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- CA6: Despite two guns being suppressed from arrest on bare-bones arrest affidavit, third gun was later validly seized by independent source
- D.Md.: Govt’s motion to reconsider granted motion to suppress denied; arguments now are too late
- CA4: Cell phone non-forensic border search doesn’t require individualized suspicion
- ND: Probation search of cell phone was reasonable
- Vanguard: SF Court Dismisses Felony Charges after Judge Finds Racial Bias Tainted SFPD Stop and Arrest
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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)
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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
W.D.Tenn.: Court just doesn’t buy that officers could see def not wearing seatbelt at night or that MJ was smelled in the car
The USMJ just doesn’t buy the testimony that the Memphis P.D. officer could see the defendant driving without a seatbelt at night coming from the other direction because the officers’ testimony on the basis for the stop disagreed. After that, … Continue reading
MO: Reliance on apparent authority was objectively reasonable
It was objectively reasonable for the officer to believe the officer’s testimony that the officers had apparent authority to enter the basement area where defendant was staying. “Defendant argues on appeal that Ms. Latcher did not reside in the home … Continue reading
CO: Stop in high crime area, false name, and large knife on floor justified protective weapons search
The protective weapons search of defendant’s car was valid. The stop occurred in an area known for frequent criminal activity, defendant gave the officer a false name, and he observed a large knife on the front floorboard near defendant’s feet. … Continue reading
LA3: Reasonable suspicion defendant is trafficking methamphetamine means there is likely the presence of firearms
Reasonable suspicion defendant is trafficking methamphetamine means there is likely the presence of firearms. State v. Flournoy, 2016 La. App. LEXIS 2225 (La.App. 3 Cir. Dec. 7, 2016). Defendant juvenile was “in custody” and handcuffed in a patrol car being … Continue reading
CA2: Judgment on liability for bogus stop and frisk was not error; $196k verdict affirmed
Plaintiffs were two teenagers stopped by police for one vaguely matching the description of one of two robbers. One of them refused to put his phone away when the officer ordered him three times not to. At a § 1983 … Continue reading
ID: The state conceded the DL held too long, but taint was not purged, so suppression should have been granted
The trial court erred in denying defendant’s motion to suppress and in finding that the evidence was purged from the taint of an unlawful detention. The State conceded that an unlawful seizure occurred when the officer held onto defendant’s driver’s … Continue reading
USA Today: Column: Predictive policing violates more than it protects
USA Today: Column: Predictive policing violates more than it protects by William Isaac & Kristian Lum: System meant to alleviate police resources disproportionately targets minority communities, raises Fourth Amendment concerns.
W.D.Pa.: Even a closed email account adds nothing to a child porn staleness argument
Officers in the U.S. received information from Queensland, Australia that an Australian using a hotmail account had been emailing child pornography. One of those was in this district. By the time the search warrant was sought nine months later, the … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Protective sweep is different from search incident; search of trunk was excessive as a protective sweep
A protective sweep is different from a search incident and they are founded on different precepts. The search of the car interior was valid as a protective sweep, but the trunk was not. United States v. Cooks, 2016 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
MS: Delay for dog sniff doesn’t seem to matter in Mississippi if the dog is already there
The court holds essentially that it didn’t matter whether there was reasonable suspicion or not for a dog sniff after a traffic stop. Also, there’s no ineffective assistance claim to a forfeiture. In re One Hundred Thirtyseven Thousand Three Hundred … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Collective knowledge requires that the stopping officers have some knowledge of the reason for the stop
Collective knowledge doesn’t apply where the officers making the stop were not informed of what the DEA didn’t communicate. The stop was, however, valid based on traffic violations. The drug dog showed up while the main part of the traffic … Continue reading
NY: Shoplifting custodial arrest justified impoundment and towing of def’s car
Defendant drove to a store and was custodially arrested there for shoplifting. Towing and inventory of his vehicle off their parking lot was reasonable. A valid inventory followed. People v. Tardi, 2016 NY Slip Op 07822, 2016 N.Y. LEXIS 3535 … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Finding NYPD officers were “embroidering the truth” about their RS, court finds it elsewhere
The court finds reasonable suspicion for a stop and frisk but not on the grounds offered – the officers were “embroidering the truth” about an alleged parking violation and the smell of marijuana. United States v. Levy, 2016 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
FL2: 12 year old accosted for no reason didn’t voluntarily consent
Police searched two 12 year old boys playing in the grassy common area of their mobile home park. Their alleged consent was involuntary because of their young age and no reason to accost them in the first place. Marijuana was … Continue reading
WV: Protective weapons search of def’s pants on ground while EMTs treating him was reasonable
Defendant had been patted down and nothing was found, but he was wounded and EMTs were there. His pants were removed, and he was being treated. Before the ambulance took him away, he asked for his pants and the officer … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Def’s move with arm made officer grab his arm and then saw a holster; that’s RS
When defendant made a move with his arm, the officer could grab his arm for officer safety. That resulted in the officer seeing a holster and that justified a full search of the person. Ultimately, it was justified as incident … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Welfare check of def in car led to opening door and smelling MJ, and that’s PC
“But even if the police lacked probable cause to search the van immediately upon discovering it, the undersigned concludes that Officer Yadlosky was justified in opening the van door to check on the welfare of the occupant inside. Once the … Continue reading
OH11: Trial court’s finding of no RS to delay the stop was clearly erroneous
The trial court’s finding that the officer delayed the stop without reasonable suspicion is clearly erroneous because the record does not support the finding. State v. Taylor, 2016-Ohio-7745, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS 4613 (11th Dist. Nov. 14, 2016):