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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
NC: Stop violated Rodriquez because def was frisked, put in patrol car, and extensive criminal history checks run
Defendant was stopped in a rental car for speeding and following too close, and the officer thought defendant’s breathing showed excessive nervousness. The officer got defendant out of the car and frisked him and had him get in the patrol … Continue reading
MO: Delay in resolving traffic stop was reasonable because of heavy radio traffic
The delay in getting basic information back on defendant was caused by heavy radio traffic at the time, and the officer didn’t unduly delay resolution of the stop. Defendant also consented. (This was reviewed under plain error for a failure … Continue reading
TN: Omitting one item from inventory on the SW return wasn’t a constitutional violation
One bullet was missing from the return on the warrant which wasn’t discovered until the defense brought it up at the suppression hearing, so the state amended the return. This isn’t a prejudicial error to void the search or keep … Continue reading
OR: Def’s touching pocket then officer seeing a knife was RS
The roadside conversation with defendant was not coercive. “The trial court found credible Haugen’s testimony that defendant was cooperative and engaged in easygoing conversation at this point.” She kept touching her pocket, and, once she moved, a knife was observed, … Continue reading
OR: Unspecified and unarticulated “equipment violation” isn’t reasonable suspicion
Officer’s testimony that there was an “equipment violation” as the basis for a stop that led to a drug dog didn’t support reasonable suspicion without articulating the violation. State v. Sexton, 278 Ore. App. 1, 2016 Ore. App. LEXIS 537 … Continue reading
CA9: There is no blanket “domestic violence” exception to Terry’s requirement for particularized suspicion
A domestic violence call doesn’t per se mean there is reasonable suspicion. The circumstances of the call have to be evaluated on arrival at the scene from all the circumstances. Thomas v. Dillard, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 8679 (9th Cir. … Continue reading
NC: Nervousness and having associated with a known drug dealer was not RS
Nervousness and having associated with a known drug dealer was not reasonable suspicion for continuing a stop. State v. Bedient, 2016 N.C. App. LEXIS 506 (May 3, 2016). Defense counsel’s affidavit in his 2255 showed that defendant didn’t want to … Continue reading
VA: Military base parking pass on rear view mirror justified traffic stop
An “opaque plastic parking pass for a nearby military facility, approximately 3″ by 5″ in size, suspended from the rear-view mirror mounting” was sufficiently obstructive of the driver’s view to justify a traffic stop. Mason v. Commonwealth, 2016 Va. LEXIS … Continue reading
AZ somehow finds RS from flight of “dangerous” companion to defendant doing nothing
Defendant was in a high crime area and his suspected “dangerous” companions fled. That left him doing nothing and he got frisked. Somehow, this is reasonable suspicion. State v. Primous, 2016 Ariz. App. LEXIS 77 (May 5, 2016). And this … Continue reading
VT: Stop was based on RS despite def’s good reason for the alleged violation
The officer had reasonable suspicion to stop defendant for not driving in his traffic lane despite defendant’s argument that he moved over because the glare of headlights in his mirrors was blinding him. That’s a defense to the charge but … Continue reading
MO: Def’s impending search was unreasonable, so his flight didn’t give further justification
Defendant was stopped for not having a front license plate on his car, although it was on the dash. At worst, this was an infraction. When defendant got out of the car, the officer could smell marijuana on him, and … Continue reading
IN: Walking into a house during a drug raid justifies a frisk
Defendant drove up to a house in the process of a drug raid. Eight people were in custody. Defendant was stopped when he got to the door, and he was frisked and a gun was found. The search was valid … Continue reading
WA: Reasonable suspicion there was a gun in car permitted a protective sweep of the car
Officers had reasonable suspicion there was a gun in defendant’s car, and they could make a limited sweep of a vehicle knowing that the vehicle is or shortly will be impounded and will be towed from the scene. State v. … Continue reading
IA: Once it was discovered that owner with suspended DL wasn’t driving car, officer could still ask for DL (noting conflicting authorities)
Defendant was stopped because the officer checked the LPN and saw that the female owner’s DL was suspended. Once he saw the driver was a man, the reasonable suspicion for the stop was immediately dispelled. Nevertheless, the court is constrained … Continue reading
GA: Cell phone search was harmless because of another legally searched phone
While defendant was being interviewed by the police, his cell phone was on the table getting text messages from “Head.” The officer opened the phone to see Head’s number. Whether the search of the phone was lawful or not doesn’t … Continue reading
W.D.La.: BOLO for a stop in an armed robbery case was not stale after 8 days
When defendant voluntarily stops his car and gets out to walk away, the police encounter after that is not a “traffic stop” governed by traffic stop rules. The stop was consensual, but officers did have reasonable suspicion defendant’s vehicle had … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: Def’s apparently grabbing a package launched over the border fence was RS
Border Patrol officers at Nogales watching over the border saw a launching device to throw bundles over the border fence, and they tried to see where the packages landed to round them up. Defendant was seen matching the description of … Continue reading