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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)
--Outline of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
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Section 1983 Blog -
"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.W.Va.: Officers’ knowledge of def’s violent past justified patdown during stop
Officer’s prior knowledge of defendant’s violent past and criminal history, with reasonable suspicion, justified his patdown. United States v. South, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 35208 (N.D. W.Va. Mar. 2, 2020).* Officers had a search warrant for the car defendant was … Continue reading
CO: Off-topic question about pill bottle felt during patdown didn’t unreasonably extend stop
Defendant was stopped for reasonable suspicion of having communicated a threat to his girlfriend. During the patdown of the defendant, the officer felt a pill bottle and asked about it, and defendant gave an incriminating response. The single off-topic question … Continue reading
CA6: § 1983 malicious prosecution claims are made under 4A not 14A
Malicious prosecution claims are to be brought under the Fourth Amendment and not substantive due process. Davis v. Gallagher, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 6180 (6th Cir. Feb. 28, 2020). Driving with hands at the 10 and 2 position was suspect … Continue reading
DE: A few questions unrelated to the purpose of the stop didn’t measurably extend it
Questions asked of defendant that were unrelated to the justification for his traffic stop did not measurably extend the traffic stop. Although an officer’s questions about defendant’s two cell phones, children and the beach were unrelated to defendant’s failure to … Continue reading
D.Idaho: Faint smell of MJ and “excessive nervousness” not RS
Faint smell of marijuana and nervousness was not reasonable suspicion. The court also doesn’t find the travel plans at all suspicious. United States v. Lee, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 33091 (D. Idaho Feb. 25, 2020). Plaintiff’s nolo plea barred his … Continue reading
CA4: Wrestling a passive misdemeanant to ground and Tasing him was excessive force and unreasonable
It was clearly established at the time of the incident that wrestling a passive misdemeanant to the grown and beating him up and tapering him was unreasonable and excessive force. Livingston v. Kehagias, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 5681 (4th Cir. … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Navarette-like stop was reasonable in shots fired call and that also supported vehicle search for weapon under Long
“Navarette supports a finding of reasonable suspicion here. In light of the totality of the circumstances, including that officers spotted the white pickup in close proximity to the park soon after being dispatched, the court finds that the 911 call … Continue reading
MT: Mandamus to get SW materials from 1998 denied for complete failure to comply with mandamus statute
Mandamus to get search warrant materials from 1998 denied: “Insua’s instant petition is lacking because it does not conform to Montana statutes. He has not filed a verified petition or included an affidavit, pursuant to § 27-26-201, MCA. Insua has … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: The person stopped telling police he knows his rights isn’t RS; his flight from an unreasonable stop wasn’t RS either
“Just as numerous courts have stated nervousness cannot be a reliable indicator of criminal activity, loudly asserting one’s right to terminate an encounter with officers does not provide reasonable suspicion for continued investigation of suspected criminal activity.” United States v. … Continue reading
NC: 30 years of satellite based monitoring of this convicted sex offender was unreasonable
30 years of satellite based monitoring of this convicted sex offender was unreasonable under Grady v. North Carolina and subsequent state cases. State v. Griffin, 2020 N.C. App. LEXIS 139 (Feb. 18, 2020). The trial court credited the officer’s testimony … Continue reading
CA9: Conducting a frisk in such a way it inflicts pain can state a claim
“In this case, Borawick and Appellees have raised genuine disputes of material fact over whether there was an objective basis to believe that Borawick was a danger to the officers or to the public; whether a reasonable officer, having been … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: If a vehicle’s registration comes back to an unlicensed owner there is reasonable suspicion for the stop even if SCOTUS holds otherwise in Glover because of GFE
If a vehicle’s registration comes back to an unlicensed owner, there is reasonable suspicion for the stop even if SCOTUS holds otherwise in Kansas v. Glover. Probable cause developed after the stop. United States v. Legarrea, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA5: A dead man is not one of the “people” of the 4A
The estate of a dead man has no Fourth Amendment claim for a search warrant allegedly unreasonably obtained after the death for aggravated assault by the deceased allegedly “‘as a pretext for investigation into [Mr.] Blanchard’s history’ and to ‘besmirch … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Smell of raw MJ from passenger compartment wasn’t RS in California
The stop was justified by a lane change violation on Lombard Street in San Francisco, but the continuation of the stop lacked any reasonable suspicion. Defendant was driving a rental car that had been loaned to the passenger whose mother … Continue reading
W.D.N.C.: RS arose from domestic argument officer could hear
The officer responded to what sounded like a fight and that was reasonable suspicion. Added to that was defendant’s furtive movements when the officer got there. Defendant’s actions also supported a protective search of the vehicle. United States v. Blount, … Continue reading
CA6: Def’s volunteering to officer “he was working with a DEA agent but because his status was classified” contributed to RS
“But even assuming the officers had exceeded the time needed to handle the traffic stop, Officer Ullrich had reasonable suspicion to use the drug dog. As Officer Ullrich approached Jackson’s car after making the traffic stop, Jackson made numerous unprompted … Continue reading