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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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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
D.Alaska: Stop of “white sedan” 3-4 blocks from shooting within seconds of report was RS; occupants’ description not required
The description of a car involved in a shooting doesn’t need to, and usually can’t, include a description of the occupants. Here, a radio report was put out about a white sedan being involved in a shooting at a particular … Continue reading
DE: No RS for this probation search based on unverified tip
Delaware requires that there be reasonable suspicion for a probation search. Here, a police officer passed on an unverified tip from an informant that defendant was selling drugs, and that was used for a home visit. Defendant had a couple … Continue reading
D.Minn.: There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in goods in a box opened for sale in a store
In a counterfeit sports jersey case, the defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a box he opened and put on the counter of a store to sell. United States v. Gore, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160497 (D. Minn. … Continue reading
GA: With rental car stops, looking at rental agreement is permitted
When a rental car is stopped for a traffic offense, the officer is permitted to inquire into whether the person driving is an authorized driver. In this case, from stop to finding cocaine with a drug dog because of vague … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Community caretaking entry must be objectively reasonable and still be wrong
Officers’ legitimate concerns that a person inside a house was in danger or restrained, although wrong, were reasonable, and that authorized an entry under the community caretaking function. The fact they were wrong doesn’t matter if their belief was reasonable. … Continue reading
CA11: Warrantless search of cell phone cured by later warrant on independent PC
The warrantless search of defendant’s cell phone had plenty of independent probable cause for later issuance of state and federal search warrants for it. “Additionally, the evidence relayed above was not obtained via any police misconduct but, rather, was obtained … Continue reading
OH: At the time the GPS was installed, SCOTUS authority at least “suggested” in Knotts and Karo that it was constitutional, and that’s good enough for government work
At the time the GPS was put on defendant’s car, SCOTUS authority at least “suggested” in Knotts and Karo, before GPS was even envisioned, that it was constitutional, and that’s good enough for government work. The Davis good faith exception … Continue reading
MO: Bandana covering lower half of face in high crime area is reasonable suspicion
“Here, Officer Lane testified that when he passed the vehicle at approximately 11:40 P.M., he observed a rear passenger with a bandana covering the lower half of his face. The parking lot was in a high-crime area. Officer Lane thought … Continue reading
NYTimes: Marijuana May Mean Ticket, Not Arrest, in New York City
NYTimes: Marijuana May Mean Ticket, Not Arrest, in New York City by Joseph Goldstein: The New York Police Department, which has been arresting tens of thousands of people a year for low-level marijuana possession, is poised to stop making such … Continue reading
IL implied consent statute not unconstitutional under McNeely
Illinois’s implied-consent statutory scheme did not unconstitutionally circumvent defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights by punishing him for refusing to take the chemical analysis by suspending his driver’s license and introducing his refusal against him at his criminal trial. A per se … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Touching the fog line when a police car is in one’s blind spot isn’t a traffic offense; stop unreasonable
Defendant touched the fog line and wasn’t driving erratically. As he explained on the video during the stop, he was concerned that there was a police car staying in his blind spot and he was trying to stay away from … Continue reading
D.Kan.: RS was shown for a frisk even though the officer didn’t articulate it
A frisk was reasonable where the officer would have to turn his back on the defendant to deal with the passenger, even though the officer did not articulate specific reasonable suspicion he was armed. “As in Manjarrez, the deputy could … Continue reading
Cal. App.-San Diego: Mistake of law doesn’t support a stop
Mistake of law doesn’t support a stop. Here, it was for riding a bicycle on the sidewalk in a mixed use area with one or two operating businesses on the block that weren’t boarded up, and the ordinance applies only … Continue reading
AR: Talking about drug deal on phone in convenience store overheard by officer led to plain view
“Arkansas State Police Trooper Stephen Briggs was inside the Valero convenience store on Colonel Glenn Road in Little Rock to get something to drink when he overheard a man on his cell phone say that he had lost $3200. The … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: With smell of MJ in car and it couldn’t be found, officer could look under hood and into air cleaner
In a traffic stop, the officer could smell marijuana and that gave probable cause to search. He couldn’t find it in the passenger compartment, so he could look in the engine compartment. United States v. Hollis, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
ND: Welfare stop of car parked on gravel road to historical site at 11 pm
The stop of defendant was justified as a welfare check because he was parked on a gravel road on the way to an historical site at 11 pm. He admitted having marijuana. State v. Schneider, 2014 ND 198, 2014 N.D. … Continue reading