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- IN: Overdose call led to EMS telling police what they saw and that led to SW
- NY1: A mental health defense waives REP in the medical records about it
- MA: When a likely Franks violation comes out at trial, def gets to reopen the suppression issue
- RI: Challenge to one sentence of 8-page cell phone records SW fails; totality has to be considered
- WaPo: Subpoena bill would curtail secretive tool used to target government critics
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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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Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
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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)
--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: Inventory
N.D.Iowa: USMJ erroneously puts burden on def to show inventory invalid
Defendant was seen drunk in the grass behind a liquor store and then crawling to his car by a citizen informant who called the police. An officer arrived and arrested defendant for DUI. The vehicle was properly towed because it … Continue reading
W.D.Wis.: Search of def’s car essentially was based on curiosity; no warrant exception applies; suppressed
The search of defendant’s car couldn’t be justified as a search incident or an inventory, and the testimony is woefully inadequate to support either. Essentially, the officer testified, and acted at the scene like, he could search the car with … Continue reading
OR: Impoundment of defendant’s car in his own driveway was unreasonable
In an almost identical case, the Ninth Circuit previously held that impoundment of defendant’s car parked in his own driveway was unconstitutional. Using the community caretaking to seize defendant’s car from his driveway for safekeeping was unreasonable. State v. Gonzales, … Continue reading
E.D.La.: No constitutional duty to give def opportunity to remove stuff before impoundment
Defendant’s van was legitimately impounded although he was not arrested. It was not constitutionally required to give him the opportunity to remove things from the van first. United States v. Gullo, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 140142 (E.D. La. October 2, … Continue reading
D.N.D.: Failure to record conversation with USMJ that address needed correction not ground to suppress
Officers discovered that the address in the search warrant was incorrect before the warrant issued, and the USMJ corrected it on the warrant. The failure to record that conversation while a Rule 41 violation and not a Fourth Amendment violation … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Dirty license plate justified stop even though it was called in during stop
Defendant’s stop for having a dirty obscured license plate was justified even though the officer was able to call it in when parked right behind him. The butt of a shotgun was visible in the vehicle and defendant was a … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Old background info coupled with new info doesn’t make warrant stale
The search warrant was not stale. It had pretty old background information that alone would be stale, but it provided recent information as well, and that was sufficient to overcome staleness. United States v. Thomas, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125410 … Continue reading
FL2: Common authority to consent did not extend to guest’s backpack
The owner of the place searched had the authority to consent to a search of the bedroom where defendant was sleeping. Defendant was just a short term guest and was asleep when the police came in. The common authority applied … Continue reading
MN: No inventory permitted when defendant not being physically arrested
Because defendant was not being arrested for a minor drug offense, it wasn’t proper then to impound her car for an inventory. State v. Rohde, 2014 Minn. LEXIS 406 (August 20, 2014). The 52 page affidavit for the search warrant … Continue reading
TX4: Anonymous tip of a minor city code violation didn’t support stop, so consent invalid
An anonymous tip that defendant was selling stuff from her car allegedly without a proper city permit didn’t justify defendant’s stop. Her subsequent consent was invalid. Pineda v. State, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 8824 (Tex. App. – San Antonio August … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: Passenger had standing: girlfriend’s car, and they were on vacation together
Defendant’s girlfriend owned the car, and they were traveling together on vacation. Given all the facts, this passenger had standing and a reasonable expectation of privacy that society would recognize and could exclude others from the car. United States v. … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: No standing to contest seizure of guns left at a pawn shop
Defendant had no standing to contest law enforcement’s seizure of guns he pawned at a pawn shop. United States v. Sanders, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88788 (E.D. Tenn. May 19, 2014).* The officer had reasonable suspicion defendant was driving under … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Warrant for whole single family dwelling was not overbroad in a CP case
Search warrants are directed at places, and it doesn’t matter that several people live there. This was a single family dwelling, so the warrant wasn’t overbroad for identifying the whole home as a place to search in a child pornography … Continue reading
NMI: Search of cigarette pack reasonable in SI to look for weapon
Defendant was on a moped with another, and they were stopped at a sobriety checkpoint. The registration was years out of date, and they were directed aside for a more intense review. Defendant’s cigarette pack aroused suspicion because of the … Continue reading
OR: Ordering defendant out of his house for an FST was a “stop” and detention as a show of authority
Ordering defendant out of his house for a FST was a “stop” and detention under the state constitution because it was a show of authority. State v. Charles, 263 Or. App. ___, 2014 Ore. App. LEXIS 804 (June 18, 2014). … Continue reading