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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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
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)
ACLU on privacy
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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)
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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
CA11: 911 DV call led to entry and plain view of identify theft
Officers received a frantic domestic abuse call with an allegation of injury. They “authoritatively knocked on the door” and it was opened, and they could smell burning marijuana. They came in to the living room only, and evidence of identity … Continue reading
ID: A parole officer can direct a police officer to conduct a parole search
A parole officer can direct the police to conduct a parole search. Also, one cannot argue on appeal that which was not presented to the trial court, here a state constitutional argument against the search. Nevertheless, it is rejected on … Continue reading
OH: Single trash pull that corroborated CI’s story was PC
“Using the totality-of-the-circumstances test in this case, we hold that the evidence seized from a single trash pull that corroborates tips and background information involving drug activity is sufficient to establish probable cause for a warrant.” State v. Jones, 2015-Ohio-483, … Continue reading
LA5 & DE: Search issue resolved in prior appeal was law of the case
Without using the words “law of the case” or “res judicata,” the court declines to overturn a motion to suppress that had been litigated in a prior appeal in the same case. State v. Stipe, 2015 La. App. LEXIS 251 … Continue reading
IA: Citizen’s report of a traffic offense occurring two days earlier can’t support a stop
A citizen’s report of a traffic offense occurring two days earlier did not support defendant’s stop. It’s not even reasonable suspicion. State v. Medrano, 2015 Iowa App. LEXIS 94 (February 11, 2015): If given the opportunity to address the issue, … Continue reading
OH6: DNA at crime scene matched to def via CODIS, and that justified SW for more to confirm
A cigarette butt at the crime scene had defendant’s DNA on it according to CODIS, and that supported a search warrant for defendant for confirmatory DNA. State v. Williams, 2015-Ohio-405, 2015 Ohio App. LEXIS 375 (6th Dist. January 30, 2015). … Continue reading
VA: Stop for parking pass hanging on mirror was objectively reasonable; subjective intent irrelevant
It was objectively reasonable for the officer here to stop the defendant for a parking pass hanging from the mirror which could have obstructed the driver’s view. Here, the driver was subjected to a consensual patdown for weapons that led … Continue reading
OH6: 25 minute detention waiting for drug dog unreasonable; def had a right to refuse consent and was nervous, and that’s not enough
Defendant was validly stopped for a license plate sticker violation, but his detention for 25 minutes for a drug dog to arrive was without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. He refused to consent to a search of his car and he … Continue reading
IL: Stop of man walking on median of divided highway justified by community caretaking function
Defendant’s stop was based on the community caretaking function because he was walking on the median of a divided highway approaching evening on a hot summer day and there was no apparent reason for that. His conviction of resisting, however, … Continue reading
W.D.Tenn.: Summers doesn’t prohibit a search of a defendant near execution of a search warrant when there is probable cause for search of person
Summers doesn’t prohibit a search of a defendant near execution of a search warrant when there is probable cause for a search of his person. United States v. Matlock, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 181607 (W.D.Tenn. October 24, 2014). Defendant was … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Ignoring a Border Patrol officer near the border is a factor in reasonable suspicion of alien smuggling
Ignoring a Border Patrol officer near the border is a factor in reasonable suspicion of alien smuggling. United States v. Juarez-Olmedo, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12167 (S.D.Tex. February 3, 2015). The officer was responding to a shots fired call at … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: There was reasonable suspicion for a slight delay of an Express Mail package
“In what has become a large line of cases, a number of federal circuits have found that a combination of similar factors created reasonable suspicion to seize a package. The Court has no problem finding reasonable suspicion based solely on … Continue reading
NC: Where def’s front door obviously wasn’t used, it was reasonable to go to nearest side door for knock-and-talk; MJ in plain view
Officers came to defendant’s house to do a knock-and-talk based on reports he was growing marijuana. The front door was covered in plastic and appeared to have furniture blocking it, so they went to the nearest door, on the side … Continue reading
D.V.I.: “Casing” the premises from the street as a prelude to a knock-and-talk does not violate the curtilage
“Casing” the premises from the street as a prelude to a knock-and-talk does not violate the curtilage. United States v. Lubrin, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9682 (D.V.I. January 28, 2015). The officer had reasonable suspicion to continue the detention on … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Michigan v. Summers applies to homes, not businesses
ICE raided and executed a search warrant on Soccer City in Albuquerque because of suspicion the operators were selling fake IDs. Defendant walked in carrying a box and he was accosted by the ICE agents and asked for his ID, … Continue reading
CA8: Stop of the wrong person on reasonable but mistaken belief not suppressed
Based on an informant’s story, the police were looking for Barefield in a particular car. They happened upon defendant Patrick at the appointed time and place near the informant in a car matching the description. A reasonable but mistaken belief … Continue reading
MS: Throwing down car keys and running away from a car is abandonment
Throwing down car keys and running away from a car is abandonment. Green v. State, 2015 Miss. App. LEXIS 29 (January 20, 2015). In executing a search warrant for stolen goods on the premises of a convicted felon, the finding … Continue reading