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
N.D.W.Va.: Navarette doesn’t save this anonymous tip; seemingly even undermines it
The anonymous tip here that there would be a gun in the car defendant was in was not supported by objective facts of any sort. This was not a 911 call report, either, as in Navarette, and the court just … Continue reading
TX13: Fleeing from the police and crashing is not a “stop”
Defendant challenged his stop as unlawful, but he slowed for a second and then fled at high speed until he crashed and then he was arrested. There was no stop–he fled. Gonzalez v. State, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 8934 (Tex. … Continue reading
D.D.C.: IAC claim fails on pretrial issue defendant agreed to
Defendant fully participated in the decision not to pursue a Fourth Amendment claim (that wouldn’t win anyway) with a full explanation, so he can’t complain now in a 2255. United States v. Wright, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 110991 (D. D.C. … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Not cooperating with an illegal detention under Terry doesn’t add to reasonable suspicion
On night patrol, a Rochester officer and a probation officer decided to stop defendant because he had a paper bag in his hand that conceivably could have had an open container in it. The stop was without reasonable suspicion because … Continue reading
WA: 911 call wasn’t reliable enough for a stop; there was reason to question its veracity
Conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm was subject to reversal because police officers had good reasons to question the reliability of the 911 call, any suspicion of an exigent circumstance had dissipated by the time police officers inquired whether … Continue reading
AZ: Being armed isn’t enough for a frisk; must still be RS crime is “afoot”
Being armed in Arizona is not reasonable suspicion for a frisk. There must also be reasonable suspicion that a crime might occur. Otherwise, law abiding armed citizens are always subject to a frisk without reasonable suspicion. State v. Serna, 2014 … Continue reading
TN: Exigency of 2 hr hospital wait supported warrantless blood draw in DUI
Exigency supported a warrantless blood draw here because defendant was in the hospital over two hours after a motorcycle accident where he was treated for his injuries and the officer got little or no time to deal with him. State … Continue reading
CA6: No RS for a frisk; gov’t waived standing in DC and can’t argue it on appeal
There was a basis for the stop, but there was none for a frisk, and the district court erred in concluding otherwise. Also, the government waive a standing argument in the district court and it can’t raise it on appeal. … Continue reading
OR: Exigent circumstances applies to animals in distress
Exigent circumstances permitted an entry onto property to seize and emaciated horse and get it to a veterinarian for care. State v. Fessenden, 2014 Ore. LEXIS 560 (August 7, 2014). The stop was 21 minutes long, but it was justified … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: A private party’s search of a thumb drive didn’t limit the government’s search when they provided it
A thumb drive was found with child pornography on it by a private party who turned it over to the government. The government wasn’t limited by the scope of the private party’s search as to how deep it could search. … Continue reading
CA7: Warrantless seizure of alleged contraband wasn’t covered yet by FTCA; GJ in session
The DEA’s warrantless seizure of the plaintiff’s fake incense products which the DEA considered contraband but wasn’t declared such until just after the seizure didn’t state a claim for separate relief yet for a seizure for forfeiture. The government apparently … Continue reading
FL3: SI of defendant’s cell phone in 2011 already violated established law in Florida
The search incident of defendant’s cell phone was in violation of settled law in Florida at the time it happened in 2011, and the search is suppressed. Saint-Hilaire v. State, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 12039 (Fla. 3d DCA August 6, … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Police observation of a controlled buy is justification for a traffic stop
Police observation of a controlled buy is justification for a traffic stop. United States v. Cooper, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105617 (N.D. Cal. July 31, 2014).* D.C. helped set up defendant’s computer system, and defendant was downloading child pornography. The … Continue reading
Law.com/CT: Gideon: Conn. Court Makes Misguided Ruling in Name of Officer Safety
Law.com/CT: Gideon: Conn. Court Makes Misguided Ruling in Name of Officer Safety In 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court in Ybarra v. Illinois held that ‘a person’s mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not, without more, give … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Cell phone GPS location was obtained by court order under § 2703 so GFE applies
Cell phone GPS location data was obtained by HSI with a court order on probable cause. While it wasn’t under Rule 41, it was clearly covered by good faith under § 2703. United States v. Garcia, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
D.Colo.: Photo of property in SW application cures address typo
A typo in the address, 1557 v. 1577, was not material where the application for the search warrant had a photograph of the property involved. United States v. Padilla, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 104023 (D. Colo. July 30, 2014). Exigent … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: None of four exceptions to warrant requirement supported search of jacket in another room
The search of defendant’s coat in a separate room from him could not be justified under any exception to the warrant requirement: protective sweep, emergency/exigency, Terry frisk, or search incident. Defendant did finally break away from the officers, too, making … Continue reading