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- E.D.Mich.: State environmental inspector who entered property to look at unlicensed seawall gets QI
- S.D.Fla.: SW for def’s house included his tent outside
- 404 Media: Flock: LAPD Regularly Pulled Over Innocent People Because License Plate Readers Flagged Their Cars As Stolen
- CA6: Despite two guns being suppressed from arrest on bare-bones arrest affidavit, third gun was later validly seized by independent source
- D.Md.: Govt’s motion to reconsider granted motion to suppress denied; arguments now are too late
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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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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)
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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
New Law Review Article: “To Corral and Control the Ghetto”: Stop, Frisk, and the Geography of Freedom
“To Corral and Control the Ghetto”: Stop, Frisk, and the Geography of Freedom, Anders Walker, 48 U. Rich. L. Rev. 1223 (2014). Abstract: This article revisits the emergence of stop and frisk law in the 1960s to make three points. … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Smell of MJ during traffic stop probable cause
Defendant’s traffic stop was valid, and the officer smelled marijuana, and that was probable cause. The vehicle had 39kg marijuana and 13kg of cocaine in it. United States v. Davis, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69170 (D. Nev. April 30, 2014), … Continue reading
CA6: Passing the BAC test doesn’t mean the stop was illegal
The officer here had probable cause to stop plaintiff for an illegal lane change shown on the dashcam video. Plaintiff smelled of alcohol and there was probable cause for arrest. The fact he passed the BAC test didn’t vitiate the … Continue reading
ID: Statuette of patron saint of drug dealers on dashboard was a factor in reasonable suspicion
Defendant was parked vehicle on a rural gravel road with bloodshot eyes and the presence of a statuette of the patron saint for drug traffickers, and that was reasonable suspicion. “The officer also noticed a Santa Muerte statuette on the … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Police searching for CP left without a computer; its later seizure was covered by warrant
The police executed a search warrant for computers for child pornography. After they left the house, defendant’s grandfather called them to say that there was another computer in a closet that was not seized. He consented to that seizure. The … Continue reading
IL: Pulling along side a pedestrian and telling him to stop and get his hands out of his pockets is governed by Terry
Pulling along side a person walking and telling him to stop and to get his hands out of his pockets is a command not a request and governed by Terry. Here, there was not reasonable suspicion. In re Rafeal E., … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Hand-to-hand drug deal from car supported search incident
Officers observed a hand-to-hand drug deal from a car and they approached it. Then the occupants tossed what appeared to be more. This was sufficient for a search incident of the car under Gant. United States v. Daniel, 2014 U.S. … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Def’s admission there was meth in his car was PC for a search; Gant inapplicable
Gant did not void the search of defendant’s car where he’d already admitted there was methamphetamine in the car. Searching the car for meth, officers found a firearm and defendant was a convicted felon. United States v. Spack, 2014 U.S. … Continue reading
FL2: Officer’s seizing pills he couldn’t identify as contraband violated Fourth Amendment
Officers seeing then seizing pills he couldn’t identify (Ritalin) until he later got on the Internet seized them without probable cause or reasonable suspicion. Gay v. State, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 7121 (Fla. 2d DCA May 14, 2014): Here, neither … Continue reading
HuffPo: Alleged Drug Dealer Busted After Posting Photos To Facebook; and then sold to cops
HuffPo: Alleged Drug Dealer Busted After Posting Photos To Facebook: Cops by David Moye: Taylor Harrison allegedly wanted to make a point about how easy it was to sell drugs in Port St. Lucie, Florida — even when deputies were … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: Failure to show SW is not a Fourth Amendment violation
2255 petitioner did not show that he was prejudiced by officers showing up at 5:30 am rather than 6 for execution of a search warrant, if that in fact happened. Rule 41 violations are ministerial, it doesn’t per se violate … Continue reading
Atlantic: Can an Anonymous Tip Get You Arrested for Drunk Driving?
Atlantic: Can an Anonymous Tip Get You Arrested for Drunk Driving? by Garrett Epps: Consider the Court’s recent 5-4 decision in Navarette v. California….Scalia (writing for himself and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan) noted an amicus … Continue reading
Two on reasonable suspicion: CA10 & CA5
“We first analyze each of the factors: (1) Officer Devos’s previous encounter with Mr. Garcia [where he ran and aggressively confronted the officer two weeks earlier], (2) Mr. Garcia’s criminal history [which included a prior armed robbery], (3) Officer Devos’s … Continue reading
ID: Passing an FST doesn’t negate other PC for DUI arrest
On the totality of circumstances, the officer had probable cause to believe defendant was under the influence, and that can overcome the driver passing an FST. State v. Hunter, 2014 Ida. App. LEXIS 51 (May 6, 2014). An officer doesn’t … Continue reading
OH10: Taking and retaining defendant’s DL without reasonable suspicion then running his name for warrants was suppressed
Taking and retaining defendant’s DL without reasonable suspicion then running his name for warrants was suppressed. State v. Westover, 2014-Ohio-1959, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS 1898 (10th Dist. May 8, 2014): [*P28] We find the running of a warrants check to … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: Scrivener’s error in time of issuance of SW is corrected
The time of the warrant of 10:31 pm was clearly a scrivener’s error because it was issued at 9:31 pm. Therefore, the search warrant did not issue after the search began, and the motion to suppress is denied. United States … Continue reading