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Recent Posts
- OH7: Magistrate signing SW for something outside of territorial jurisdiction not a 4A violation
- 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
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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
KY: After DL found suspended, stop can be extended
When defendant was stopped and found to have a suspended license, the normal incidents of a traffic stop are accordingly extended, and that didn’t make waiting for a drug dog unreasonable. Olmeda v. Commonwealth, 2020 Ky. App. LEXIS 40 (Apr. … Continue reading
CA8: Police looking at undercarriage of stopped car doesn’t require PC
The officer here had reasonable suspicion on the totality to extend the stop aside from the fact the two adults in the vehicle had no drivers licenses and the insurance card didn’t match them. The officer’s looking at the undercarriage … Continue reading
OH2: 911 call not anonymous for RS purposes because number captured
A 911 call wasn’t anonymous because the number called from was captured. “‘Some factors that significantly support the reliability of an anonymous tip include: “eyewitness knowledge”; a “contemporaneous report”; the fact that an event is startling; and use of the … Continue reading
SCOTUS: LPN check that comes back showing owner’s DL was revoked justifies a stop unless the officer has reason to believe the driver is not the owner
An LPN check that comes back showing owner’s DL was revoked justifies a stop unless the officer has reason to believe the driver is not the owner. Kansas v. Glover, 2020 U.S. LEXIS 2178 (Apr. 6, 2020):
CA6: Asking about drugs in car during normal incidents of stop not unreasonable under Rodriguez
Defendant’s admission he possessed marijuana in his car was within the normal incidents of the traffic stop, Therefore, the officer could extend the stop under Rodriguez. United States v. Lott, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 10237 (6th Cir. Apr. 1, 2020). … Continue reading
D.Minn.: “A police officer’s ‘characterization is not enough, standing alone, to implicate Fourth Amendment protections.’” That’s the court’s duty
“A police officer’s ‘characterization is not enough, standing alone, to implicate Fourth Amendment protections.’ Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U.S. 567, 574, 108 S. Ct. 1975, 100 L. Ed. 2d 565 (1988). The parties’ characterization of the events notwithstanding, the Court … Continue reading
CA10: Def’s prior drug arrests by the officer contributed to RS when in a high crime area and other things
“Serna was ‘seized’ under the Fourth Amendment through a Terry stop when Sergeant Silva told Serna to keep his hands where he could see them, and Serna placed his hands on top of his head. … The district court ruled … Continue reading
IL: Flight from gunshots is not RS
Defendant’s flight into his house on hearing gunshots was not reasonable suspicion to give chase or probable cause to enter the house to arrest him. Anybody would flee gunshots. People v. Craine, 2020 IL App (1st) 163403, 2020 Ill. App. … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Having def sit in the patrol car didn’t prolong the stop
“[T]he officer did not commit an unlawful seizure when he instructed Salazar-Lopez to sit in the patrol car. The move to the patrol car did not impermissibly prolong the traffic stop, and was incidental to the mission of the stop.” … Continue reading
FL2: Without a link to crime, grabbing one’s waistband and pockets not RS
No weapon had been involved in a robbery the police were investigating, and they knew defendant wasn’t the robber. When they approached and he felt his waistband and pockets, they didn’t have reasonable suspicion. Townsend v. State, 2020 Fla. App. … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Def’s hiding a gun in flight from police in the property of another was abandonment, even if he intended to return to get it
The officer did not immediately have probable cause to arrest defendant, but the unfolding circumstances before him ended up rising to probable cause. There was more than suspicion and more than proximity. Defendant’s furtive movements supplied more cause. Defendant’s hiding … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: “The Court should stop imbuing the ‘objectively reasonable’ officer with a cloak of constitutional comfort for justifications …”
The court finds the stop was unjustified and any mistake on the officer’s part was not objectively reasonable. “The Court should stop imbuing the ‘objectively reasonable’ officer with a cloak of constitutional comfort for justifications that strain credulity and discount … Continue reading
DE: Officer’s signing SW affidavit with “Tpr. Santangelo #1826.” showed he was reasonably experienced
Defendant argued that the DUI search warrant lacked probable cause because the officer didn’t specify his training in the affidavit. “The search warrant affidavit is signed ‘Tpr. Santangelo #1826.’ This information allowed the issuing magistrate to reasonably infer that Santangelo … Continue reading
CA7: Running warrants on stopped panhandlers was reasonable
Chicago PD officers stopped panhandlers and ran warrants once they had their IDs. “We conclude that officers may execute a name check on an individual incidental to a proper stop under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 16, 88 S. … Continue reading
VT: Traffic stop devolved into drug investigation without RS; delay was because officers intentionally didn’t complete the tasks of the stop
This traffic stop led to defendant being cited for driving on a suspended DL, but the officers were going to let him get someone to come and retrieve the keys from their office. The officer turned it into a drug … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: Lack of a video didn’t undermine the USMJ’s credibility finding
“The lack of a video under these circumstances is not a basis for rejecting the Magistrate Judge’s credibility finding.” Defendant’s becoming loud and obnoxious when asked to leave justified a frisk. United States v. Tymes, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47638 … Continue reading
IN: Person merely visiting during PO visit couldn’t be arrested when drugs found in common area; no showing of constructive possession
POs entered an apartment for a visit, and defendant visitor, not the one under supervision, was in the room with others where drugs were found. Under constructive possession rules, there was no probable cause to even arrest him so his … Continue reading
OH5: No 4A right to have copy of SW left at scene of search
The record only shows that the officer could not remember whether he gave a copy of the search warrant to the defendant. That doesn’t justify suppression of evidence because there is no Fourth Amendment right to have a copy of … Continue reading
LA2: Officer’s leaning in open window wasn’t a plain view; def’s demands to know why he’s detained can’t be RS when he has a right to know
Officer’s leaning into the open window of defendant’s car with a flashlight to get a better view was not a plain view. Statute “commands police officers, upon detaining a citizen in connection with the investigation or commission of any offense, … Continue reading
CA11: Prowler call at 1:30 am and def being only person out dressed all in black with improbable story was RS
The officer responded to a 911 call of a prowler in a neighborhood at 1:30 am. The only person out was defendant, dressed all in black which the officer found regularly happened in prowler calls. When confronted, defendant said he … Continue reading