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- CA7: Administrative inspection stop of truck without RS was pretext for drug search
- LA5: Nervousness and avoiding getting on airplane to LAX (a source city) was RS
- D.D.C.: A cell phone SW without PC in a felon in possession case is a general warrant because of its intrusiveness
- N.D.Ga.: 2020 election materials GJ subpoena quashed as burdensome
- SCOTUSBlog: Justice Jackson reignites the interpretation wars, adding to textualism’s emerging cracks
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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)
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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
CA9: Illegal arrest doesn’t justify dismissal of indictment
An illegal arrest doesn’t justify dismissing an indictment. He also did not show outrageous governmental conduct. United States v. Colfax, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 11426 (9th Cir. Apr. 22, 2026). The officer knew Dodge pickup trucks, and the registration on … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Possible 5A violation in obtaining cell phone passcode mooted by inevitable discovery; they’d get into it anyway
The government obtained defendant’s cell phone passcode by questioning him. Despite the potential Fifth Amendment violation, the court finds that the cell phone would have been opened by the government’s forensics team anyway, so inevitable discovery applies. United States v. … Continue reading
CA6: Calling def a “fugitive” in the warrant affidavit wasn’t a Franks violation
The use of the word “fugitive” to describe defendant wasn’t shown to be a Franks violation. He insisted he wasn’t a fugitive. It wasn’t shown to be reckless or knowing. United States v. Brown, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 11017 (6th … Continue reading
SCOTUS: Call about suspicious vehicle led to passengers’ flight and bad driving, and that was RS for a stop
The officer had reasonable suspicion to stop defendant because, already on alert from the late-night dispatch call about a suspicious vehicle, the officer observed every person in defendant’s car respond strangely to an approaching police car as two passengers took … Continue reading
VA: 12 second question about drugs didn’t unreasonably prolong the stop that was going to take a while anyway
This was a traffic stop, and defendant had a suspended license. She was able to call her son to come to drive her and the car home, and she would not be arrested. The officer’s taking 12 seconds to ask … Continue reading
TN: RS didn’t develop to continue stop; second stop based on first suppressed
Defendant was subjected to two stops. The first was for suspicion of disorderly conduct, but no arrest was made and he was released because no further reasonable suspicion developed. A second stop was based on the first, and there still … Continue reading
CA4: Traffic stop immediately became firearms investigation; suppressed
The officer immediately launching into an inquiry about firearms during a traffic stop violated Rodriguez. United States v. Martin, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 10979 (4th Cir. Apr. 17, 2026):
VA: Statutory requirement to provide SW papers only applies to “places of abode”
Defendant sold drugs in a store in a controlled buy. The statute on providing a warrant and affidavit to the occupant only applies to places of abode. Blow v. Commonwealth, 2026 Va. LEXIS 29 (Apr. 16, 2026). A narcotics officer … Continue reading
CA4: Ptf student’s cell phone properly searched at school under T.L.O.
Plaintiff student’s cell phone was properly searched at school under T.L.O. when he was heard bragging about having explicit photographs on it at school. O.W. v. Carr, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 10241 (4th Cir. Apr. 9, 2026). Plaintiff made a … Continue reading
LA4: Bodycams of warrant execution could be considered where not in evidence but parties agreed court could look
The court asked to see the bodycams about execution of the search warrant, and both sides agreed but they weren’t put into evidence. The court could still consider them. There was probable cause for a vehicle search because it was … Continue reading
CA10: Ptf’s dismissed murder case for overlooked exculpatory evidence was still based on PC
Plaintiff was arrested for murder of his wife, but the case was dismissed without prejudice. He claimed a civil Franks violation. There was still arguable probable cause even with that which was omitted. No claim. Morphew v. Chaffee Cty., 2026 … Continue reading
CA10: Apple SW was insufficiently particular, but GFE still applies
“We agree with Kimberley that the Apple search warrant was insufficiently particularized in violation of the Fourth Amendment. However, we hold that, in the circumstances of this case, the Government has shown the good faith exception to the warrant requirement … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: The city’s notice under a work order of a preservation program wasn’t a 4A seizure
“In 2018, the City of St. Louis passed Ordinance 70794, which created the Preserve and Rehabilitate Program.” “Broadly speaking, the Complaint highlights—at a minimum—gross mismanagement under the Preserve and Rehabilitate Program. But when focusing specifically on the purported conduct of … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Video surveillance of public housing hallways is like a pole camera with no REP
Plaintiff sued a public housing project which has sophisticated video surveillance but only in common areas. The court holds that it doesn’t rise to the level of the mosaic theory and is more akin to a pole camera. Pondexter-Moore v. … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Walker stopped on street by three officers was without RS
Defendant was stopped walking and surrounded by three officers shining flashlights in his face, and all without reasonable suspicion. Only then did they discover a telling bulge from a weapon. Suppressed. United States v. Wilson, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69861 … Continue reading
W.D.Wis.: Failure to cross a trial witness about a search claim isn’t IAC
Failure to cross-examine a trial witness about a potential Fourth Amendment violation is not ineffective assistance of counsel because a jury trial is not the place to resolve a search claim. Kawleski v. United States, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 70540 … Continue reading
CA8: DMV records showing car’s insurance couldn’t be verified justified stop to inquire
DMV records showing car’s insurance couldn’t be verified justified stop to inquire. United States v. Mitchell, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 9185 (8th Cir. Mar. 31, 2026). The police department did not make a valid and enforceable request for text messages … Continue reading