Archives
-
Recent Posts
- S.D.Fla.: SW for def’s house included his tent outside
- 404 Media: Flock: LAPD Regularly Pulled Over Innocent People Because License Plate Readers Flagged Their Cars As Stolen
- 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
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
-
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
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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)
-
“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
W.D.Tex.: Lack of an arrest warrant does not mean they didn’t have probable cause
Officers had probable cause to arrest defendant for child pornography before the search warrant was executed on his place. The lack of an arrest warrant does not mean they didn’t have probable cause. United States v. Ruiz, 2014 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
DC: Persistent questioning for ten minutes without RS was a seizure
Officers entered an apartment building hallway in SE Washington, and the smell of burnt marijuana was pervasive. They’d seen that before in the same building. None of the four they encountered, however, were seen smoking. Defendant was questioned persistently about … Continue reading
CA7: Violation of state time limit for sheriff’s eviction didn’t state a Fourth Amendment claim
Plaintiff’s eviction by sheriff’s deputies took more time than state law allowed, and it was delayed, in part, by the presence of a skunk. He abandoned lots of stuff on the property, and it wasn’t possible to get it all … Continue reading
CA5: Air fresheners and odd responses to basic questions were enough for reasonable suspicion
Air fresheners and odd responses to basic questions were reasonable suspicion, and the court declines to get into analysis of the other factors. The initial stop was for going 2 mph over the limit. United States v. Peña-Gonzalez, 2015 U.S. … Continue reading
CA10: Stop for riding a bicycle without light unreasonably extended; search of backpack suppressed
Defendant was stopped for riding an unlighted bicycle across the street at night in the middle of the block. Once stopped, the officer questioned him about his backpack and secured an admission he was armed. The questioning was unreasonable and … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Officer’s failure to note everything in car didn’t undermine claim of inventory nor show pretext for search
The court credits the officer’s testimony about the purpose of the search of defendant’s car to be inventory. He made notes of the items found but not all made it into official reports. The court credits this was an innocent … Continue reading
AK: Slightly changing search incident argument on appeal and including Gant was changing the issue
Defendant raised a search incident claim about his arrest: “(1) the toiletry bag was not “immediately associated” with his person, and because (2) the search of the bag was not sufficiently contemporaneous with his arrest.” On appeal, however, he raised … Continue reading
OR Const. doesn’t permit weapons inquiry to jaywalker without RS
Oregon Constitution does not permit an officer to inquire of a jaywalking suspect whether he is armed without some reasonable suspicion. State v. Jimenez, 357 Ore. 417, 2015 Ore. LEXIS 441 (July 9, 2015):
CA2: A can in a brown paper bag justified a drinking in public stop; just because it might have been a soft drink isn’t determinative
The district court erred in suppressing a stop by a parole officer of a parolee walking down the street with an apparent beer can in a brown paper bag that concealed what it was. Just because it could have been … Continue reading
S.D.Ind.: One minute of furtive movements in a car before getting out during a stop was cause for a search of the car
Defendant drove .9 miles after police lights and the siren came on, and that was probable cause for evading a law enforcement officer and that was cause for a search of the car after defendant made furtive movements in the … Continue reading
NY3: Car on impound lot could be searched under automobile exception hours after the seizure where there was PC
The search of a car on a police impound lot hours after it was involved in an accident was proper under the automobile exception. People v. Hoffman, 2015 NY Slip Op 05976, 2015 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 5844 (3d Dept. … Continue reading
OR: “Right result, wrong reason” doctrine cannot apply to save a search where the defense wasn’t given a chance to litigate that ground below
“Right result, wrong reason” doctrine cannot apply to save a search where the defense wasn’t given a chance to litigate that ground below. State v. Booth, 272 Ore. App. 192 (July 8, 2015). Defendant was a gay man stopped by … Continue reading
OH11: Quarles public safety exception for firearms did not apply where def no threat
The Quarles public safety exception for firearms did not permit a search of defendant’s car for a gun. He was outside his car, said he had a conceal carry permit and the gun was in the console, and officers searched … Continue reading
HuffPo: Predicting Predictive Policing in NYC
HuffPo: Predicting Predictive Policing in NYC by Andrew Guthrie Ferguson: One year ago — almost to the day — I predicted that the New York Police Department (NYPD) would adopt predictive policing technologies to shift focus away from the challenged … Continue reading
IN: You can walk off from an officer talking to you where no RS
Defendant could not be convicted of resisting a law enforcement officer by walking off when the officer wanted to talk to him, absent reasonable suspicion. [But it kind of sounds like reasonable suspicion in the opinion.] Jones v. State, 2015 … Continue reading
D.Md.: McNeely doesn’t require a warrant for a breath test
Under the federal implied consent law, defendant consented to a BAC breath test. McNeely doesn’t require a warrant before a breath test. “Although a driver has a constitutional right not to be tested without a warrant or a valid warrant … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: Def made a colorable claim that his indictment was based on an illegal search, so he gets early discovery of GJ materials
Defendant made a colorable claim that his indictment was based on an illegal search. Therefore, he is entitled to early discovery of the grand jury transcripts in an effort to prove that despite Calandra. United States v. Patiutka, 2015 U.S. … Continue reading
OH10: Asking for DL of driver of parked car was a stop of everybody in the car
Defendant was in a parked car with others when the police pulled up. It became a stop of everybody in the car under Brendlin when the officer asked for ID, and there was no reasonable suspicion of any crime whatsoever. … Continue reading