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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
OH3: Citizen informant reliable per se; dispatcher doesn’t need to be called at suppression hearing
“Unlike Navarette, this case presents an identified citizen informant, who, according to Weisner, is credited with greater reliability.” It also wasn’t necessary to call the police dispatcher at the suppression hearing. State v. Hancock, 2016-Ohio-2671, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS 1544 … Continue reading
CA4: Officer had more than just criminal history for RS here; high-crime area, and gang affiliation were important
The officer had more than just criminal history to find reasonable suspicion to extend the stop. “Significantly, Officer Ring learned, early in the traffic stop, that Palmer was a suspected member of the Bounty Hunter Bloods. Ring knew that the … Continue reading
FL3: “Nervous and evasive behavior” justified patdown for weapons; once def discarded drugs, whole search could occur
The officer had reasonable suspicion to pat defendant down because of his “nervous and evasive behavior” when talking to the officer. While the patdown was excessive if looking for a weapon, defendant discarded drugs, too, and that made a more … Continue reading
M.D.Ga.: CI’s tip had sufficient detail with sufficient corroboration to be RS
“Although Cartwright does not appear to challenge the CI’s basis of knowledge for the tip, it is a factor that is considered in the reliability analysis. … Even so, that fact, considered alongside the other substantial factors, leads to the … Continue reading
M.D.Ga.: Anticipatory warrant’s condition clearly occurred so search valid
The triggering condition in the anticipatory warrant clearly occurred, and the warrant was timely executed. United States v. Bright, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51979 (M.D.Ga. April 19, 2016).* Aside from other indicators of driving under the influence defendant consumed a … Continue reading
OR: Past drug use isn’t reasonable suspicion now
The officer here based his claim of reasonable suspicion to continue the detention on defendant’s past drug conviction. That alone is not reasonable suspicion. Even new syringes in the door pocket didn’t add to it. State v. Oller, 277 Ore. … Continue reading
LA2: GFE applies to GPS nearly two years before Jones; here, def fled and abandoned car
A GPS tracker was placed on defendant’s vehicle nearly two years before Jones, and he’d been under investigation for more than a year prior to that. Davis good faith would apply to the tracking, but that’s really not important: On … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Collective knowledge doctrine applies to RS under Rodriguez
The collective knowledge doctrine supports the extension of defendant’s stop beyond the normal part of a traffic stop incident to its purpose under Rodriguez. The DEA had additional information that added up to reasonable suspicion, almost probable cause. United States … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: There was RS a package contained drugs to pull it out of the flow of mail for more inspection
The facts on this package in the mail gave reasonable suspicion to pull it out of the stream of mail for a further inspection. “The affidavit sworn to by Springer contains many of the same indices giving rise to reasonable … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Only one of three officers saw gun under streetlight; credibility here goes to the officer and why
Three officers were on patrol and only one saw defendant allegedly remove a chrome gun from one pocket and the glint of a streetlight off the gun. Defendant provided an affidavit that he never pulled the gun out, but he … Continue reading
D.Vt.: False name during traffic stop is RS for longer detention
Officer’s reasonable belief driver gave false name is reasonable suspicion to continue a stop. United States v. Marsh, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47995 (D.Vt. April 7, 2016). Defendant challenged the search warrant because it included information that was allegedly obtained … Continue reading
CA7: Refusal to remove hands and then keeping one side of body away from officer was RS
Defendant’s repeated refusals to keep both hands out of his pockets and turning to keep one side away from the officer was reasonable suspicion he was armed. United States v. Mays, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 6552 (7th Cir. April 11, … Continue reading
OR: Possession of a long gun in the woods doesn’t justify a stop and frisk for another weapon without RS
A Forest Service officer came upon defendant and others probably target shooting with rifles. He told them to secure the weapons and they did. Defendant was completely cooperative and nothing suggested that he was otherwise armed. One long gun doesn’t … Continue reading
NE: “Stop” of already stopped car as witness to possible DWI was reasonable on totality
Defendant was already stopped behind a car that the police suspected the driver of drunk driving because of knocked down traffic cones. The officer recognized defendant as a city employee, but he wanted to talk to him because he wanted … Continue reading
CA3: Handle of a gun satisfies “immediately apparent” requirement of plain view
Defendant was stopped because the officer already knew that defendant was driving without a license. The search of the car was justified by the handle of a gun being in plain view sticking out from under the seat, and it … Continue reading
FL5: Pre-McNeely warrantless blood draw saved by GFE
A pre-McNeely warrantless blood draw was unconstitutional now but saved by the good faith exception because it was valid at the time it happened. State v. Liles, 2016 Fla. App. LEXIS 5427 (Fla. 5th DCA April 8, 2016). Arguing over … Continue reading
FL5: Def showed standing in duffle bag in car he was a passenger in
The trial court denied the motion to suppress without a hearing, and the state concedes error. Defendant showed enough standing in at least the search of his own bag in the car to get a hearing on the legality of … Continue reading
D.Md.: Rodriguez was not a new rule of law so def was on notice of the issue through Caballes
Defendant’s search was in 2011, and he raised Rodriguez in his 2255. First, it’s denied because defendant was on notice of the issue because it said it merely applied Caballes. [Also, it was overturning the Eighth Circuit’s de minimus rule … Continue reading