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Recent Posts
- E.D.Tenn.: Application for SW was considered in detention ruling
- TN: RS didn’t develop to continue stop; second stop based on first suppressed
- CA4: Traffic stop immediately became firearms investigation; suppressed
- CA10: Disagreement over spelling of street name didn’t make warrant fail particularity; GFE at least would apply
- VA: Statutory requirement to provide SW papers only applies to “places of abode”
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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) -
“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
MI: No RS for getting def out of car for a frisk
Defendant’s stop was justified, but getting him out of the vehicle for a frisk was not. Suppressed. People v. Turner, 2022 Mich. App. LEXIS 4943 (Aug. 18, 2022) (2-1). On the totality, defendant consented to an interview in his own … Continue reading
NY2: Search of wallet during a frisk unreasonable
Officers violated the Fourth Amendment during defendant’s frisk when they removed his wallet from his pocket and searched it. People v. Lewis, 2022 NY Slip Op 04920, 2022 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 4797 (2d Dept. Aug. 10, 2022). The officer … Continue reading
MI: Extending stop for photographs and fingerprints unreasonable
The Grand Rapids PD’s policy of photographing and fingerprinting people without probable cause or reasonable suspicion in a Terry stop violated the Fourth Amendment. It was a trespass on the body. Johnson v. Vanderkooi, 2022 Mich. LEXIS 1359 (July 22, … Continue reading
CA4: Def’s Facebook post and demeanor justified stop-and-frisk
Defendant’s Facebook post and his past supported reasonable suspicion for his stop and frisk of his fanny pack at a fair. He was a known member of a violent gang with a felony conviction, his house had been recently shot … Continue reading
CA7: Stop-and-frisk at gunpoint was reasonable
Defendant’s actions justified a stop and frisk at gunpoint, and it was still a mere detention and not an arrest. United States v. Olson, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 19744 (7th Cir. July 18, 2022):
NJ: Refusal of a frisk without RS does not add to RS
There was no reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop. People who live in a “high crime area” do not have lesser constitutional protection. The facts here just didn’t support a frisk, and he had a right to refuse one, and that … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: Imprecision in the SW affidavit isn’t a Franks violation
Imprecision in the affiant investigator’s words doesn’t equate to recklessness for Franks purposes. United States v. Tubbs, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73473 (N.D.Ala. Mar. 14, 2022).* Defendant’s alleged Franks violation wasn’t even material based on all the evidence that the … Continue reading
MS: Open fields covered by state const.; warrant required for administrative search
A warrant is required for administrative searches under the Mississippi constitution, which also protects all land owned by the complainant, including open fields. Plain view is inapplicable here. The exclusionary rule applies to this administrative search and seizure. Okhuysen v. … Continue reading
D.Conn.: CI was personally involved in info he provided, and he was further corroborated by an unrelated wiretap
The CI here was untested for prior reliability, but the information was detailed and had the CI’s personal involvement. Moreover, an unrelated wiretap provided some corroboration of the CI’s involvement. This probable cause finding is not a close call. If … Continue reading
N.D.Fla.: § 2241 habeas can’t be used to review another USDJ’s denial of a motion to suppress
A defendant can’t use a 2241 habeas as a way to appeal denial of a motion to suppress by another district judge. Butler v. Cook, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 247876 (N.D.Fla. Nov. 30, 2021). Controlled buys from defendant a few … Continue reading
MA: Driver’s and passenger’s conduct during traffic stop helped create RS for frisk of passenger in backseat
During a traffic stop, the driver and front seat passenger were argumentative and threatening for a fight. The officers surmised that this was a distraction from the vehicle because it could have a firearm in it. On the totality, there … Continue reading
CA6: Officer routinely asking “about drugs, weapons, and dead bodies” during traffic stops doesn’t unreasonably extend them
Officer “Mathieson testified that it is his habit to ask about drugs, weapons, and dead bodies during traffic stops. In any event, police officers are permitted to stop a vehicle for a traffic violation and look for evidence of a … Continue reading
TX2: Unlawful stop-and-frisk leads to suppression of patdown and search and abandonment during flight
Defendant’s stop was without reasonable suspicion. His alleged consent was not voluntary and his flight and abandonment were not attenuated but were caused by the illegal stop and frisk. Massey v. State, 2021 Tex. App. LEXIS 9820 (Tex. App. – … Continue reading
IL: Def’s stop and obtaining DL was permitted by Terry so alleged illegal arrest is moot point
Officers had sufficient information for a Terry stop. They arrested defendant and got his DL and identifiers. Even if the arrest was illegal, the Terry stop would not have been and the same information would have been available. Therefore, there … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Arrestee left out in cold in t-shirt stated 4A claim
Plaintiff states a Fourth Amendment claim that he was arrested and left outside in the snow in jeans and a t-shirt for more than 30 minutes. Bolin v. Prater, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 225777 (N.D.Ind. Nov. 23, 2021). Leaving drugs … Continue reading
OH11: No standing in father’s cell phones even when communicating with defense experts
Defendant is charged with killing his wife. He didn’t have standing to challenge a search warrant for his father’s cell phones where attorney-client privilege in their contents was asserted because the father was communicating with expert witnesses in his case. … Continue reading
Cal.2: Either RS or PC required for order to put hands on hood of police car
There was neither probable cause nor reasonable suspicion to order defendant to put his hands on the hood of the police car, and it was a seizure without justification. “We conclude that there was neither probable cause to arrest appellant … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Frisk just for “officer safety” during traffic stop was unreasonable
Defendant was stopped for having no rearview mirror inside. A frisk for weapons for “officer safety” was unwarranted. Motion to suppress granted. United States v. Jarvis, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 199592 (N.D.Ohio Oct. 18, 2021). The officer’s alleged violation of … Continue reading