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
-
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
-
-
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
D.Minn.: Generic motion to suppress without factual or legal argument could be denied on that basis alone
“Defendant’s written motion to suppress the results of the search and seizure is brief, generic, and devoid of factual or legal argument specifically addressing the search warrant at issue now before the Court. Because Defendant has offered no sufficiently specific … Continue reading
IA: That it was “strange” a car was parked with lights on on side of road wasn’t RS for a stop
Defendant’s car was parked on the side of the road as the officer passed from the other direction. He thought it strange, so he turned around and came back. After he pulled up behind the car, off the pavement, the … Continue reading
AR: Investigating pot smell at motel, officers encountered man who reeked of marijuana; stop reasonable
Officers received a call from a motel complaining of the smell of marijuana. Walking up the stairs, they encountered defendant coming down the stairs who reeked of marijuana and stopped him, asked about marijuana, and he produced a bag from … Continue reading
IL: Stop in vicinity of home invasion 3½ hrs after it happened was with reasonable suspicion
Defendant’s stop 3½ hours after and in the vicinity of a home invasion robbery that occurred at 12:30 am was with reasonable suspicion under Terry. Officers had a missing suspect in the robbery and canvassed the area. They “loosened up” … Continue reading
WA: Leaving cell phone fleeing from a stolen car was abandonment; no SW required for abandoned property
Defendant was seen in a stolen car and the police gave chase. He bailed from the car and ran, leaving his cell phone behind. The cell phone was abandoned property, and it could be searched without a warrant. Here, the … Continue reading
LA4: No procedure to reopen a motion to suppress after the verdict
No motion to suppress had been filed, so the appellate court doesn’t consider it. There’s also no procedure to reopen a motion to suppress after the verdict. State v. Marx, 2015 La. App. LEXIS 435 (La.App. 4 Cir. March 4, … Continue reading
LA3: “There simply is no ‘check-em-out’ exception to” the Fourth Amendment
Plaintiff, in a church uniform with two other women, was stopped by a city police officer at before 6 am going to work at a church, simply because she turned down the road toward the church and the officer was … Continue reading
OH9: Hearing shots fired and seeing only vehicle in vicinity justified stop
Officers on patrol and parked at 2:40 am heard shots fired, and they headed in that direction. In a block, they saw a Yukon heading toward them driving slowly. There were no other vehicles or pedestrians around. They turned around … Continue reading
NE deals with this issue for the first time: Handcuffs do not automatically convert a stop on reasonable suspicion into an arrest
In Nebraska’s first case on the issue: Handcuffs do not automatically convert a stop on reasonable suspicion into an arrest. State v. Wells, 290 Neb. 186, 2015 Neb. LEXIS 34 (February 20, 2015):
N.D.N.Y.: Facially deficient motion to suppress is rejected on the merits
Defendant’s motion to suppress evidence and statements is deficient in what it alleges, so the court goes with the government’s version and denies the motion. United States v. Aleem, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 182475 (N.D.N.Y. April 30, 2014). Officers had … Continue reading
TN: Matching description of robber and being near stolen phone located by its find phone app was RS
A stolen phone’s locator app led the police to defendant, and he matched the description of the robber so there was reasonable suspicion. State v. Sykes, 2015 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 132 (February 25, 2015). Defendant was staying at an … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: The collective knowledge rule applies to traffic stops on reasonable suspicion
The collective knowledge rule applies to traffic stops on reasonable suspicion. Questioning while defendant is rummaging around for this papers does not extend the stop. United States v. Saldana, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23850 (W.D.Tex. February 27, 2015). The argument … Continue reading
D.Alaska: Seizure of a video recording from a child’s bedroom during a drug search warrant was an overseizure and suppressed
The protective sweep of the house before actual arrival of the search warrant was valid because an additional person stuck a head out the window when the officers first knocked, and they had to be sure there wasn’t another. [Since … Continue reading
W.D.La.: License plate reader results became a factor in RS analysis
In an alien smuggling case, aside from all the normal factors of nervousness and not knowing the passenger’s names who had no luggage who he professed were friends, one factor in the reasonable suspicion in this case was the police … Continue reading
GA: Search of passenger’s purse in restaurant, after driver and she walked inside, for saying she didn’t know where he was was unreasonable
The officer here ran the tags of a truck and determined that the owner was wanted. By the time he was ready to make the stop, the driver and passenger had stopped and were walking into a restaurant. He came … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Govt failed to show defendant was aware of conditions of probation for probation search
Defendant was arrested for something after he was put on probation in state court but before the formal sentencing order and written conditions were completed. The government failed to show that defendant was aware of his conditions of probation that … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Two cell phones and air freshener not RS; 14 min additional wait for dog unreasonable
There was no reasonable suspicion for a continued detention, and the 14 minute additional wait after defendant was free to leave was unreasonable. United States v. Thompson, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20838 (D.Neb. January 13, 2015). As to reasonable suspicion: … Continue reading
N.D.Tex.: Three factors combined with potentially innocent factors were still RS
Of all the factors for reasonable suspicion offered by the government, several are rejected individually, but three here were enough on the totality with the others. Piecemeal consideration of factors is impermissible under Arvizu. “Of the factors listed, three factors … Continue reading