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Recent Posts
- VA: 12 second question about drugs didn’t unreasonably prolong the stop that was going to take a while anyway
- 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
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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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--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) -
“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: Informant hearsay
WI: Resident called 911 because of blood in garage; search that found body was reasonable under emergency aid exception
Another resident of the home called 911 because of a large amount of blood in the garage. They arrived and looked for the source, finding a body. Defendant was ultimately arrested. Although Caniglia v. Strom was decided after the briefs … Continue reading
ID: Officer taking DL and handing it to another officer to check was a seizure requiring RS; anonymous CI was not corroborated
Reasonable suspicion was required when the officer retained defendant’s driver’s license by taking it, leaving her presence, and giving it to another officer to run a license check. Defendant was thus detained because a reasonable person in her position would … Continue reading
CO: These controlled buys were with PC; they could have been “more pristine” but they were adequate
The trial court erred in suppressing the search warrant here because it speculated on things not in the record. The warrant was based on two controlled buys that recounted the CI’s information, the police investigation to corroborate what they could, … Continue reading
OH12: Smell of burning MJ from a car is PC even in a MMJ state
“The smell of marijuana, alone, by a person qualified to recognize the odor, is sufficient to establish probable cause to conduct a search. … The odor of burnt marijuana was indicative of probable cause in this situation even though Caldwell … Continue reading
OH5: Furtive movement alone during traffic stop not RS
Defendant’s furtive movements alone during a traffic stop did not rise to reasonable suspicion to extend the stop. State v. Snow, 2021-Ohio-3644, 2021 Ohio App. LEXIS 3559 (5th Dist. Oct. 8, 2021). The officer was drawn to encounter defendant because … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Sex offense victim’s uncorroborated statements supported issuance of SW for defendant’s email account
Sex offense victim’s uncorroborated statements supported issuance of a warrant for defendant’s email account. A victim is not treated the same as an informant for probable cause purposes. United States v. Deleon, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 182049 (E.D.Ky. Sept. 23, … Continue reading
TX12: An uncorroborated first time informant provided no RS for stop
An uncorroborated first time informant provided no reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop. State v. Donnell, 2021 Tex. App. LEXIS 7813 (Tex. App. – Tyler Sept. 22, 2021):
FL2: Failure to corroborate or support CI’s story defeats GFE
The complete failure to corroborate the CI’s story was thus a complete lack of probable cause, and the good faith exception did not apply. Chery v. State, 2021 Fla. App. LEXIS 13111 (Fla. 2DCA Sept. 17, 2021):
CA10: Changing argument on a Carpenter remand is waiver
Defendant was the subject of a pre-Carpenter CSLI production, and his case was GVR’ed in light of Carpenter. On remand in the District Court he raised a new issue which the court finds waived. “We conclude that the district court … Continue reading
CA10: No Bivens remedy for false arrest and malicious prosecution
No Bivens remedy for false arrest and malicious prosecution. Even if wrong, there was qualified immunity here. Boudette v. Buffington, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 24512 (10th Cir. Aug. 17, 2021). The citizen informant called police to say that there was … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Habeas claim SW fake was barred by Stone
Defendant litigated his motion to suppress before this 2255. His claim now that the warrants were fake is barred by Stone. Davison v. United States, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 150386 (N.D.Ohio Aug. 9, 2021). The fact the CI may have … Continue reading
CA4: Establishing reliability of the CI
The informant’s information gave probable cause. Thus, “With probable cause, the police could search the shoebox under the automobile exception.” United States v. Gondres-Medrano, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 20283 (4th Cir. July 8, 2021). As to establishing the reliability of … Continue reading
CA6: CI’s PC doesn’t have to be decided because there was good faith
The district court erred in finding no probable cause on information from defendant’s CI and no good faith exception. The CI was stopped one day out of jail driving a stolen motorbike that he said came from defendant. “In the … Continue reading
OH: Unidentified report of def driving under influence justified officer’s stop on totality
“The Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures does not forbid a police officer from initiating a brief investigatory stop of a person if the officer has reasonable suspicion to believe that the person is or is about to … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Seizure without RS led to abandonment; suppression granted
Defendant was seized without reasonable suspicion when an officer acting on an informant’s tip approached him with hand on gun telling defendant to raise his hands. Seconds later, he fled, dropping the gun. The court finds an unreasonable seizure precipitated … Continue reading
IA: Def’s registration papers weren’t in order; while waiting on a response from dispatch, criminal history led to calling drug dog. This didn’t extend the stop
The officer intended only to give a warning, but it took a while for defendant’s registration to clear a computer check. While waiting, the officer checked defendant’s criminal history finding a significant meth history and then called for a drug … Continue reading
NY3: No REP in pretrial detainees’ jail calls
There was no reasonable expectation of privacy in jail telephone calls for pretrial detainees because the inmates were warned. “To the extent that defendant argues that the admission of the phone calls violated his rights because he was being held … Continue reading
CA6: SW affidavit can suggest CI’s lack of credibility, but here it was overcome
It is possible for a search warrant affidavit to suggest the lack of credibility of the CI, but, here, the CI’s credibility was corroborated by other facts and her willingness to be identified. United States v. Woods, 2021 U.S. App. … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Internet research can provide PC for a SW
An officer’s internet search provided a substantial basis for finding probable cause to search defendant’s house for evidence of misrepresenting military service. Citations to the places where the information was be found elevated this above a mere anonymous tip. United … Continue reading