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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)
--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
OR: Going into pocket after patdown unreasonable; no articulation of anything being a weapon
Defendant consented to a patdown, and the officer exceeded the scope of the patdown by going into the pocket. He felt something, but he didn’t articulate that it could be a weapon. The officer’s general observations about drug dealers didn’t … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Lack of full detail and minor discrepancies from reports didn’t make officers unbelievable
In a Bronx stop and frisk, the fact that the four NYPD Stop, Question and Frisk Report Worksheets for each person frisked didn’t have the detail of the officers’ hearing testimony or resulted in minor discrepancies doesn’t make them unbelievable. … Continue reading
TX9: RS for a stop supported defendant’s fleeing charge
The officer had reasonable suspicion to stop defendant for domestic assault, so defendant’s flight was an offense. Rodriguez v. State, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 8494 (Tex. App. – Amarillo Aug. 8, 2016). Plaintiffs in a civil case sought search warrant … Continue reading
TN: Community caretaking function stop at least requires a factual basis
Two vehicles were stopped on the side of the highway and the driver of one was looking at the back of his truck. Then they started to leave and the officer stopped them. There was no reasonable suspicion for defendant’s … Continue reading
CA8: Apparent hidden compartment under trunk raised RS to PC
Defendant consented to a search of his car during a stop because of something dragging under the car. He was asked because he was nervous. In the trunk, the officer noticed the carpet was glued down, and that indicated to … Continue reading
KS: Search incident does require actual proof of threat to officer safety, just a reasonable belief it’s a risk
To invoke the search incident doctrine, “the State need not prove that the officer’s safety was actually in jeopardy or that the officer believed his or her safety was in jeopardy before the officer has authority to seize personal property … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Prior drug arrest, nervousness and driving from CA to MN not reasonable suspicion
“The government argues that three articulable factors support a finding that Detective Schaffner had reasonable suspicion to prolong the stop. First, the government points to the fact that Garcia’s records check revealed two narcotics-related arrests in the past year. Second, … Continue reading
DE: Officer had RS for stop when he recognized def in security video committing robbery
An officer reviewed a security video of a robbery, and he believed defendant was one of the robbers. “The Officers, thus, decided to try and identify Defendant through what they termed a ‘casual’ or ‘soft encounter,’ meaning that Defendant could … Continue reading
TX9: Officer’s learning def had been arrested 8 days earlier for drugs added to facts for RS
Defendant’s stop was valid because his license plate bracket covered half the letters in the state name [despite that it was obvious which state issued the license plate]. It was properly continued because the officer learned that defendant had been … Continue reading
IN: Essentially: police may use a drug dog during any traffic stop if they don’t extend it by the sniff
While one officer wrote out a warning for a window tint violation, another asked for consent to search and was refused. While the normal routine of the warning citation was being followed, another officer ran a drug dog around the … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Dashcam video showed officer slow walked the citation to add time for the drug dog; no RS for the delay
It was apparent from the video that the officer slow walked the citation to give more time to the drug dog to get there and do its job. Selective muting of the audio at the time by the officer also … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Losing sight of the def for a few minutes didn’t dissipate the RS
The officer had reasonable suspicion on the totality, and it doesn’t dissipate just because the officer lost sight of defendant for a little while. United States v. Williams, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94514 (E.D.N.C. June 2, 2016),* adopted, 2016 U.S. … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Detailed tip about def coupled with seeing bulge of a gun was RS
Aside from the detailed tip the police had about defendant, the officer saw the bulge of a gun, and that was reasonable suspicion. United States v. Bridges, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 95367 (E.D.Mich. July 21, 2016).* Defendant’s patdown at the … Continue reading
Miami Herald: He was arrested for meth, but the crumbs in his car were Krispy Kreme doughnut glaze
Miami Herald: He was arrested for meth, but the crumbs in his car were Krispy Kreme doughnut glaze by Alex Harris: Daniel Rushing was arrested, charged with possession with a weapon, strip-searched and jailed in December. The 64-year-old Orlando man … Continue reading
CA8: Car in abandoned car wash bay in high crime area in middle of night occupied by a known criminal was RS
The officer here came upon a car parked in an empty car wash bay in the middle of the night in a high crime area. When he saw and recognized defendant, to him a known criminal, he had reasonable suspicion … Continue reading
WA: Fisherman being ticketed for snagging fish asked about gun in car was not subject to protective weapons search
“Law enforcement need not obtain a warrant prior to conducting a protective vehicle search, so long as there is reasonable suspicion a suspect is dangerous and may gain immediate control of weapons. We are confronted with whether a suspect’s potential … Continue reading
MO: Officers serving arrest warrant found a house full of gas from a working meth lab and could enter
Officers came to defendant’s house to arrest him on a warrant. When the door was open, there was a cloud of smoke that smelled like a working meth lab. One officer left to get a warrant. Another opened doors to … Continue reading
NM: Two stops of def in quick succession; second valid because of new facts
Two stops of defendant towing a van a couple of minutes apart were separately justified. The second stop was based on the owner of the van saying that defendant took it from him, but that was only to a second … Continue reading
OH8: No citation after stop on RS isn’t fatal to state’s case
The officers had reasonable suspicion to stop defendant on a bicycle for no reflectors and riding on the sideway. The fact they didn’t issue a citation isn’t fatal to the state’s case. In re D.E., 2016-Ohio-4959, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS … Continue reading