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- OH2: Stop outside the officer’s jurisdiction doesn’t violate 4A
- 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
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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)
--Outline of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (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
CA4: Trash container in open at curb was not on curtilage under Dunn factors
Trash at the curb for pickup was not on the curtilage under Dunn. The area was wide open. United States v. Lipford, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 12697 (4th Cir. Apr. 28, 2021). Factual disputes aside, this much is undisputed: “The … Continue reading
MD: Smell of mj isn’t RS
With recreational marijuana in Maryland, the smell of marijuana alone is not reasonable suspicion. In re D.D., 2021 Md. App. LEXIS 353 (Apr. 28, 2021):
WI: Burning mj in a house is exigency of evidence being destroyed by burning
The smell of burning marijuana is exigent circumstances because the contraband is being destroyed by burning. State v. B.W.R., 2021 Wisc. App. LEXIS 201 (Apr. 28, 2021) (unpublished). Under Birchfield, “An increased penalty for the warrantless blood draw refusal revocation … Continue reading
IL: 16 month delay in getting SW for cell phone in police custody unreasonable
Police waiting 16 months to get a search warrant for defendant’s cell phone already in their custody was unreasonable. People v. Meakens, 2021 IL App (2d) 180991, 2021 Ill. App. LEXIS 212 (Apr. 27, 2021). The trial court erred in … Continue reading
DE: Def had no standing to complain where govt actor entered neighbor’s property to look at his
Plaintiff had no standing to challenge a government actor’s entry into his neighbor’s property to look at his. McCafferty v. New Castle County Bd. of License, 2021 Del. Super. LEXIS 343 (Apr. 26, 2021). No matter how the court views … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Def’s clothes in ER as a shooting victim were in plain view for police seizure
Defendant was in an emergency room having been shot. Having presented himself for medical treatment, his bloody clothes were cut off him, and they were reasonably seized by law enforcement officers when they were seen in plain view in white … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Calling for backup before asking motorist for consent was the “Rodriguez moment” but it was with RS
“‘[T]he proper inquiry is not whether a traffic violation actually occurred, but rather whether there are facts presented that would lead a reasonable officer to believe that a violation may have occurred.’ … ‘This standard is not particularly rigorous, as … Continue reading
IL: For “immediately apparent” in plain view, only “practical, nontechnical” probability that incriminating evidence is involved is required
On the incriminating nature of an object in plain view being “immediately apparent,” “[a]ll that is required is a ‘“practical, nontechnical”’ probability that incriminating evidence is involved.” People v. Molnar, 2021 IL App (2d) 190289, 2021 Ill. App. LEXIS 192 … Continue reading
WI: Officer inquiring of pill bottle in plain view during traffic stop did not unreasonably extend stop
Officer in a traffic stop inquiring of a pill bottle in plain view wasn’t unreasonable under Rodriguez. State v. Crone, 2021 Wisc. App. LEXIS 192 (Apr. 20, 2021). The officer’s sticking his head inside defendant’s car and smelling marijuana was … Continue reading
OH12: EPIC check on passenger exceeded permissible bounds of traffic stop
EPIC check for picture of passenger exceeded the permissible basis of the traffic stop. There was no reason for it. Motion to suppress properly granted. State v. Shaibi, 2021-Ohio-1352, 2021 Ohio App. LEXIS 1323 (12th Dist. Apr. 19, 2021). Police … Continue reading
GFE is not an exception to warrant requirement, only the exclusionary rule (dissent)
Per the dissent, the Michigan Court of Appeals erred in holding in an unpublished opinion that the good faith exception is an exception to the warrant requirement, not the exclusionary rule. People v. Mead, 2020 Mich. App. LEXIS 6223 (Sept. … Continue reading
CA7: Stop was pretextual but with RS; prolonging it was not
While the stop was found pretextual, but justified by reasonable suspicion of a traffic offense, it was extended unreasonably under Rodriguez and Caballes. United States v. Cole, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 11013 (7th Cir. Apr. 16, 2021) (dissent):
NC: State has burden of proof BRD on 4A harmless error
The state carries the burden of proving harmless error for a Fourth Amendment beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Scott, 2021-NCSC-41, 2021 N.C. LEXIS 321 (Apr. 16, 2021). The evidence supports that the person consenting had apparent and actual authority … Continue reading
W.D.Wash.: Test-firing a firearm to help identify it is a reasonable search
“The Court concludes the test-firing of the weapon was a search. It was test-fired for one sole purpose and that was to gain identifying data on the retained shell casing for subsequent submission to a database of shell casings obtained … Continue reading
OR: State showed RS of MJ importation from California, not just from plain view or smell, sufficient to detain
Plain view or smell of a small quantity of marijuana in a car is not reasonable suspicion of “criminal” possession or importation. Here, the officer had reasonable suspicion that there was a significant quantity of fresh marijuana in the car. … Continue reading
IL: “Investigative alert” on passenger unreasonably extended mission of traffic stop as to him
When the car defendant was riding in was stopped for a red light violation, officers got the information from the passenger and ran it. They found an “investigative alert” on the passenger for a sex offender. Subsequent questioning led to … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Detention hearing argument that there were “dispositive” 4A issues goes nowhere
Defendant’s argument responding to his detention order that there are significant potentially “dispositive” Fourth Amendment issues falls on deaf ears. United States v. Silguero, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72565 (D.N.M. Apr. 15, 2021).* Rodriguez complied with: “The information that Kilpela … Continue reading
AR: One can’t change 4A argument from trial court to appeal
Defendant’s oral motion to suppress was presented and denied. On appeal, defendant changed the specifics of the argument, and it’s not considered as presented. Saffel v. State, 2021 Ark. App. LEXIS 176 (Apr. 14, 2021). The officer’s stop of defendant’s … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Use of flashlight on backseat of car at night not a search
Stopping defendant, the officer walked up and shined his flashlight on the backseat of the car seeing two guns. That was not an unreasonable search, and on the totality there was otherwise reasonable suspicion. United States v. Spruell, 2021 U.S. … Continue reading