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- CA11: Service of SW without attachments isn’t 4A violation
- KS: Running warrants on a passed out person is reasonable
- M.D.Fla.: Unidentified pills in driver’s lap may have been RS but it wasn’t PC for arrest
- D.C.Cir.: It was reasonable for officers to conclude that evidence or instrumentalities of the crime would be found in the car used in a robbery
- CA7: Officer’s warrantless view of CSAM flagged by hash value was not unreasonable
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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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Section 1983 Blog -
"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
“There is no ‘inadvertent negligence’ exception to [Stone v.] Powell.
“More to the point, however, is the irrelevance of any officer negligence in this habeas corpus case. Stone v. Powell bars habeas corpus consideration of Fourth Amendment claims as a basis for habeas relief. There is no ‘inadvertent negligence’ exception … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Penn State’s Covid testing was reasonable under the 4A
The University’s Covid-19 testing does not violate the Fourth Amendment. Roman Cath. Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, 141 S. Ct. 63, 67, 208 L. Ed. 2d 206 (2020) (“Stemming the spread of COVID-19 is a compelling interest.”); Klaassen v. Trs. … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Admitted state law jurisdiction violation still not 4A unreasonable
Despite the criminal charges being dropped because city officers were outside their jurisdiction, the whole matter was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment because reasonableness doesn’t depend on state law violations. Kosiba v. Kleine, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 139379 (D. Neb. … Continue reading
D.Conn.: False dog alert may not mean anything
Alleged false alerts of a drug dog may not be at all because the dog could have smelled residual odor of drugs from some other time. United States v. Manson, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138590 (D. Conn. Aug. 9, 2023) … Continue reading
D.Mont.: Dispatch’s reasonable mistake in reporting on arrest warrant doesn’t violate 4A
A reasonable mistake by dispatch in reporting on an arrest warrant doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. Under Heien, “Reasonability is not equivalent to perfection, and so the Fourth Amendment allows for officials to make some mistakes, giving them ‘fair leeway … Continue reading
OH10 finds that medical records are sufficiently analogous to CSLI that a SW is required to get them
OH10 finds that medical records are sufficiently analogous to CSLI that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy and a search warrant, not a subpoena, is required. State v. Rogers, 2023-Ohio-2749, 2023 Ohio App. LEXIS 2707 (10th Dist. Aug. 8, … Continue reading
OH1: RS went stale by the time def was seen again days later
There was no reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop days after he was seen on the street. “Perhaps if the officers had stopped J.T. and his red-sweatshirt-wearing companion nearby the church immediately after the shooting, the totality of the circumstances could … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: Halfway house tenant has no REP in own cell phone
A resident of a halfway house has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell phone while residing there. He agreed that his property was subject to search. United States v. Weste, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 132886 (W.D. Tex. July … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Admin search power doesn’t give govt power to search for ulterior motive
Plaintiff operates 20 pawnshops in NYC. The NYPD conducted records searches without subpoena or warrant, and, after a two-week trial, plaintiff prevailed with a $1m verdict. The fact a business has to maintain records doesn’t mean there is no reasonable … Continue reading
CA4: Govt conceded delay for dog, but can’t show it was with RS
The government concedes that there was delay during the stop, but it was all without reasonable suspicion. The officer was looking for other summonses on defendant, including child support orders, where he had no idea there were any. “Finally, Deputy … Continue reading
D.C.Cir.: ‘“Let me see your waistband’–amounted to a show of authority.”
“Here, Officer Tejada initially approached Gamble and asked him a question: ‘Ain’t got no gun on you, man?’” ‘“Let me see your waistband’–amounted to a show of authority.” United States v. Gamble, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 19695 (D.C.Cir. Aug. 1, … Continue reading
RI: Officer doesn’t need to state a reason for occupants to get out of car under Mimms
Under Mimms, the occupants can be ordered out of the car during a stop. The fact the trial judge disagreed with the three rationales offered for it by the officer doesn’t matter. State v. Li, 2023 R.I. LEXIS 90 (July … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: BIA officer conducted high volume traffic stops for drug interdiction
The officer here was a Bureau of Indian Affairs highway officer with four states in his purview. He admittedly stops a lot of motorists, and he also does drug interdiction. He stopped defendant for following too close, engaged in conversation, … Continue reading
CA8: Pulling off a blanket during a stop on slight RS was unreasonable
Defendant got off a Greyhound bus in Omaha during a driver change. The officers just barely had reasonable suspicion to detain defendant, and pulling his blanket off amounted to a search. That enabled the officer to see he had a … Continue reading
W.D.Tenn.: Violation of police dept. vehicle chase policy doesn’t equate to a violation of the 4A
An alleged violation of department policy on police chases doesn’t equal a Fourth Amendment violation. United States v. Moore, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130238 (W.D. Tenn. July 27, 2023). Speeding and erratic driving justified the stop, and alcohol was seen … Continue reading
NY3: Leaving one’s house to do a drug deal and returning is nexus to house
“Contrary to defendant’s contention, the CI’s basis of knowledge was not undermined by the fact that the CI did not actually enter the apartment during the controlled buys …. A sufficient nexus to the apartment was established by the continuous … Continue reading
OH8: Dog alert on a car permits search of containers in it
A dog alert on a car was probable cause for a search of it and containers, here a backpack. State v. Kumuhone, 2023-Ohio-2586, 2023 Ohio App. LEXIS 2554 (8th Dist. July 27, 2023). “The contemporaneous tip, the visual details that … Continue reading
N.D.N.Y.: Escapee from BOP halfway house had no REP in apt. where he was found
Defendant was an escapee from a BOP halfway house, and he had no reasonable expectation of privacy where he was found. Also, he was subject to a search condition at the halfway house, and that’s not avoided by escape. United … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Suppression not remedy for violation of equal protection
Suppression of evidence is not the remedy for an equal protection violation, even if it were valid, which it’s not. United States v. Christie, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 129172 (E.D. Tenn. July 26, 2023). A fictitious license plate is reasonable … Continue reading