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Recent Posts
- VA: 12 second question about drugs didn’t unreasonably prolong the stop that was going to take a while anyway
- E.D.Tenn.: Application for SW was considered in detention ruling
- TN: RS didn’t develop to continue stop; second stop based on first suppressed
- CA4: Traffic stop immediately became firearms investigation; suppressed
- CA10: Disagreement over spelling of street name didn’t make warrant fail particularity; GFE at least would apply
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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)
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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) -
“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.N.M.: 4A question for appeal significant enough to require bail pending appeal
Defendant’s search and seizure question for appeal on the independent source doctrine is significant enough to grant him release pending appeal. United States v. Haack, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60440 (D.N.M. Mar. 20, 2026). The state’s justifications for reasonable suspicion … Continue reading
CA9: Failure to give a traffic ticket during a stop is meaningless
Failure to give a traffic ticket during a stop is meaningless. United States v. Rhone, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 8131 (9th Cir. Mar. 19, 2026):
MN: Physician-patient privilege doesn’t exempt medical records from SW
Nonprivileged information in a patient’s medical records does not automatically become privileged when it is transmitted to or acquired by a healthcare provider. The physician-patient privilege statute does not prohibit a district court from issuing an order granting the State’s … Continue reading
NC: Informant doesn’t need “track record” to be creditable
The informant doesn’t need a “track record” to be credited as a source of information. State v. Vandergrift, 2026 N.C. App. LEXIS 202 (Mar. 18, 2026). Police responded to a stolen ATM report and found defendant near an ATM in … Continue reading
NY: Parole absconder detention lacked RS
“On a cold, late December morning, New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision parole officers were attempting to locate a parole absconder for whom they had an arrest warrant.” People v. Jones, 236 A.D.3d 1410, 229 N.Y.S.3d 287 … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Violating retail store’s “no firearms” prohibition was RS for stop
Defendant’s violating a “no firearms” prohibition at a retail establishment was reasonable suspicion for his stop for trespassing. United States v. Sinkfield, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 54823 (N.D. Ohio Mar. 17, 2026). To succeed on an ineffective assistance of counsel … Continue reading
NY Tompkins Co.: SW used for inventory of safe in a vehicle
An ALPR told officers that the owner had a suspended DL, and that justified the stop. The passenger had an arrest warrant on him. The vehicle was impounded. Behind an unsecured panel, a digital safe was found, and it was … Continue reading
ND: Dog sniff occurred before the Rodriguez moment and was reasonable
The dog sniff occurred before the Rodriguez moment and was thus reasonable. State v. Cooper, 2026 ND 68, 2026 N.D. LEXIS 99 (Mar. 12, 2026) On the totality of circumstances, there was reasonable suspicion as to defendant as the subject … Continue reading
OR: Stop for illegible temporary paper plate was objectively reasonable [and pretextual]
Defendant’s temporary paper plate was wrinkled and illegible, and that led to the stop. The car was also known to frequent drug houses. Stop still valid. State v. Martin, 347 Or. App. 680 (Mar. 11, 2026).* The individual facts didn’t … Continue reading
AL: When detainee doesn’t properly ID himself, the officer can demand proof of ID
The N.D. Ala. certified this question: “Under [Ala. Code 1975,] § 15-5-30, when a law enforcement officer asks a person for his name, address, and explanation of his actions, and the person gives an incomplete or unsatisfactory oral response, does … Continue reading
Army: PC shown for picture files in other apps on cell phone
There was probable cause to search the picture files in defendant’s cell phone beyond the app defendant used. It was reasonable to conclude pictures could be moved between places on the phone. United States v. Ingram, 2026 CCA LEXIS 119 … Continue reading
NY3: Housing law that requires landlords to submit to premises and records searches is unconstitutional
Section 8 housing law that requires landlords to submit to premises and records searches is unconstitutional. Matter of People of the State of N.Y. v. Commons W., LLC, 2026 NY Slip Op 01253 (3d Dept. Mar. 5, 2026). Leave to … Continue reading
TX6: Seizing thermometer’s protective sleeve from hospital waste for DNA was reasonable
The officer getting the protective sleeve from a hospital thermometer to test for defendant’s DNA wasn’t unreasonable. Mundt v. State, 2026 Tex. App. LEXIS 2126 (Tex. App. – Texarkana Mar. 6, 2026) (unpublished). After an initial inspection of this vessel, … Continue reading
CA5: Driver’s lie about having a gun on him justified a frisk of the passenger, too
Driver’s lie about having a gun on him justified a frisk of the passenger, too; Ybarra distinguished. United States v. Ducksworth, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 6255 (5th Cir. Mar. 3, 2026):
TN: Failure to allege what should have been suppressed defeats IAC claim
Failure to allege what should have been suppressed if a motion to suppress had been filed is fatal to an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Coyne v. State, 2026 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 104 (Mar. 3, 2026). Qualified immunity denied: … Continue reading
CA10: RS didn’t dissipate during wait for drug dog
Reasonable suspicion here once developed didn’t dissipate before the 20-30 minute wait for the drug dog. United States v. Labs, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 5789 (10th Cir. Feb. 27, 2026). By statute, “[t]he evidence admissible for meeting the State’s burden … Continue reading
IL: Probationer’s ankle monitor search put him at scene of murder
A codefendant was on probation, and a search warrant was used to get information from his ankle monitor. That put him at the scene of a murder. People v. Irby, 2026 IL App (4th) 241389 (Feb. 23, 2026).* Separate exigency … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Frisk on entering VA hospital was justified on RS
Defendant’s frisk on entering a VA hospital could be justified as an area entry search, but the facts known to the officers, that defendant was already considered a safety risk, justified it by reasonable suspicion under Terry. United States v. … Continue reading
D.Utah: Asking about drug history during traffic stop lacked RS and unreasonably extended stop
“Considering the totality of the circumstances, there are insufficient facts before the court to establish reasonable suspicion that would allow Officer Embley to prolong the stop and inquire about Kummer’s drug history. Reasonable suspicion is a low standard, but it … Continue reading