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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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
VI: Matching description of robber and near the scene with money sticking out of pocket was reasonable suspicion
There was reasonable suspicion for a Terry stop of defendant when the officers knew that suspects in a robbery and shooting were still at large, likely on foot, and presumably armed, when defendant matched the description given by a citizen … Continue reading
OR: Just asking for ID wasn’t a “stop” without more
On its third review of this case, having gone up twice, the court concludes that asking for defendant’s ID under the circumstances here was not a “stop” that required reasonable suspicion or probable cause when compared with other cases. All … Continue reading
D.N.H.: Nervousness alone wasn’t enough to extend the stop 20 minutes
Defendant’s nervousness, exacerbated by the officer tailgating him for a long time, wasn’t enough to show reasonable suspicion to extend the stop as long as it was. All the government’s authorities are nervousness plus something else, and here there was … Continue reading
TX9: Officer’s getting SW for black box first showed he could get SW for blood too; suppressed
The officer had the time and wherewithal to get an immediate search warrant for the defendant’s vehicle’s “black box” so he also had time to get one for defendant’s blood. State v. Anderson, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 11151 (Tex. App. … Continue reading
SCOTUSblog: Argument analysis: A simple answer to a deceptively simple Fourth Amendment question?
SCOTUSblog: Argument analysis: A simple answer to a deceptively simple Fourth Amendment question? by Rory Little: As previewed here, the question on which the Court granted review in Heien v. North Carolina was a simple one: May a police officer’s … Continue reading
CA7: “[P]ointing guns at Matz while ordering him to stop or risk having his ‘fucking head’ blown off, frisking, handcuffing, and placing him in a patrol car” reasonable here under Terry
While the question is close, “pointing guns at Matz while ordering him to stop or risk having his ‘fucking head’ blown off, frisking, handcuffing, and placing him in a patrol car—was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which initially … Continue reading
NY4: “[T]he police may not ask an occupant of a lawfully stopped vehicle if he or she has any weapons unless they have a founded suspicion”
“[T]he police may not ask an occupant of a lawfully stopped vehicle if he or she has any weapons unless they have a founded suspicion that criminality is afoot.” The search here was invalid. People v. Wideman, 2014 NY Slip … Continue reading
AL: Nervousness and a criminal record but without evasion is not reasonable suspicion
Defendant’s nervousness without any evasion and a past criminal record was not reasonable suspicion. The officer testified that he was concerned about four folding knives in the car as potential weapons, but he didn’t get around to doing a search … Continue reading
WaPo: Oral argument in Heien v. North Carolina
WaPo: Oral argument in Heien v. North Carolina by Orin Kerr: I attended the oral argument this morning in the Supreme Court’s first case of the new Term, Heien v. North Carolina. I had a long preview of Heien here. … Continue reading
The Atlantic: The ‘Barney Fife Loophole’ to the Fourth Amendment
Re Heien v. North Carolina, being argued today: The Atlantic: The ‘Barney Fife Loophole’ to the Fourth Amendment by Garrett Epps: A case before the Supreme Court asks whether police can stop drivers for doing something that isn’t a crime … Continue reading
OH10: Defendant passed out behind the wheel wasn’t stopped since he didn’t know it
“As the officers approached appellant’s car, appellant was passed out and slumped over the driver’s seat. Because appellant was not capable of deciding whether he was free to leave, the officers’ approach to his car cannot be considered a restraint … Continue reading
SCOTUS grants cert. on dog sniff after stop should be complete; the Eighth Circuit’s de minimus rule
Rodriguez v. United States, 13-9972, cert. granted October 2, 2014 (ScotusBlog). Question presented: This Court has held that, during an otherwise lawful traffic stop, asking a driver to exit a vehicle, conducting a drug sniff with a trained canine, or … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Apartment was searched with a warrant; def’s car down street was searched under automobile exception
Officers had probable cause to search defendant’s car for drugs under the automobile exception. They had a search warrant for his apartment but it didn’t include the car which was parked down the street. They had, however, plenty of information … Continue reading
WaPo: A few thoughts on Heien v. North Carolina
WaPo: A few thoughts on Heien v. North Carolina by Orin Kerr: The first argued case in the new Supreme Court term will be Heien v. North Carolina, a Fourth Amendment case about whether a reasonable mistake of law can … Continue reading
OH9: Officers walking up on both sides of a parked vehicle wasn’t a “stop”
Two officers walked up on an already parked vehicle, one on each side. The officer testified that he’d be “pretty upset” if the defendant drove off, but he was actually free to leave. Therefore, it was not a stop, and … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: Meth torch on front seat added to RS to prolong stop
A torch commonly used by methamphetamine users on the front seat next to the defendant and other things developed during questioning justified prolonging the stop. Also, defendant had a Canadian DL and it couldn’t be accessed through NCIC, and a … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Dirty license plate justified stop even though it was called in during stop
Defendant’s stop for having a dirty obscured license plate was justified even though the officer was able to call it in when parked right behind him. The butt of a shotgun was visible in the vehicle and defendant was a … Continue reading