September 2026 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Archives
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Recent Posts
- WaPo: Americans have turned against police cameras that track license plates, new survey shows
- W.D.Tex.: What is the duty of the neutral and detached magistrate?
- D.Me.: Yes, more investigation could have been done, but there’s still PC on what there was
- CA3: Brady doesn’t apply to SW materials
- E.D.Mich.: Person a cell phone was given to as gift could consent to search
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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
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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)
--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (2012)
ACLU on privacy
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Section 1983 Blog -
"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
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
W.D.N.Y.: Smell of MJ on one in car doesn’t justify search of other two
Where the smell of marijuana came from one person in a car of three, searching all three was unreasonable. United States v. Brock, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90990 (W.D.N.Y. July 12, 2016):
CA6: Qualified immunity given for use of victim in aiding document search
In a § 1983 case over an insurance billing search warrant executed with the aid of BCBS to help identify records, the court finds the officers are entitled to qualified immunity. There was no showing that the non-law enforcement assistance … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: CSLI is but third party information, following almost every other court
Defendant challenges CSLI and concedes four circuits have held it’s third party information. That’s the holding of the court. United States v. Elima, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 87588 (C.D.Cal. June 22, 2016).* Officers entering defendant’s curtilage after following him home … Continue reading
GA: Unconscious defendant doesn’t get the implied consent notice
Unconscious defendant doesn’t get the implied consent notice. Bailey v. State, 2016 Ga. App. LEXIS 433 (July 13, 2016).* The officer here had reasonable suspicion to stop defendant’s car after it left a motel with a man and woman inside, … Continue reading
AZ: Smell of marijuana from a car in a MMJ state is RS without indication it is really just MMJ
“Here we consider whether the odor of marijuana suffices to establish probable cause for issuance of a search warrant, given the adoption of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act (AMMA), A.R.S. §§ 36-2801 through 2819. We hold that it does, unless … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Collective knowledge doesn’t require any one of them to know everything they collectively know
There was reasonable suspicion for the stop, which the defense didn’t seriously contest. What they did contest was collective knowledge, and that doctrine does not require that each officer know what the others know. United States v. Johnson, 2016 U.S. … Continue reading
WI: Air fresheners on every vent in a high crime area with tinted windows was RS
Air fresheners on every vent of the air conditioning and being in a high crime area with tinted windows was reasonable suspicion of possession of drugs, but it’s a close call. Defendant voluntarily consented to the search of his car … Continue reading