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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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--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
TN: Blood on def’s sock supported PC for automobile exception
Based on blood on defendant’s sock, on the totality there was probable cause to believe that more possible blood evidence would be found in his car. That was sufficient for the automobile exception to apply. State v. Peden, 2016 Tenn. … Continue reading
The Hill Blog: Open-carry opens up series of constitutional issues for cops
The Hill Blog: Open-carry opens up series of constitutional issues for cops by Geoffrey Corn: A police officer receives a dispatch call to a public disturbance. The dispatcher provides the limited information she can: protesters have assembled in a downtown … Continue reading
AL: Forfeiture claimant failed to show standing to contest the search that led to seizure of his cash
Defendant for all appearances was visiting the house searched but not an overnight guest. At any rate, he did nothing to show standing. When asked for consent, defendant refused saying it wasn’t his place, but he took the officers inside … Continue reading
TX: Anonymous tip was corroborated at the scene by officers for RS
An anonymous tip brought police to where defendant was, and their observations corroborated the tip sufficient to support reasonable suspicion. Furr v. State, 2016 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1094 (Sept. 21, 2016) (dissent):
Common Dreams: Does Fear of Black Men Satisfy the “Objective Reasonableness” Standard?
Common Dreams: Does Fear of Black Men Satisfy the “Objective Reasonableness” Standard? by Brian Purnell: The case that set the standard on when police officers are justified in using excessive force is Graham v. Connor. But how that standard is … Continue reading
MA: Def’s landlord’s statements were independent of any illegal entry, and they supported PC for SW
Statements from the owner of defendant’s house which made it into the search warrant application and were made after the alleged illegal entry by the police were an independent source. Thus, the motion judge properly denied the motion to suppress … Continue reading
ND: When suspect lives in house and drug paraphernalia out, it’s not “mere presence” for his detention
When drug paraphernalia is present and in plain view, detaining all present is not a detention for “mere presence.” Moreover, defendant stayed there. State v. Schmidt, 2016 ND 187, 2016 N.D. LEXIS 177 (Sept. 15, 2016). Defendant’s stop on Ft. … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: 20 minutes to write a warning (8 min) and wait for drug dog (12 min) was reasonable
Thirty minutes total time from the stop until the dog sniff finished was reasonable in this case. By the time the dog was called for, only 18 minutes had elapsed, and 8 was used on the warning ticket. [Doing what, … Continue reading
LA1: High crime area at night, furtive and evasive movements, and nervousness when encountering the officer was RS
High crime area at night, furtive and evasive movements, and nervousness when encountering the officer added up to reasonable suspicion. State v. Barnes, 2016 La. App. LEXIS 1669 (La.App. 1 Cir. Sept. 16, 2016):
M.D.Fla.: Def’s lie about his criminal history apparently justified RS for drug dog
Defendant’s stop was briefly extended for a drug dog, but about the only thing that remotely justifies it is the fact defendant’s criminal history came back considerably worse than defendant admitted to the officer when first asked. United States v. … Continue reading
GA: When evidence at suppression hearing is uncontroverted, whole suppression issue is reviewed de novo
“When the evidence at a suppression hearing is uncontroverted and the credibility of witnesses is not in question, we conduct a de novo review of the trial court’s application of the law to the undisputed facts.” The state did not … Continue reading
IA: LEO had PC to arrest for parole violation when PO related violations and requested arrest
A police officer encountered defendant at a trailer park and found out he was on parole. Defendant gave his PO’s name, and the officer called. The PO said that defendant has missed meetings and failed a drug test and they … Continue reading
W.D.N.C.: Evasive behavior is a factor in RS
“Courts may consider a suspect’s evasive behavior in analyzing the existence of reasonable suspicion to believe that an individual is armed and dangerous.” United States v. Truesdale, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 119967 (W.D.N.C. Sept. 2, 2016). The officer had reasonable … Continue reading
PA: GSR could be collected under search incident doctrine
Removal of gunshot residue from defendant’s hands was valid under search incident doctrine. McNeely didn’t apply. Commonwealth v. Simonson, 2016 PA Super 207, 2016 Pa. Super. LEXIS 527 (Sept. 12, 2016). “Nonetheless, other facts support a finding of reasonable suspicion. … Continue reading
CA3: Officers did not ignore plainly exculpatory evidence in seeking a warrant for defendant’s arrest; QI applies
Plaintiff sued for false imprisonment based on his arrest held without probable cause by the state court. The district court denied qualified immunity, and the officers appealed. The officers did not ignore plainly exculpatory evidence, and, on the whole, there … Continue reading
DE: Nervousness alone isn’t RS to extend a stop
Defendant’s motion to suppress is granted. About all the officer could show was that defendant was nervous, and that’s not reasonable suspicion to extend this stop. The questioning of defendant about his travel plans wasn’t any aid to the state … Continue reading
Four on traffic stops
Defendant’s consent was voluntary although she had just driven 24 hours straight and she was not informed that she could refuse consent, given her age, education, and the short questioning period. The traffic stop of defendants was not improperly prolonged … Continue reading
OH8: Video belied testimony about stop; suppression should have been granted
The trooper testified that defendant swerved within lanes, but it was not supported by the video and defendant wasn’t even cited for that. Thus, the motion to suppress should have been granted. City of Cleveland v. Shevchenko, 2016-Ohio-5711, 2016 Ohio … Continue reading