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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)
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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: Qualified immunity
CA10: 15-minute call to EPIC when officer given inconsistent travel plans wasn’t unreasonable
Inconsistent travel plans coming from the driver and passenger justified a 15 minute call to EPIC to see if the vehicle had crossed the border recently, and this was not unreasonable. United States v. Morales, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 17865 … Continue reading
Courthouse News Service: New House Bill Would Revoke ‘Qualified Immunity’ for Police
Courthouse News Service: New House Bill Would Revoke ‘Qualified Immunity’ for Police by Thomas Harrison (“The bill would eliminate qualified immunity, the ability of police officers to argue they acted in good faith when they violated someone’s constitutional rights. It … Continue reading
SCOTUS conferencing 10 qualified immunity cases today
Probably the results of the conference on Monday. See WaPo: Supreme Court asked to reconsider immunity available to police accused of brutality
CA2: Police actions showed warrantless entry wasn’t for emergency purposes sufficient to create jury question
Decedent was a mentally ill veteran who accidentally activated an at home alarm and police responded. He was ultimately shot and police came in, not responding to a wounded man but as a criminal. There was a plausible claim that … Continue reading
E.D.Ark.: “After editing out the incomplete and false portions of the warrant affidavit, the remaining information was insufficient to establish” PC
“After editing out the incomplete and false portions of the warrant affidavit, the remaining information was insufficient to establish that Green was dead and that his death was caused by the criminal act of another person. Accordingly, the Court finds … Continue reading
OH5: Trial court’s finding of officer’s credibility where dashcam didn’t help was binding on appeal
The dashcam video was inconclusive on whether defendant stopped, but the trial court credited the officer, and that’s binding on the court of appeals. State v. Blasingame, 2020-Ohio-3087, 2020 Ohio App. LEXIS 2029 (5th Dist. May 21, 2020).* Two dashcam … Continue reading
CA6: No QI for prosecutors instigating raid without PC
Tennessee prosecutors have no qualified immunity for CBD raids instigated without probable cause in Operation Candy Crush. Even the state indictment they procured without probable cause doesn’t grant them immunity. Rieves v. Town of Smyrna, Tennessee, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
MA: Def gets limited discovery into CI’s reliability otherwise not provided by state
Massachusetts court sees no need to intervene yet in a trial court’s limited discovery order for the CI’s reliability which was wanting in the affidavit. “If the Commonwealth feels that any document would reveal the informant’s identity, it can seek … Continue reading
NYT: How Reuters Analyzed Court Data on Qualified Immunity
NYT: How Reuters Analyzed Court Data on Qualified Immunity (“Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has repeatedly criticized her fellow justices for creating, as she put it in a 2018 dissent, an ‘absolute shield’ for police officers accused of excessive force. … Continue reading
UT: Stop based on query to Insure-Rite database was with RS despite database being updated biweekly
Defendant was stopped because the Utah Criminal Justice Information System querying the Insure-Rite database showed he had no car insurance. Once stopped, he admitted he didn’t have a DL either. Then, outstanding warrants were found. Defendant’s claim the Insure-Rite database … Continue reading
CA6: It is settled that tenants have a REP in an interior hallway open only to them
The district court erred in granting qualified immunity to the officers who entered a hallway that was associated with only one apartment that decedent clearly had a reasonable expectation of privacy in. The law is settled in this circuit. Decedent … Continue reading
CA9: Protective sweep of house after medical emergency at front door unjustified
Officers responded to a medical emergency at the entryway of defendant’s house. They ended up conducting a protective sweep for which there was no justification whatsoever. The firearm found in the protective sweep is suppressed. United States v. Gonzalez-Martin, 2020 … Continue reading
Cato@liberty: Supreme Court Will Soon Decide Whether To Reconsider Qualified Immunity
Cato@liberty: Supreme Court Will Soon Decide Whether To Reconsider Qualified Immunity by Jay Schweikert:
KY: After DL found suspended, stop can be extended
When defendant was stopped and found to have a suspended license, the normal incidents of a traffic stop are accordingly extended, and that didn’t make waiting for a drug dog unreasonable. Olmeda v. Commonwealth, 2020 Ky. App. LEXIS 40 (Apr. … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Failure to present issue before USMJ waives it
Defendant’s new issue of lack of consent wasn’t presented before the USMJ, so it can’t be raised in the objections. United States v. Allen, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57604 (E.D. Ky. Apr. 2, 2020). “Hunt has not shown that Glenn … Continue reading
CA6: Social workers’ in-school interviews of children violated 4A, but law not clearly established
Social workers’ in-school interviews of children of a parent who tested positive for drugs violated the Fourth Amendment, but they get qualified immunity because no case holds what they did was clearly established. Schulkers v. Kammer, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA9: Use of force against autistic person posing no threat was excessive
Qualified immunity was properly denied the officer on plaintiff’s claim that the officer was alleged to have used excessive force. After seeing that plaintiff was holding only a string and certainly after learning that he was autistic, no officer of … Continue reading
CA8 dissent from rehearing en banc: Panel misapplied qualified immunity on use of Taser
Two judges of the Eighth Circuit dissented from denial of rehearing en banc of 944 F.3d 704 (8th Cir. Ark. Dec. 3, 2019) that the panel misapplied qualified immunity. Jackson v. Stair, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 9540 (8th Cir. Mar. … Continue reading