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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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"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
D.Conn.: Stripped down and strapped to bed in prison states 4A claim
In PLRA screening over a jail strip search and leaving plaintiff naked strapped down to his bed, “[t]he Court cannot discern a legitimate justification for leaving Smith in four-point restraints without a gown or a blanket to cover his naked … Continue reading
IA: Parking violation justifies police-citizen encounter
A parking violation justifies a police encounter with the driver. Here, the vehicle was obstructing, and the officer wasn’t obliged to merely leave a parking ticket on the car. The encounter led to an OWI arrest and conviction. State v. … Continue reading
D.Kan.: “Frantic” furtive movements as officers approached stopped car justified drawing weapons
Defendant’s “frantic” furtive movements as he stopped during a traffic stop justified officers drawing down on him as they approached the car. “Then during Solis’s temporary detention, other facts arose establishing probable cause to arrest him. The Court therefore concludes … Continue reading
CA10: Officer’s questions after completion of stop extended it by consent
The traffic stop evolved into reasonable suspicion of drug trafficking and then a drug dog could be used on the vehicle. After completing the stop, “As Mercado-Gracia walked back to his vehicle, however, Officer Wood invoked ‘the old highway patrol … Continue reading
NY Kings Co.: Exclusionary rule not applied in civil case to end tenancy under rent control statute
Defendant was convicted of surreptitiously recording a tenant in another apartment with planted wireless camera. Some evidence in the criminal proceeding was suppressed. In a civil case to void his tenancy under the rent control laws, the exclusionary rule is … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Nexus shown to business from alleged drug transactions outside
Nexus was shown to a business where drug transactions outside appeared to have continued inside, or at least the participants went inside right after. In any event, the good faith exception applies. United States v. Scott, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
OH1: Order to get out of car doesn’t unreasonably extend a traffic stop
An officer’s order to get out of the car during a traffic stop does not expand the stop, and it is reasonable. Agreeing in the trial court that the stop was valid bars litigating it on appeal. State v. Jackson, … Continue reading
FL2: There was suspicion for the stop, but it wasn’t reasonable suspicion
There may have been suspicion for defendant’s stop, but it wasn’t reasonable suspicion. He was potentially dumpster driving at a closed business at night, and he left when he saw the police officer. Vonlydick v. State, 2021 Fla. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
VA: RS for a frisk of def just gotten out of car also justified frisk of his car, too, when frisk of person came up empty
Brandishing a gun at another was reasonable suspicion for a stop and frisk of a defendant and then the car. “After the officers found no firearm as a result of their pat down of the appellant’s person, this fact served … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Officer’s having to radio in information for wants and warrants check didn’t unreasonably extend stop
The officer observed defendant swerve over the double yellow line and made a stop to issue a warning. A dog was called and arrived in ten minutes. The stop took longer than normal because the officer had to go “old … Continue reading
IA: Reasonable inference owner of car was driving where owner had a suspended DL
It was a reasonable inference that the owner of a vehicle with a suspended license was driving when the vehicle was seen because the officer’s experience [and commonsense by now] shows that persons with suspended licenses continue to drive. That … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Brady violation included govt’s review of “raw state search warrant returns” disclosed during trial
The government disclosed an exculpatory document during trial and buried in a disclosure of previously disclosed information. “Astonishingly, even in its latest filings, the Government has informed the Court of yet another failure of disclosure in this case related to … Continue reading
IL: Rodriguez was not a new rule of law; it restated Caballes
Rodriguez was not a new rule of law; it restated Caballes. The state doesn’t get the benefit of the good faith exception by pointing to it. “At the outset, we note that the State acknowledges that the trial court erred … Continue reading
PA: Because of MMJ, smell of marijuana alone not RS or PC without more
The trial court’s order finding probable cause to search a car just based on the smell of marijuana alone from the passenger compartment is contrary to two state decisions involving medical marijuana and is reversed. Commonwealth v. Shaw, 2021 Pa. … Continue reading
IA: Terry stop questioning doesn’t require a Miranda warning until it gets confrontational
Terry stop questioning doesn’t require a Miranda warning until it gets confrontational and adversarial and the detainee isn’t free to leave. State v. Decanini-Hernandez, 2021 Iowa App. LEXIS 172 (Feb. 17, 2021). Defense counsel wasn’t shown to be ineffective for … Continue reading
Cal.2: Conduct didn’t suggest drug activity, but it justified a stop. “Common sense takes context into account.”
Defendant’s conduct that aroused police suspicion didn’t suggest drug activity, but “Common sense takes context into account.” It was suspicious enough on the totality to permit a Terry stop. People v. Flores, 2021 Cal. App. LEXIS 130 (2d Dist. Feb. … Continue reading
CA5: Some things were innocent in isolation, but they were RS on the totality
Some factors were innocent on their own, but the totality there was reasonable suspicion. United States v. Goodin, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 3881 (5th Cir. Feb. 10, 2021)*: