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Recent Posts
- PA: Shining flashlight into hole in a shoebox was a search; there was a REP in the closed box
- CA5: Accidentally shooting the man who disarmed the shooter from a residence was not a constitutional violation
- CA9: False evidence to arrest violates due process
- CA6: The SW affidavit here was thin, but it wasn’t completely bare bones, so GFE applies
- D.Minn.: Extending stop to run ALPR information on car was with RS
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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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Section 1983 Blog -
"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
CA1: Police chief’s order to officer to turn over cellphone and home phone records not a constitutional violation under third-party doctrine; chief gets qualified immunity
Plaintiff is a police officer, and the chief ordered production of his cell phone and home phone records in an internal investigation. The chief gets qualified immunity because of the third party doctrine. Those records were obtainable by subpoena from … Continue reading
CA9: Use of tear gas to enter house, even where consent given, was not clearly unreasonable considering a dangerous, potentially armed, and suicidal felon was barricaded inside
“The panel held that assuming the consent was voluntary and defendants exceeded the scope of the consent by shooting tear gas into the house, they were still entitled to qualified immunity. The panel held that given that defendants thought they … Continue reading
CA8: SWAT team’s use of a flashbang device to search a house for a cell phone was unreasonable (it was also the wrong house because the suspect hadn’t been there in two years)
It was objectively unreasonable for a SWAT team to break in a door and use a flashbang device to search a house for a cell phone where the suspect was already in custody and they knew it, they were at … Continue reading
CA4: Arrest for obstruction wasn’t objectively justified and QI denied
The actions of the plaintiff didn’t reasonably rise to the level of obstruction of an officer, and her arrest and throwing her to the ground was unjustified. Qualified immunity is denied. Hupp v. Cook, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 22208 (4th … Continue reading
CA9: Officer who drafted clearly overbroad SW doesn’t get qualified immunity just because a judge signed off on it
The officer who drafted a clearly overbroad warrant that a judge approved that sought diaries and other papers wasn’t entitled to qualified immunity. Estate of Brown v. Lambert, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 22087 (9th Cir. July 24, 2019). Plaintiff’s decedent … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Ptf’s guilty plea was collateral estoppel to his § 1983 search claim
Plaintiff’s civil search claim was barred by collateral estoppel by his guilty plea that there was sufficient evidence to convict. The officer gets qualified immunity for relying on a search warrant. Dabish v. McMahon, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 121399 (E.D. … Continue reading
Forbes: Cop Who Accidentally Shot 10-Year-Old When Aiming For Family Dog Can’t Be Sued, Federal Court Rules
Forbes: Cop Who Accidentally Shot 10-Year-Old When Aiming For Family Dog Can’t Be Sued, Federal Court Rules by Nick Sibilla:
CA5: Revd for failure to determine “clearly established law” for QI
“Both parties and the district court failed to address qualified immunity’s second question. The district court did not consider whether Defendants’ conduct—even assuming it violated the Fourth Amendment—violated clearly established law. See Morrow, 917 F.3d at 874. McDonald points to … Continue reading
CA11: Officer’s second gunshot at a dog not clearly established as excessive force; QI granted, ptf not even a target
Excessive force qualified immunity case: A second gunshot at a dog wasn’t clearly established to be excessive force, and plaintiff wasn’t even a target. Therefore, the officer gets qualified immunity. Corbitt v. Vickers, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 20447 (11th Cir. … Continue reading
CA5: Medical Board violated 4A by demanding immediate compliance with SDT; but they get qualified immunity
The Texas Medical Board violated the Fourth Amendment when conducting an administrative search of a physician’s office because it demanded immediate compliance with its subpoena. The medical industry as a whole was not a closely regulated industry, and the statutory … Continue reading
CA6: Dist Ct erred in concluding it was reasonable to believe ptf abandoned his home; finding of QI reversed
The district court erred in granting qualified immunity to officers who decided that the plaintiff had abandoned his rented home by disclaiming ownership in the property. He was clearly a guest at the minimum or a renter at most, and … Continue reading
CA11: Officers get QI for stop of apparent burglars
The defendant officers’ actions were justified and subject to qualified immunity. They were patrolling an area known for daytime burglaries and saw plaintiff lurking along the side of homes and stopped to inquire and found that one house was open. … Continue reading
CA9: The smell of marijuana from a car in a recreational use state is still PC
The smell of marijuana from a car in Nevada where recreational use is permitted is still probable cause because state law doesn’t permit smoking in a car. United States v. Gray, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 19095 (9th Cir. June 26, … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Ptf sufficiently pled a civil Franks claim that survives summary judgment and QI
Plaintiff sufficiently pled a civil Franks claim that survives summary judgment and qualified immunity. Wooden v. Armenteros, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 106113 (S.D. Fla. June 25, 2019).* “At this stage of the proceedings, viewing the evidence in the light most … Continue reading
CA8: Lack of knock-and-announce for parole search gets QI despite fact no case says it’s lawful; no “robust consensus of cases of persuasive authority”
Plaintiff absconded parolee was subjected to an unannounced entry into his hotel room about 6 am for a parole search. He was in bed with his girlfriend and a gun. The Arkansas Supreme Court held the entry violated the Fourth … Continue reading
S.D.Ind.: Def’s 2255 4A IAC claim was speculative at best and denied
Defendant claims his attorney was ineffective for failing to tell him about a possible motion to suppress, and, thus, he wouldn’t have pled guilty. The court, however, finds no facts anywhere in the case supporting even an inference there was … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Jones didn’t alter the automobile exception
The automobile exception is intact as it always was, and Jones didn’t do anything to change the calculus. United States v. Lee, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 99900 (E.D. Mich. June 14, 2019). The government proved that it would have otherwise … Continue reading
CA6: No QI immunity in an alleged unreasonable opposite sex strip search at jail with alleged unreasonable touching
Plaintiff overcame qualified immunity in her suit against five male jailers who stripped searched her and allegedly touched her genitalia and breasts when she was nude in wrestling her on the floor at book-in. Because of a spit mask they … Continue reading
CA6: No QI for a baseless stop, strip search, and body cavity search and then tightening handcuffs for ptf’s complaining about his treatment
The officer gets no qualified immunity in his interlocutory appeal. On the complaint, plaintiff stated a claim that his stop was not objectively reasonable in the first place. A police dog was put into plaintiff’s vehicle, then it was searched … Continue reading
D.Minn.: SW for house that includes def’s car if “near” is constitutionally sufficient
The search warrant for defendant’s house included his car if found “near,” and it was not overbroad. It might have better for there to be a search warrant just for the car, too, but that’s not constitutionally required. United States … Continue reading