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- CA4: Cell phone non-forensic border search doesn’t require individualized suspicion
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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
Two car and person searches suppressed for lack of RS
The USMJ “reasonably determined that although there was probable cause to stop the car in which Linaman was traveling for possible traffic violations, …, Deputy Tadlock prolonged the stop beyond the time reasonably required to investigate those violations and without … Continue reading
OH2: Nothing about def or her driving suggested she was under the influence; PBT suppressed
There was no reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop: defendant had not admitted to drinking on the evening of the stop, that her traffic violation had been de minimis, that her speech was not impaired, that neither defendant’s movement when she … Continue reading
IA: Def plead guilty and later overruling of case law suggested the stop was unreasonable; no IAC claim on direct appeal
An LPN check showed the 77 year old owner of the car had an expired DL. When the officer encountered the driver, it was obviously not the owner because of age. It was the owner’s daughter. The officer shortly determined … Continue reading
CA1: 82 minute stop was with RS
Reasonable suspicion developed from defendants’ stop to extend it for 82 minutes. United States v. Ramdihall, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 8727 (1st Cir. May 18, 2017).* Defendant was stopped by police after getting off Amtrak at Minot ND. A great … Continue reading
IA: Plain view of a baggie is enough to seize it without also knowing that there are drugs in it
Plain view of a plastic baggie is enough to seize it without also knowing that there are drugs in it. State v. Taylor, 2017 Iowa App. LEXIS 517 (May 17, 2017). Defendant’s speeding and his condition was reasonable suspicion for … Continue reading
AR: Reasonable suspicion doesn’t require certainty of facts
Reasonable suspicion doesn’t require certainty of facts. Here, the factual belief was that defendant’s DL had been suspended weeks earlier. Williams v. State, 2017 Ark. App. 291, 2017 Ark. App. LEXIS 301 (May 10, 2017). Defendant’s plea waived his potential … Continue reading
AR: Officer’s three week old knowledge of def’s suspended DL was RS for a stop
Reasonable suspicion doesn’t require certainty of facts. Here, the factual belief was that defendant’s DL had been suspended weeks earlier. Williams v. State, 2017 Ark. App. 291, 2017 Ark. App. LEXIS 301 (May 10, 2017). There was enough probable cause … Continue reading
IN: Officers lacked RS to take gun off an otherwise law abiding citizen based on a citizen informant tip def had a gun
A cab driver called the police because defendant dropped a gun. The cab driver feared he was to be robbed (but he wasn’t). The police showed up and claimed defendant acted nervous. (Only a little.) The frisk and removal of … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: In a rare departure from the norm, court finds there was no RS for def’s stop near the border
Based on the totality of circumstances (“(1) characteristics of the area; (2) proximity to the border; (3) usual patterns of traffic and time of day; (4) previous alien or drug smuggling in the area; (5) behavior of the driver, including … Continue reading
CA6: Tossing gun to avoid police is abandonment
Defendant voluntarily answered questions, but he tossed his gun, and that’s an abandonment. United States v. Matthews, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 8292 (6th Cir. May 8, 2017). Two lane changes were reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop that led to finding … Continue reading
D.Utah: No 4A requirement for a police car in the field to have internet access to more speedily check records without radioing it in
There is no constitutional requirement for a police car in the field to have internet access to more speedily check records without radioing it in. Also, he testified that rural service is spotty. United States v. Lopez-Casillas, 2017 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
D.Conn.: Search incident included under the bed next to defendant
Search incident included a search under a bed near where the defendant was arrested, and cocaine was found there. The court rejects protective sweep under the bed as an alternative. United States v. Bohannon, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65446 (D. … Continue reading
IL: Arrest of driver would not make passengers think they were free to leave; continuation of stop was with RS
Passengers would not think they were free to leave based on the arrest and handcuffing of defendant driver. The continuation of the stop, however, was with reasonable suspicion because of furtive movements. People v. Veal, 2017 IL App (1st) 150500, … Continue reading
PA: Def’s stop was on a ruse and there was no RS; apparent drug sale 5 weeks earlier not RS on day in question
Officers stopped defendant on the street, falsely claiming he was involved in a disturbance at a McDonald’s. The officer did know defendant was involved in a drug transaction five weeks earlier, but nothing on the day in question. Defendant’s stop … Continue reading
CA11: Officers had RS when they called for a Spanish speaking officer to translate
Officers had apparent reasonable suspicion but they couldn’t communicate with the six people in the rental car because none of them spoke English. They called for another officer who did, and he arrived in 12 minutes. Based on the observations … Continue reading
MD: When officers tried to stop def he fled into a high speed chase; he wasn’t seized before the chase
Defendant had warrants out and he’d called 911 and said he had a gun and he’d use it. There was reasonable suspicion for his stop before he engaged in a high speed chase. He never stopped before the chase so … Continue reading
CA5: LPN check showing insurance status “unconfirmed” is RS for stop
CA5 for the first time concludes that an LPN check that shows the vehicle’s insurance status “unconfirmed” is reasonable suspicion for a stop. Other federal appellate courts have already so held. United States v. Broca-Martinez, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 7612 … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Def corroborated officer’s smelling MJ by admitting he smoked in the car the previous night
Defendant corroborated the officer’s observation of the smell of marijuana coming from the car when he admitted having smoked marijuana in the car the night before. He also corroborated the drug dog by admitting he kept marijuana where the dog … Continue reading
D.Mont.: Search for gun outside house in curtilage was reasonable based on exigency or public safety
A search outside for a gun was reasonable for both public and officer safety. Officers responded to a domestic call at 2 am and there were four brothers there who concerned them. United States v. Sturdevant, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading