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- VA: Body cam video of valid arrest would not be suppressed
- NM: Trial court’s finding of consent is reversed because the court engaged in its own internet investigation beyond what the parties provided
- Reason: No Warrant, No Suspicion, No Problem: Flock and Border Cellphone Searches Excluded From 4th Amendment Rules
- Reason: Flock’s Gunfire Alerts Raise a New Fourth Amendment Question
- N.D.Ohio: Car in driveway was on curtilage and plain view prohibited
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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (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
CA2: BIA erred in not suppressing; a prima facie case of an egregious violation of the 4A was shown because it was apparently race based stop and there was virtually no PC
BIA erred by denying petitioner’s motion to suppress evidence of his alleged alienage. He made out a prima facie case of an egregious violation of his constitutional rights where the evidence tended to show a racial animus in the planning … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: The officer responding to a bank robbery call finding two men matching the description near the bank was reasonable in stopping and handcuffing them
“Accordingly, we find that based on Dougherty’s experience and familiarity with the area, and the totality of the circumstances known to him as he responded to a dispatch describing two African American males at least one of whom was armed, … Continue reading
IL: Two anonymous calls of man with a gun resulted in finding only def in the area who walked like he was holding
The frisk of defendant did not violate the Fourth Amendment, so the trial court did not err by denying defendant’s motion to suppress the firearm. The officer encountered defendant after an unknown caller placed two 911 calls, defendant matched the … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Criminal acts on premises is not a waiver of a REP in it
Defendant did not own the premises searched, but he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in it because of his connection to it. Also, criminal acts on the premises is not a waiver of a reasonable expectation of privacy. Minnesota … Continue reading
MA well explains the totality of circumstances test applied to police-citizen contacts
Massachusetts well explains the totality of circumstances test applied to what a civilian would find an inherently coercive police citizen contact but the courts hardly ever do. Commonwealth v. Matta, 2019 Mass. LEXIS 582 (Oct. 21, 2019):
LA4: Nervousness and furtiveness of person clutching bag on Bourbon St during Halloween crowd justified stop to check for weapons
It was Halloween on Bourbon Street, which is the largest crowd in New Orleans other than Mardi Gras. Defendant was stopped for his suspicious behavior on seeing EMS personnel, and he quickened his pace and tucked his bag under his … Continue reading
OH8: SW was for all of a multifamily dwelling, only one unit was occupied; it was particular
The search warrant referred to the premises to be searched as “5243/45 Broadway.” It was one continuous apartment downstairs with one address, and the other upstairs was still being built and was occupied. 5243 was used on the search warrant … Continue reading
CA3: Smell of burnt MJ and passenger rolling a blunt warranted stop and frisk for weapons
Defendants’ stop and frisk was reasonable. Their car was parked in a convenience stop parking lot, the motor was running, and the driver was apparently inside. The passenger was rolling a blunt, suggesting more marijuana in the car, and the … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Advance notice def driving into state doesn’t require SW for car under automobile exception
Defendant concedes officers had probable cause. Just because they had advance notice defendant was coming because of the breadth of their investigation, the automobile exception allowed a vehicle search because of the mobility of the car. Advance notice still doesn’t … Continue reading
CA9: Failure to list a cell phone on the inventory sheet doesn’t void its seizure
Defendant’s cell phone was seized from his car when it was impounded after a high speed chase. The fact it was omitted from the inventory sheet does not make its seizure unreasonable. It was ultimately searched with a search warrant. … Continue reading
Sputnik International: ‘Inherently Racist’: Stop-And-Frisk Data Vindicates Activists’ Claims About DC Police Practice (opinion)
Sputnik International: ‘Inherently Racist’: Stop-And-Frisk Data Vindicates Activists’ Claims About DC Police Practice (opinion):
IL: Disorderly conduct can justify a Terry stop
Police received a 911 call about a man with a blue hoodie on a bicycle shouting profanities. Because the call was to 911 and recorded and logged with caller ID, it was more reliable. On seeing the man, the officer … Continue reading
CA4: Stopping men right after shots were fired to look for guns was reasonable
Officers on patrol heard gunshots and arrived within 35 seconds and saw a group of men dispersing. The directed then to stop while shining flashlights on them, and the directed the men to pull up their shirts. Only defendant didn’t, … Continue reading
Remember videos with “no guns, knives, bombs” in the request for consent?
“The State argues that, even though the sock was no longer in Peele’s possession or control, Officer James could still reasonably have feared that the sock contained ‘an explosive or incendiary device.’ Appellee’s Brief at 30. However, there is no … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Def’s stop and frisk on a residential street in Detroit was completely without legal justification and suppressed
Police pulled up on the defendant and made him lift his shirt, completely without legal justification. It is suppressed. United States v. Watson, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 134627 (E.D. Mich. Aug. 9, 2019)*:
LA4: Def has no REP in his shooting victim’s Instagram account
Defendant was accused of a murder. The state got a search warrant for the victim’s Instagram account, and he moved to suppress. [Remember, Louisiana gives broad standing, but, still] He has no reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched. … Continue reading
MD: Def’s alleged furtive movement while sitting in car wasn’t significant enough to show he was concealing a gun
Defendant’s “furtive movement” in the car while talking to the police officer outside the car wasn’t significant enough in the testimony to show that he was secreting something or moving around a weapon. There thus was no objective basis for … Continue reading
TN: There was PC for a search of the person but no exigency
There was probable cause for a search of defendant’s person, but there’s no evidence of exigency to justify it. A frisk produced no weapons, a drug dog didn’t alert on the car. Ultimately, he was made to empty his pockets, … Continue reading
MA: Def’s stop a mile away without really matching description wasn’t justified
There was no reasonable suspicion for defendant’s patdown away from the scene of the alleged crime. The state claims he looked like the guy, but there was also substantial evidence he wasn’t the guy by his dress. He was also … Continue reading