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- D.Utah: Minor detours to writing up a traffic ticket didn’t unreasonably extend this stop; the dog was quickly on its way
- KY: Despite lack of nexus, SW sustained under GFE
- CO: DNA could be seized from trash
- CA8: Nebraska statute allowing SWs to cross state lines doesn’t violate 4A
- WA: Sweat patch as condition of release violated state constitution’s privacy provision
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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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"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
CA9: In school seizure of plaintiff’s cell phone for 30 minutes was not unreasonable
In school seizure of plaintiff’s cell phone for 30 minutes was not unreasonable and “not excessively intrusive.” McGuire v. Roseville Joint Union High Sch. Dist., 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 172 (9th Cir. Jan. 6, 2026). “Valdivia counters that [the officer’s] … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Investigative medical exams implicate 4A
“The Fourth Amendment is implicated when medical examinations are undertaken at the initiative of a state official for an investigatory purpose. See Tenenbaum v. Williams, 193 F.3d 581, 606 (2d Cir. 1999) (holding that the Fourth Amendment applies to ‘searches … Continue reading
W.D.Ark.: Not clearly established that searching inside underwear on side of road was unreasonable if no one saw it
No clear line of cases suggests the officer’s searching inside plaintiff’s underwear was unreasonable where it was not seen by anyone else. “Plaintiff’s right to be free from such a search was not clearly established at that time and Defendant … Continue reading
Kavanaugh Stops #4
Reason: Did Brett Kavanaugh Just Apologize for Butchering the Fourth Amendment? Maybe. by Damon Root (“Puzzling over a curious omission from the conservative justice”):
Slate: Brett Kavanaugh Is Trying to Walk Back “Kavanaugh Stops.” Too Late.
Slate: Brett Kavanaugh Is Trying to Walk Back “Kavanaugh Stops.” Too Late. By Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern:
CA11: ALPR showing short round trip to Atlanta supported stop with RS
On plain error review, it can’t be said there was no reasonable suspicion whatsoever essentially based on a license plate reader that the car’s round trip to Atlanta was suspiciously short. Thus, “we cannot say that the district court committed … Continue reading
MI: Officer seeing def drunk an hour before he was driving was a reasonable conclusion
The district court erred in suppressing by finding no probable cause for a stop. “Because we conclude that Officer Prater’s observations of defendant in a drunken state no more than one hour before the stop furnished the officer with reasonable … Continue reading
HI: Failure to argue PC at suppression hearing was waiver for appeal
Where the defense didn’t argue a lack of probable cause at the suppression hearing, that could not be raised on appeal. State v. Arbogast, 2025 Haw. App. LEXIS 617 (Dec. 23, 2025) (unpublished).* Defendant’s stop was reasonable and his spontaneous … Continue reading
CA9: Taking too long to get SW for phone violated clearly established law
The officer here violated clearly established law by taking too long to apply for a warrant to search plaintiff’s cell phone. Plaintiff promptly sought its return, but that was denied because the officer hadn’t got a warrant yet. Langham v. … Continue reading
PA: Officer can’t impound a car just to avoid state automobile exception
Pennsylvania’s automobile exception is more stringent than the Fourth Amendment requiring exigency. The state can’t end run a refusal to consent by impounding a car to get into it. Commonwealth v. Rosario, 2025 PA Super 286 (Dec. 23, 2025). “First, … Continue reading
SCOTUS: Kavanaugh says immigration stops still require RS
Trump v. Illinois, 2025 U.S. LEXIS 4766 (U.S. Dec. 23, 2025), involving the President calling up the National Guard in Illinois, the government failed to prove an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act. [At first, I elected to omit this, … Continue reading
D.Minn.: No duty for officer to resolve traffic stop questions before safety concerns resolved
“All of these questions lasted fewer than thirty seconds–they did not ‘measurably extend’ the stop. Johnson, 555 U.S. at 333. Ali cites no law that suggests that officers must address the traffic infraction before they may ask questions related to … Continue reading
CA6: Reference to water emoji 💦with dual meaning not a Franks violation
“Swanagan did not make an adequate preliminary showing that Budde’s interpretation of the water emoji was intentionally or recklessly false, so the district court did not clearly err in finding the affidavit truthful. Swanagan asserts that he ‘provided dictionary support … Continue reading
N.-M.Ct.Crim.App.: Joint investigation by Belgium and Navy in NATO forces of murder of service member’s spouse by the service member was not improper
Defendant was in the Navy with NATO forces and questioned by Belgian authorities under their law for murder of his wife. This was not an improper joint investigation because both Belgium and the United States had jurisdiction over his crime. … Continue reading
NC: No standing in someone else’s cell phone pinged to find defendant
Defendant used someone else’s cell phone and officers pinged it to find him. He had no standing for the borrowed phone. After arrest, he admitted the shooting in a jail call. “Defendant’s temporary use of the phone does not automatically … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Cell phone can’t be seized on RS and exigency then wait four days to get a SW
“The question before this Court today is whether a police officer who conducts a Terry stop can seize the smartphone of a suspect without a warrant and hold it for four days before obtaining a warrant, where the suggested exigency … Continue reading
CA4: Short interaction in high crime area in daytime wasn’t RS
A short interaction in a high crime area in daytime wasn’t reasonable suspicion, even when the passenger and driver didn’t have the same story. United States v. Hawkins, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 32455 (4th Cir. Dec. 11, 2025):
W.D.La.: Can’t be ineffective for not arguing state constitution in federal criminal case
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not arguing the state constitution in a federal criminal case. United States v. Powell, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 256220 (W.D. La. Dec. 10, 2025). “Here, the affidavit detailed the information on which the officer relied, … Continue reading
CA3: Going into a well-known drug house for 2 minutes was RS for stop
Defendant was frequenting a well-known drug house. He went in for less than two minutes and came out. The stop was with reasonable suspicion. The patdown revealed a wad of cash by plain feel. United States v. Thomas, 2025 U.S. … Continue reading