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- D.Utah: Minor time detours to writing up a traffic ticket didn’t unreasonable extend this stop; the dog was quickly on its way
- KY: Despite lack of nexus, SW sustained under GFE
- CO: DNA could be seized from trash
- CA8: Nebraska statute allowing SWs to cross state lines doesn’t violate 4A
- WA: Sweat patch as condition of release violated state constitution’s privacy provision
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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
LA: Forensic search of cell phone can occur any time before trial
The forensic search of a cell phone can occur anytime between seizure and trial and still be timely. State v. Lowry, 2025 La. LEXIS 1481 (La. Oct. 25, 2025). 2255 ineffective assistance of counsel challenge for Franks violation fails for … Continue reading
D.P.R.: USMJ doesn’t buy officer’s RS story
USMJ just doesn’t buy that the officer could see drugs in defendant’s hand when he was running. After the stop, they were all in his pockets. United States v. Méndez-Rodríguez, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 209314 (D.P.R. Oct. 22, 2025)*:
CA5: A-C privilege review of seized email doesn’t have to be perfect
In this bank fraud case, the attorney-client privilege review of defendant’s email was “imperfect” but not so bad that the indictment should be dismissed. It clearly doesn’t rise to the level of “outrageous.” Yes, the review could have been done … Continue reading
D.S.C.: RS is based on objective reasonableness, and don’t argue subjective intent contradictorily
For reasonable suspicion the standard is objective reasonableness. Here, the defendant argued subjective intent two ways: embracing it and rejecting it. United States v. Duggan, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 206037 (D.S.C. Oct. 20, 2025)*:
S.D.N.Y.: Accidental seizure of attorney-client jail calls doesn’t lead to exclusion of non-legal calls
Use of plaintiff’s non-privileged prison calls as evidence was not a Fourth Amendment violation. The fact attorney-client calls were also seized but were segregated and not used as evidence doesn’t state a claim. Criscuolo v. Brandow, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
E.D.Ark.: There is no 4A claim by a dead person
There is no Fourth Amendment claim by a dead person. “Because the investigation failures and denial of access to the Courts are based on facts alleged to have occurred entirely after decedent’s death, Plaintiff cannot assert these claims either on … Continue reading
MSNBC: Just how many ‘Kavanaugh stops’ have American citizens been forced to endure?
MSNBC: Just how many ‘Kavanaugh stops’ have American citizens been forced to endure? by Steve Benen (“Many American citizens have been detained recently by ICE agents who thought they might be undocumented immigrants. But how many is ‘many’? When the … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: No REP in one’s talking to oneself in a building elevator that security cameras picked up
Plaintiff had no reasonable expectation of privacy in talking to himself in his building elevator. Therefore, Title III didn’t apply. He knew there was video recording but not audio. “While in the elevator, Plaintiff writes that that is when he … Continue reading
TX3: Failure to swear application for electronic warrant was fatal defect
The trial court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the officer who prepared an electronic BAC warrant in the patrol car was not sworn to tell the truth based on the body cam. That was a fatal defect. … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Frisk that went inside defendant’s pants was unreasonable
A frisk that went inside defendant’s pants was unreasonable. United States v. Davis, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 202764 (E.D. Mich. Aug. 20, 2025). When a stop revealed a holster when the defendant got out of the vehicle, a further intrusion … Continue reading
PR Const. on evidentiary exclusion for 4A violation applies in forfeiture cases
Under the Puerto Rico Constitution, unlawfully seized evidence is inadmissible, and this includes forfeiture cases. Cruz v. Commonwealth 2025 PR App. LEXIS 2293 (Sept. 23, 2025). The probable cause question here doesn’t have to be decided. Suffice it to say … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: If cell phone warrant is overbroad, remedy is to suppress the overbroad part, not all
“Assuming, without deciding, that the Cellphone Warrant was overbroad due to lack of a timeframe limitation, this finding would not mean that all evidence seized under the cellphone warrant is subject to suppression. The proper remedy is to suppress only … Continue reading
W.D.Wash.: Putting meth in a public trash can was abandonment, not just hiding it
Putting meth in a public trash can was treated as abandonment, not hiding it for later. United States v. Denham, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 201311 (W.D. Wash. Oct. 10, 2025). Use of a cell phone to deposit stolen checks supported … Continue reading
CA8: While the nexus showing was weak, GFE still applied
This affidavit for search warrant didn’t show nexus, but it wasn’t so lacking that the good faith exception didn’t apply. Some information was provided, and it was more than in cases where it was lacking. United States v. Diaz, 2025 … Continue reading
FL2: Vehicle searches based on MJ smell occurring before change in law valid by GFE
While the smell of cannabis is no longer justification for a vehicle search, searches prior to the date the law changed are valid under the good faith exception. Williams v. State, 2025 Fla. App. LEXIS 7538 (Fla. 2d DCA Oct. … Continue reading
CA5: A trespasser has no REP
A trespasser has no reasonable expectation of privacy when on the property trespassed upon. Here, there were numerous signs for the TX DOT saying “no trespassing.” United States v. Parkerson, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 26220 (5th Cir. Oct. 8, 2025). … Continue reading
CA2: One has to preserve the 4A claim for a conditional plea
Defendant didn’t properly preserve his Fourth Amendment claim for appeal from a conditional plea. United States v. Smurphat, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 26002 (2d Cir. Oct. 7, 2025). “A search warrant limited to a single dwelling apartment is sufficiently particular … Continue reading
W.D.Wis.: Lack of info on CI’s credibility wasn’t material; PC shown otherwise
The affidavit for warrant omitted pertinent details about the CI’s credibility and apparent baggage, but it doesn’t matter: “And yet, the pertinent facts provided by Hample were corroborated by other information, including text messages, phone records, location tracking, and surveillance. … Continue reading
CO: In a civil case, legal justification for a warrantless search is an affirmative defense
“In a case of first impression, a division of the court of appeals holds that legal justification for a warrantless search is an affirmative defense that the defendant must prove in a civil action under section 13-21-131, C.R.S. 2025. The … Continue reading