’s license or paperwork for the vehicle he was driving; (2) … Continue reading
OH4: Objective basis for stop obviates racial profiling claim
Defendant’s stop for an abrupt lane change and then driving 45 in a 55 was justification for the stop. There was an objective basis for the stop, so defendant’s racial profiling claim is rejected. The driver was obviously extremely nervous … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Driving up to a drug house where a SWAT raid was about to happen here was RS
Defendant drove up to a known drug house that was about to be searched by a SWAT team, and reasonable suspicion quickly developed for his stop. United States v. Clayton, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 128041 (W.D. Ky. June 13, 2017).* … Continue reading
OH3: The 3 days that an Ohio SW has to be executed in is business days
Ohio’s rule that a search warrant be executed in three days doesn’t include weekends. State v. Seaburn, 2017-Ohio-7115, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 3241 (3d Dist. Aug. 7, 2017). Defendant’s jaywalking stop didn’t justify a patdown where defendant wasn’t even asked … Continue reading
MI: Leaving backpack in car def was ordered out of was a lack of standing when the car got searched
Defendant lacked standing in his own backpack in a vehicle that was subject to search for impoundment for having no valid LPN under People v. LaBelle, 478 Mich. 891, 732 N.W.2d 114 (2007). The motion to suppress was properly denied. … Continue reading
WI: While RS might not have existed for a pro forma patdown, the officer had RS when this one happened
Defendant and his passenger ran out of gas on a freeway, and an officer came along to help. He was going to take them to the next gas station, and he planned to frisk them before putting them in the … Continue reading