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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)
--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
CA2: Eyewitness report and identification of ptf was probable cause for arrest
Eyewitness report and identification was probable cause for arrest, so summary judgment was proper for the officer. Tortora v. City of New York, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 8135 (2d Cir. Mar. 12, 2020).* The court credits the officers’ testimony that … Continue reading
PA: Syringes in plain view on floorboard was PC
Officer’s seeing syringes on the floor of defendant’s car just by looking was plain view and probable cause for search. Commonwealth v. Bumbarger, 2020 Pa. Super. LEXIS 206 (Mar. 16, 2020).* “Mr. Sealey’s motion to suppress, the court did not … Continue reading
AL: Officer was lawfully in position for plain view of def’s computer screen
The trial court erred in suppressing the search here because the officer who did it was a law enforcement officer under state law able to do so. On the merits, the officer was in position to make a plain view … Continue reading
OH2: On inventory of car owned by another, the police have no duty to call the owner
This inventory for driving another’s car without a license was reasonable. It followed policy, and there was no duty to call the owner to retrieve it to avoid the inventory. State v. Allen, 2020-Ohio-947, 2020 Ohio App. LEXIS 868 (2d … Continue reading
GA: Def made no effort to show standing in girlfriend’s cell phone
CSLI was admitted involving defendant’s girlfriend’s cell phone that defendant was using. He made no effort to show standing in the cell phone. Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not raising standing. Albright v. State, 2020 Ga. App. LEXIS 187 (Mar. … Continue reading
N.D.Okla.: Patdown for weapons that became an investigative search was unreasonable
Defendant concedes the basis for the stop but not the justification for a patdown. The court finds reasonable suspicion on the totality extreme (not ordinary) nervousness. But, the search was excessive, and the motion to suppress is granted. “The Court … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Eight day delay in executing SW for ongoing drug trafficking operation wasn’t stale
Defendant’s prior admission in the proceedings that an omission from the affidavit for a state search warrant was just negligent served to now deny a Franks challenge. Waiting eight days to serve the warrant did not make it stale either … Continue reading
WY: 911 hang-up call from def’s girlfriend and def answered call back volunteering he’d never hit her, with other information, justified warrantless entry
Defendant’s girlfriend made a 911 hang-up call. When 911 called back, defendant answered the phone and volunteered he’d never hit her when she didn’t speak on the first call. Defendant was known to the police to have firearms and possible … Continue reading
Cal.4d1: Leaving the engine running to one’s car outside house for 30 minutes isn’t exigent circumstances
A neighbor called the police because defendant left his vehicle outside with the engine running for 30 minutes. This did not indicate an emergency justifying a warrantless entry into his casita. There were drugs in plain view. People v. Smith, … Continue reading
CO: Opening door to confirm VIN of possible stolen car was reasonable when the dashboard VIN was covered
The officers had reasonable suspicion that the car was stolen. They exhausted all the possibilities without confirming one way or the other, and the VIN on the dashboard wasn’t visible. Opening the door to see the VIN on the door … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Govt couldn’t rely on Strieff where there was no RS to begin with
The government’s motion to reconsider is denied. It can’t justify the stop under Strieff because “[a]t the time the officer activated his lights and ordered Mullins to approach, he not only lacked reasonable suspicion to conduct a Terry stop, he … Continue reading
CA7: ShotSpotter alert followed by 911 calls was RS when coupled with time of night and lack of other cars
Defendant’s car was driving out of the coverage area of a ShotSpotter alert. This was essentially an “anonymous tip” from ShotSpotter that was followed by 911 calls that independently confirmed it. The totality of the circumstances established that the officer … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: No REP child porn sent by Facebook Messenger won’t be retransmitted to police by Facebook
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in child pornography uploaded to Facebook Messenger. Even treating it as email (Warshak), the email provider can turn child pornography over to law enforcement when it is transmitted. Then a further search warrant … Continue reading
OK: Two hours of CSLI in 2012 not excluded
Two hours of CSLI in 2012 to connect defendant to a capital murder was not subject to the exclusionary rule. Carpenter n.3 in 2018 left open this situation. Fuston v. State, 2020 OK CR 4, 2020 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
OR: PC backpack contained evidence of theft; search incident permitted despite it being dropped over fence when police approached
Defendant was carrying a backpack that police had good reason to believe contained evidence of a theft. When the police came up, the backpack was tossed over a fence but was nearby. Dropping the backpack over the fence did not … Continue reading
CO: Officer responding to a just-occurring assault call can stop car pulling out of driveway
An officer responding to a house where an assault was just reported to have occurred could stop a car backing out of the driveway because the occupant might have been involved in it. People v. Jiron, 2020 COA 36, 2020 … Continue reading
IA: DL of registered owner of car RS for stop
An LPN search showed the DL of the owner suspended. It turned out, however, to be the result of a clerical error. The officer suspected defendant driver was under the influence. The stop was with reasonable suspicion under the Fourth … Continue reading
LA2: Continuation of stop was without RS
The continuation of this stop was without reasonable suspicion. State v. Bell-Brayboy, 2020 La. App. LEXIS 368 (La. App. 2 Cir. Mar. 4, 2020)*:
N.D.Ill.: Shots fired call specifying def’s backyard was exigency permitting entry
A report of gunshots from defendant’s backyard justified exigency entry into yard. “In response to Officer Gali’s statement that they could do it the easy way or get a search warrant, Pouncey responded, ‘go ahead, bro.’ The Court reviewed the … Continue reading