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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)
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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.Mass.: Prison visitor strip search lacked justification; no qualified immunity
Plaintiff’s prison visit questioning for 15-20 minutes about whether she had brought drugs into a prison was reasonable. Her strip search based on an anonymous tip was completely uncorroborated and was without reasonable suspicion. The law had been clearly established … Continue reading
KY: Shot fired from car in flight reason for search of car; no violation of Gant
Officers could perform a search incident of defendant’s vehicle because a shot was fired from it in flight. This was not a violation of Gant. The search could also be justified by inventory. Hinchey v. Commonwealth, 2014 Ky. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
OR: Search of home requires more than just PC; there must be a warrant or warrant exception
Defendant argued the search of her bedroom was without consent, therefore invalid. The trial court found probable cause and sustained the search. Reversed: Without an exception to the warrant requirement, the search was invalid, and the state argues none. State … Continue reading
GA: Stopping a white man leaving a black neighborhood was pretextual and suppressed
A white man coming from an African-American neighborhood, profiling him as a drug buyer, was a pretextual stop based on pattern of activity rather than particularized suspicion. His stop violated the Fourth Amendment. Williams v. State, 2014 Ga. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
ND: Furtive movements when pulled over justified officers’ guns drawn and console search
Defendant was stopped because the LPN didn’t match the car. His furtive movements at the time of the stop justified the officers drawing down on him, handcuffing, and searching the console. State v. Scheett, 2014 ND 91, 2014 N.D. LEXIS … Continue reading
Retuers: Georgia governor signs law to drug test some welfare recipients
Retuers: Georgia governor signs law to drug test some welfare recipients by David Beasley: Under the bill, testing could be required if authorities have a ‘reasonable suspicion’ of drug use. A person failing the test would temporarily lose benefits, although … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Custodial arrest for littering supported search incident
Police responded to a 911 call and saw defendant, who appeared to be wearing body armor, throw a food wrapper on the ground. They arrested him for littering and took him in. The search incident of the body armor was … Continue reading
Two pretextual stop cases; one defendant found to be a serial killer
“The Court need not discredit Parker’s theory of pretext in order to find it inconsequential: perhaps the detectives indeed stopped the car not because of a seat belt violation but because of the alleged firearm incident-but the stop remains constitutional. … Continue reading
IL: That police “dropsy” testimony is common doesn’t mean that all of it is fabricated
That police “dropsy” testimony is common doesn’t mean that all of it is fabricated. People v. Moore, 2014 IL App (1st) 110793-B, 2014 Ill. App. LEXIS 262 (April 25, 2014): [*P12] Defendant further contends police officers frequently fabricate stories (referred … Continue reading
OH8: Walking briskly away from the police in a high crime area isn’t reasonable suspicion
This anonymous tip providing nothing compared to the car stopped, which didn’t match the description. “Absent criminal, or at least suspicious, behavior on the part of the suspect, the mere presence of the suspect in a high crime area or … Continue reading
OH12: Boots were seized incident to arrest; no SW needed for DNA testing
Defendant’s boots were seized either incident to his arrest or out of the jail property room, and no warrant was needed to submit them to the crime laboratory for DNA testing. State v. Alltop, 2014-Ohio-1695, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS 1650 … Continue reading
The Week: Why Antonin Scalia was right to defend a drug dealer
The Week: Why Antonin Scalia was right to defend a drug dealer by Michael Brendan Dougherty: The conservative justice’s exquisite defense of the Fourth Amendment is a credit to the American justice system.
Reflections on Navarette: What guards against fictitious police reports? Nothing, really
So, on reflection, what does Navarette do to guard against the fictitious 911 call that somebody was driving erratically to justify a stop? Absolutely nothing. In most all of the prior cases, the officer follows for a little while and … Continue reading
SCOTUS decides Navarette: RS from a 911 call suggesting drunk driving
Navarette v. California 12–9490 (April 22, 2014). Syllabus: A California Highway Patrol officer stopped the pickup truck occupied by petitioners because it matched the description of a vehicle that a 911 caller had recently reported as having run her off … Continue reading
SCOTUS cert. grant in Heien v. North Carolina: Can mistake of law provide reasonable suspicion?
SCOTUS cert. grant: Heien v. North Carolina (13-604). ScotusBlog here. Issue: Whether a police officer’s mistake of law can provide the individualized suspicion that the Fourth Amendment requires to justify a traffic stop. Note: This is on the defendant’s petition … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Pulling up in front of a house where a knock-and-talk is about to occur is not reasonable suspicion
Pulling up in front of a house where a knock-and-talk is about to occur is not reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. United States v. Sims, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 53819 (D. Kan. April 18, 2014):
Cal.1: Possession of a felt tip marker not a crime without intent to graffitiize
Possession of a felt tip marker is not per se illegal as possession of graffiti tools. Intent to graffitiize still has to be required. The juvenile’s arrest was without probable cause. In re S.F., 224 Cal. App. 4th 1575 (1st … Continue reading
CA11: 911 tipster about a specific car was reliable and not anonymous
Defendant’s claim of lack of reasonable suspicion for his stop was changed between the district court’s denial and the appeal. Nevertheless, there was reasonable suspicion for the stop based on a tip applying to a specific car. The 911 tipster … Continue reading