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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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--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: Stop and frisk
CA8: Key fob in pocket, common today, is not RS def was driving a nearby stolen car
A key fob in one’s pocket, common today, is not reasonable suspicion defendant was driving a nearby stolen car. The seizure was suppressed. United States v. Craddock, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 20118 (8th Cir. Nov. 8, 2016):
N.D.W.Va.: “Officers are not required to completely confirm reasonable suspicions before they may perform an investigative stop — only to possess a suspicion that is reasonable.”
“Defendant’s identity was not relevant to reasonable suspicion that he committed an assault, since the witnesses who reported the assault did not know his identity and therefore could not report it to Captain Root. Captain Root had only a physical … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Coming out of drug house also known for guns was RS
Defendant’s coming out of a drug house was reasonable suspicion for a stop and frisk where it was known that drugs and guns had been seized there just a few months before. United States v. Williams, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
Reason: Trump Calls for More ‘Stop and Frisk’ of Citizens While Stumping for the Black Vote
Reason: Trump Calls for More ‘Stop and Frisk’ of Citizens While Stumping for the Black Vote by Scott Shackford: What Fourth Amendment?
WA: Objective reasonable facts justified frisk of def when his companion was arrested
“This case requires us to decide under what circumstances officers making a lawful arrest may seize a companion of the arrestee in the absence of reasonable suspicion to independently justify a Terry stop of the companion. We hold that where … Continue reading
VI: Nervousness is not RS; patdown unjustified and no reason shown
Defendant’s stop was admittedly justified, but the detention was without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Mere nervousness isn’t enough, and the officer didn’t articulate more. A patdown was unreasonable. People v. Hodge, 2016 V.I. LEXIS 123 (Aug. 24, 2016). Defendant showed … Continue reading
MD: The length of handcuffing did not turn Terry stop into a de facto arrest
Despite the handcuffs, the detention remained a Terry stop. “Use of handcuffs does not elevate an investigatory detention to an arrest when concern that weapons are present and officer safety provide the bases. Continued use of handcuffs after a frisk … Continue reading
OR: Going into pocket after patdown unreasonable; no articulation of anything being a weapon
Defendant consented to a patdown, and the officer exceeded the scope of the patdown by going into the pocket. He felt something, but he didn’t articulate that it could be a weapon. The officer’s general observations about drug dealers didn’t … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Collective knowledge doesn’t require any one of them to know everything they collectively know
There was reasonable suspicion for the stop, which the defense didn’t seriously contest. What they did contest was collective knowledge, and that doctrine does not require that each officer know what the others know. United States v. Johnson, 2016 U.S. … Continue reading
ID: Shoplifting stop didn’t justify a frisk
Defendant was stopped out in the parking lot of a store as an alleged accessory to shoplifting. The stop was with reasonable suspicion, but the frisk for weapons was not. Heroin was found in his pocket, and it is suppressed. … Continue reading
NYLJ: Panel Upholds NYC Measure That Prohibits Biased Policing
NYLJ: Panel Upholds NYC Measure That Prohibits Biased Policing by Andrew Denney: State law does not pre-empt a New York City law prohibiting discriminatory policing that was enacted in 2013 amid concerns about the NYPD’s increased reliance on stop-and-frisk tactics, … Continue reading
NYTimes: Editorial: Policing the Police on Stop-and-Frisk
NYTimes: Editorial: Policing the Police on Stop-and-Frisk: Three years have passed since a Federal District Court ruled that New York City’s stop-and-frisk program violated constitutional prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure and discriminated against minority citizens, who were disproportionately and … Continue reading
OH2: Patdown unreasonable because it was for drugs not safety
Pat down was unreasonable because officer didn’t have any safety concerns and was looking for drugs. State v. Kinnison, 2016-Ohio-3481, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS 2337 (2d Dist. June 17, 2016). Defendant was indicted, had a motion to suppress hearing, had … Continue reading
WBEZ: Police Data Cast Doubt On Chicago-Style Stop-And-Frisk
WBEZ: Police Data Cast Doubt On Chicago-Style Stop-And-Frisk by Chip Mitchell: …[P]olice department data reveal a complicated picture. The records, obtained by WBEZ through the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, show negative trends as officers reported more stops: Gun seizures … Continue reading
WA: Reasonable suspicion there was a gun in car permitted a protective sweep of the car
Officers had reasonable suspicion there was a gun in defendant’s car, and they could make a limited sweep of a vehicle knowing that the vehicle is or shortly will be impounded and will be towed from the scene. State v. … Continue reading
NYTimes: Departing Judge Offers Blunt Defense of Ruling in Stop-and-Frisk Case
NYTimes: Departing Judge Offers Blunt Defense of Ruling in Stop-and-Frisk Case by Benjamin Weiser:
NJ: Walking up to police at 1:30 am and reaching for back pocket justified frisk
Defendant walked up to officers at 1:30 am in a high crime area, did not acknowledge their words to him, and moved his hand to his back pocket as he got closer. They frisked him, finding only a baggie of … Continue reading
The Atlantic: Magazine: Is Stop-and-Frisk Worth It?
The Atlantic: Magazine: Is Stop-and-Frisk Worth It? by Daniel Bergner: Civil-rights activists are ecstatic that a federal judge declared the NYPD’s policy unconstitutional. But law-enforcement officials say the practice has made U.S. cities dramatically safer. Now what?