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- RawStory Opinion: Trump just declared these parts of America are outside the Constitution (within 100 miles of any border)
- CA1: SW for iPhone 6S didn’t permit search of iPhone 13 despite same phone number
- CA7: It wasn’t a 4A violation to place a pole camera to look over def’s fence he built knowing he was under surveillance
- NM: Conflict of laws: NM exclusionary rule applies to TX search
- D.N.M.: Obtaining def’s juvenile records by subpoena is not a “search”; no REP
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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
MO: Def’s actions when coming upon a ruse checkpoint on I-44 was RS
“[T]he procedures of the ruse drug checkpoint, coupled with Defendant’s conduct of abruptly changing lanes and taking Exit 33 at the last second, meets the standard for individualized suspicion required by Edmond and Mack.” State v. Barnum, 2022 Mo. App. … Continue reading
D.Mass.: A foreign law enforcement agency can be a CI, and these are the standards
“Given these facts, the Magistrate Judge reasonably relied on the foreign agency’s tip in concluding that probable cause existed to issue the search warrant because (1) ‘a tip from one federal law enforcement agency to another implies a degree of … Continue reading
OH11: Dragging out the stop a few minutes to allow drug dog to arrive made it unreasonable
In a state where the appellate courts are overly solicitous of police calling for drug dog sniffs in traffic stops, this court finds the stop prolonged for the drug dog to get there without reasonable suspicion. Neyhard v. State, 2022-Ohio-1098, … Continue reading
M.D.Tenn.: Copies of what were notarized kept by the notary are third-party records
Defendant had documents notarized at a Nashville law office where the practice of the lawyer-notary, not required by law, to copy what was notarized, and they did it for free. The government found out about it and subpoenaed the records. … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Coming out of car with hands up adds to RS
“Next, Grant’s behavior once the traffic stop occurred gave police additional reasons to suspect that he was involved in criminal activity. King’s testimony and the video evidence presented during the hearing support the conclusion that Defendant Grant was attempting to … Continue reading
CA6: Officer’s opening car door was reasonable when semi-conscious driver couldn’t be roused
“The officers’ conduct up to and including Officer Mino’s decision to open the car’s passenger-side door fits within their role as community caretakers. As Mino testified at the suppression hearing, Mino believed that he and Anderson were responding to a … Continue reading
HI: Announcement not required for SW execution on open tent
Officers had a search warrant for a tent in a homeless encampment. Announcement before entry wasn’t required where the tent was not shut. State v. Keanaaina, 2022 Haw. LEXIS 44 (Mar. 22, 2022). Officers encountered defendant’s car double parked on … Continue reading
OR: Questions unrelated to stop unreasonably extended it
“At the outset of the stop, West asked defendant a series of questions: (1) ‘Do you live in this area?’; (2) ‘What are you doing up here?’; (3) ‘Where are you coming from today?’; and (4) if West could see … Continue reading
D.Mass.: The drug/currency courier profile is back
United States v. $48,940 in United States Currency, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51246 (D.Mass. Mar. 22, 2022):
D.Nev.: Traffic stop devolving into investigation of violation of parole conditions was without RS
“The Court finds that Chronister unlawfully prolonged the traffic stop by pursuing an investigation into whether or not Lewis was in violation of his parole conditions.” “The Court finds that Chronister did not believe at the time of the traffic … Continue reading
E.D.Wash.: Tribal membership confers no standing; Art. III standing isn’t 4A standing
Tribal membership confers no standing. “Article III standing is not Fourth Amendment standing, and Defendants’ argument that the Confederated Tribes [and Bands of Yakima Nation v. Yakima County, 963 F.3d 982 (9th Cir. 2020)] decision, by negative implication, means that … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Dog sniff during investigation of a traffic accident didn’t extend the stop
“The evidence before the Court indicates the canine sniff in this case did not prolong the ‘mission’ of Officer Sautter’s traffic accident investigation. The total length of time from when Defendant’s vehicle was struck to when Officer Sautter’s canine alerted … Continue reading
D.Utah: Travel at night, nervousness, travel plans, cash on person here not RS
The government “points to four circumstances as the basis for an independent reasonable, articulable suspicion to extend the stop for the K-9 deployment: (1) the time of night and location of Mr. Melendez’s vehicle; (2) Mr. Melendez’s nervousness; (3) Mr. … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: Police remote surveillance of apt building parking lot led to RS for stop
Officers saw an Instagram video at 5 am, posted about two hours earlier, of suspects holding high capacity rifles and handguns. They recognized the apartment building, and they had remote access to the apartment complex’s videos provided by the landlord … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Inference in a common affidavit for multiple warrants showed PC
It was reasonable for the issuing magistrate to conclude by inference that multiple locations were subject to search under one common affidavit. United States v. Stimpson, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45374 (E.D.Pa. Mar. 15, 2022). A business’s employee was a … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Possession of a known cutting agent is PC for drug paraphernalia
“The Court notes that there is a dearth of caselaw on the issue of whether Xylazine qualifies as ‘drug paraphernalia.’ Regardless, as the weight of the evidence supports that Xylazine is frequently used as a diluent or cutting agent, the … Continue reading
NJLJ: Driving While Black is not a Reasonable Suspicion
NJLJ: Commentary: Driving While Black Is Not a Reasonable Suspicion (“State v. Nyema reminds us that there are issues with criminal identifications, stops and detentions resulting in criminal prosecutions that are bound up with race.”)
CA6: On “four corners” review, new evidence isn’t considered
Search warrant applications are reviewed on the “four corners” of the affidavit. “New evidence” isn’t considered. United States v. Shade, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43451 (6th Cir. Mar. 9, 2022). There was reasonable suspicion for the officer to expand the … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Non-answers to questions added to RS
There was reasonable suspicion here from the officer’s observations and defendant’s non-answers to questions. United States v. Dunn, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41610 (W.D.Ky. Mar. 9, 2022).* Not filing a motion to suppress here was not ineffective assistance. Defendant was … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: SW didn’t need to be supported by proof def was involved in crime; it looks for evidence of crime
The search warrant for defendant’s home did not allege he was involved in a crime, but the government showed that evidence still could have been found there. The search of his electronic devices in the home is a closer call, … Continue reading