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- E.D.Mich.: Person a cell phone was given to as gift could consent to 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)
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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
N.D.Ind.: Sound of a gun hitting the sidewalk was a factor in RS
Shots-fired call led to defendant’s patdown with reasonable suspicion, and it produced ammunition and a holster. “It was after dark, there were reports of gunshots, and in the immediate aftermath of those, there was a likelihood that an emergency was … Continue reading
techdirt: Appeals Court Bashes Predictive Policing And The Judge Who Argued People In High Crime Areas Want Fewer Rights
techdirt: Appeals Court Bashes Predictive Policing And The Judge Who Argued People In High Crime Areas Want Fewer Rights by Tim Cushing;
KY declines to adopt a per se rule that a completed misdemeanor is not subject to a stop-and-frisk
Kentucky declines to adopt a per se rule that a completed misdemeanor is not subject to a stop-and-frisk because it is too difficult to apply in the field. K.H. v. Commonwealth, 2020 Ky. App. LEXIS 86 (July 24, 2020):
CO: Traffic stop was objectively reasonable even though officer cited wrong statute
Defendant’s stop was objectively reasonable, even though the officer cited the wrong statute. People v. Ambrose, 2020 COA 112, 2020 Colo. App. LEXIS 1384 (July 23, 2020). “[W]e need not address Salas’s argument that a slight delay to conduct a … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: Nervousness alone can’t be RS
“Here, the Court finds that Trooper Amick did not have reasonable suspicion to extend the stop. Trooper Amick testified that he had asked for consent to search the vehicle because the conflicting stories by Mr. Gonzalez and Mr. Diaz indicated … Continue reading
NC: Pocket knife on car console not RS to search
Pocket knife on the console of a defendant’s car was not reasonable suspicion to search his person. State v. Duncan, 2020 N.C. App. LEXIS 525 (July 7, 2020). Where initial stop was valid, smell of marijuana and defendant’s furtive movements … Continue reading
CA2: Failure to fully articulate 4A argument in brief is waiver
“Although Plaintiff references her Fourth Amendment claims against the unidentified police officers in her list of ‘questions presented,’ she makes no argument to support those claims in her brief. See Appellant Br. 2, 6-13. We therefore view these claims as … Continue reading
E.D.Ark.: If handcuffing on RS to maintain status quo wasn’t reasonable, it doesn’t make the vehicle search unreasonable
“[W]hile waiting for the drug dog to arrive, Morphis placed Gibbs in handcuffs. It’s not clear from this record that that was justified. … But Morphis had reasonable suspicion to extend the stop to wait for the drug dog; and … Continue reading
CA3: Finding suspect near bank that was just robbed generally matching description but with short sleeves in winter was RS
“With respect to the issue of reasonable suspicion, this is a close case. Defendants were not wearing all of the clothing described in the dispatch or depicted on the surveillance video, and their reaction to the police vehicle could be … Continue reading
CA3 still doesn’t adopt standard of review for Franks challenges
The Third Circuit notes that it has yet to adopt a standard of review for Franks claims; see United States v. Pavulak, 700 F.3d 651, 665-66 (3d Cir. 2012); and it doesn’t have to here because, whichever applies, defendant loses. … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Question for Stone v. Powell is: does the state provide a mechanism for “full and fair litigation” of a 4A claim, not whether def took advantage of it
The question for Stone v. Powell is: does the state provide a mechanism for “full and fair litigation” of a Fourth Amendment claim, not whether defendant took advantage of it. Barrera v. Sherman, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 118199 (E.D. Cal. … Continue reading
CA8: Officer approached who he thought was a crime victim and answers to questions gave RS he was the culprit
Officer responded to a call about shooting of a car thinking defendant might have been a victim. When he inquired, “Aguilar responded that he ‘didn’t shoot nobody’s windows out.’” Reasonable suspicion developed on the totality. United States v. Aguilar, 19-3008 … Continue reading
WI: Officer can ask about weapons and for consent in any traffic stop without extending it
In an ordinary traffic stop, an officer may ask about weapons and even seek a consent to search without reasonable suspicion and thus without extending the stop. State v. Brown, 2020 WI 63, 2020 Wisc. LEXIS 140 (July 3, 2020):
CA4: Tip describing man with a gun found a block away walking away was RS
Bystander’s tip that a black man in red pants and a black shirt had left a large fight at a West Virginia bar going east after having displayed a gun. A block away to the east, officers found defendant walking … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Late night stop, no DL, digital scale on floor is RS
This late night stop was reasonably extended because the driver didn’t have a DL on him and there appeared to be a digital scale on the floor. United States v. Henry, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 115939 (D. Minn. May 20, … Continue reading
CA5: Reasonable mistaken identification made stop reasonable
“In any event, even if it is assumed arguendo that an attempted seizure could in fact trigger the Fourth Amendment, Ferguson has failed to show that the attempt to detain him for an investigatory Terry stop was not supported by … Continue reading
CA7: On the totality, RS was thin, up until def fled
“If these were all the facts, establishing reasonable suspicion might have been a close call for the officers. But Wilson’s unprovoked, headlong flight from police in a high-crime area put any lingering doubt to rest. Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Feeling apparent weapon during patdown allows officer to go inside clothing
Feeling a weapon during a patdown allows the officer to go beyond the outer clothing to retrieve it. United States v. Hightower, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 112557 (E.D. N.Y. June 26, 2020). Defendant stopped his vehicle in an intersection where … Continue reading