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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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)
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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
M.D.Fla.: Email SWs are almost never stale; the email is always there
Staleness as to an email search warrant is hard to prove. It’s always going to be on the email provider’s server. United States v. Khateeb, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 143007 (M.D.Fla. Aug. 4, 2015). Defense counsel was not ineffective for … Continue reading
FL3: Neighbor’s call of a broken back window brought police who suspected burglary; entry was justified
Defendant’s neighbor called the police because of a broken back window strongly suggesting a burglary. An officer arrived with a dog, and when no one answered, he sent in the dog. Following the dog, no people were found but the … Continue reading
C.D.Ill.: Before and after a CI does a controlled buy, there is no constitutional requirement that the CI be subjected to a body cavity search
Before and after a CI does a controlled buy, there is no constitutional requirement that the CI be subjected to a body cavity search. United States v. Sidwell, 440 F.3d 865, 869 (7th Cir. 2006); United States v. Garcia, 983 … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Burner phone and being from town of Sinaloa Drug Cartel were factors in reasonable suspicion
“Deputy Jimerson is trained in drug interdiction and has previously testified as an expert witness on interdiction. During the stop, he saw the defendants were speaking on Tracfones when he approached the car, which he knows to be commonly used … Continue reading
D.R.I.: Receiving three packages from China over time was not probable cause
Defendant received three packages over time from China and the Postal Inspector admitted there was no probable cause after receipt of the second, and the court finds there wasn’t for the third either. China may be an exporter of controlled … Continue reading
VI: Vehicle matching description of car in robbery fleeing and crashing into police car is PC for stop
Officers had probable cause to stop defendant’s vehicle as being involved in a robbery. They set up a “choke point” on the flight route away and saw the vehicle, and the driver fled from multiple attempts to stop it. Then … Continue reading
OH7: Burning MJ coming from an apartment is a misdemeanor and not sufficient exigency to enter
Police answered a loud music call at 5 am in an apartment building, and they could smell burning marijuana outside defendant’s apartment door. Burning marijuana is a misdemeanor and not sufficient exigency for a police entry. A 1995 Ohio case … Continue reading
D.Conn.: Police entry into public bar area clearly within Fourth Amendment; customers have no right to have sex in public
The Fourth Amendment claim that police entered the bar area of the plaintiff’s business because of police calls fails because it was open to the public. The selective enforcement claim fails on the facts. There is no First Amendment right … Continue reading
IL: A forced chemical test of the blood two days after an accident was after the reduced REP of a driver had lapsed
A chemical test of appellant’s blood violated the Fourth Amendment because the police sought a chemical test two days after the car accident when plaintiff no longer had a diminished expectation of privacy. McElwain v. Office of the Ill. Secy. … Continue reading
D.Idaho: Dog on scene in 6 minutes meant no “delay”
The dog arrived within six minutes and conducted a free air sniff around the vehicle, all within the time of the original stop so delay [Rodriguez] is not an issue. United States v. McNabb, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 127020 (D.Idaho … Continue reading
ID: Exclusionary rule doesn’t apply to DL suspension
The exclusionary rule doesn’t apply to administrative license suspensions for driving under the influence. Bobeck v. Idaho Transp. Dep’t, 2015 Ida. App. LEXIS 86 (September 24, 2015). Defendant was stopped for speeding, but he couldn’t answer basic question about much … Continue reading
MA: Because possession of MJ is a civil infraction, the smell of burnt MJ in a car isn’t probable cause to search the car where there was no showing of need to protect highway safety
“A District Court judge erred in denying the criminal defendant’s pretrial motion to suppress evidence of controlled substances that a police officer discovered after having stopped the defendant’s motor vehicle following the detection of an odor of burnt marijuana coming … Continue reading
CA5: No RS for stopping an older just licensed car on I-10
Defendant’s traffic stop was based on the fact his older vehicle had just been registered and he was driving between Houston and San Antonio. The officer found a 14 year old drug arrest. It should have been apparent that defendant … Continue reading
DE: Reasonable to order all passengers out during a stop of the car and show IDs
It is reasonable during a traffic stop to order all the passengers out of a car and ask for their IDs and this is not a seizure beyond the initial traffic stop itself. Reasonable suspicion developed after that for a … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: BOLO not PC, but it is RS; because of gun in car, it was reasonable to handcuff
No case says that a BOLO alone is probable cause, and the collective knowledge must still be considered. In this case, the collective knowledge did not provide probable cause. While the officer had the subjective intent to arrest defendant, that’s … Continue reading
IL: Refusal of consent to a parole search is a violation of parole conditions in itself
Under Illinois law, refusal of consent to a parole search is a violation of parole conditions in itself. That did not make the consent invalid. The court was entitled to believe he consented knowing that he had 800 g of … Continue reading
VT: 1:30 am encounter with sleeping def in car in rest area by two officers required reasonable suspicion
Defendant was asleep in his girlfriend’s car in a rest area on I-91 in Vermont at 1 am. A state trooper ran LPNs in the parking lot and saw that the DL of the female owner of the car was … Continue reading