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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
CA9: Co-conspirators’ statements to police linking def were reliable enough for PC
Other suspects’ admissions against penal interest that led to their charges and tying in defendant were credible enough for informant hearsay. United States v. Odell, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 26695 (9th Cir. Aug. 21, 2020). “We have previously found that … Continue reading
OH6: Def’s neighbor was citizen informant in reporting seeing him looking at CP through an open window
Defendant’s neighbor could see him from his house masturbating to child pornography. He called the police and the police corroborated it but walked on the curtilage, too. The neighbor was shown as a confidential informant but was really a citizen … Continue reading
CA7: “Extensive police corroboration” of CI’s story was PC
Defendant’s appellate argument the CI’s information wasn’t probable cause is rejected. “[T]he extensive police corroboration detailed in the affidavit strongly supports the issuing judge’s probable cause determination. … [¶] Next, on the second and third factors, Bonz had firsthand knowledge … Continue reading
TX1: Knock-and-announce violation doesn’t warrant suppression under Hudson
The CI was reliable and provided probable cause. A knock-and-announce violation doesn’t warrant suppression. Cleveland v. State, 2020 Tex. App. LEXIS 5829 (Tex. App. – Houston (1st Dist.) July 28, 2020):
Colorado grants review of pole camera surveillance
“Petition for Writ of Certiorari GRANTED. EN BANC. [¶] Whether the court of appeals erred in concluding that video surveillance through a camera mounted to a utility pole constituted a warrantless search in violation of the Fourth Amendment.” People v. … Continue reading
CA7: On the totality, RS was thin, up until def fled
“If these were all the facts, establishing reasonable suspicion might have been a close call for the officers. But Wilson’s unprovoked, headlong flight from police in a high-crime area put any lingering doubt to rest. Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Collective knowledge doctrine doesn’t require affiant officer to independently corroborate
The affidavit for the search warrant here was adequate to show nexus and probable cause for a search. The reliance on other officers’ information didn’t require this officer to independently corroborate it. United States v. Velazquez, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
IL: Arguing only lack of arrest warrant waives lack of PC
Pleading and litigating a motion to suppress in the trial court that the officers lacked an arrest warrant or an exception waived his appellate claim of a lack of probable cause. People v. Montes, 2020 IL App (2d) 180565, 2020 … Continue reading
CA10: Flight from a stop permitted officer to chase def onto his property without a SW
“Officer Estrada’s reasonable suspicion ripened into probable cause when Shelton attempted to flee, thus giving rise to the exigent circumstances necessary for Officer Estrada to pursue Shelton onto the property without a warrant.” United States v. Shelton, 2020 U.S. App. … Continue reading
D.Me.: CI’s prediction of future events enhanced veracity
There was probable cause for the search, and the CI’s veracity was enhanced by the CI’s prediction of future conduct. United States v. Stevenson, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105420 (D. Me. June 17, 2020). “While Mendoza-Ricardo argues that the purpose … Continue reading
CA3: Officer was face-to-face with citizen informant in a high-crime area about man with a gun; it was sufficiently reliable
“Officer Pickel received a tip that Torres, just moments before, had discharged a firearm in a high-crime area. A brief encounter with police ensued. Only thirty-five seconds elapsed between the time when Officer Pickel ordered Torres to stop and when … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Detailed 911 call was RS
This detailed 911 call provided reasonable suspicion. “The answer is somewhere in the middle, but ultimately favors the government’s view. It is a close call, but the anonymous tip in this case contained just enough indicia of reliability to support … Continue reading
M.D.Tenn.: Failure to corroborate everything, even the easy to corroborate, isn’t reckless under Franks
Defendant did not make a substantial preliminary showing that there was a reckless material statement in support of the search warrant. Moreover, “Defendant provides no authority to support his position that an officer’s failure to corroborate a fact that ‘could … 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
E.D.Ky.: No discovery on ID of CI; not material to any 4A issue
Defendant was subjected to controlled buys with a CI that led to his search warrant. The officers involved can testify to what happened, and defendant hasn’t shown necessity for disclosure of the informant. “Additionally, to the extent that some information … Continue reading
S.D.Miss.: Motion to suppress having been granted, def is a candidate for pretrial release
With the evidence against defendant suppressed, the government’s case is weakened, and defendant is a candidate for pretrial release. United States v. Norbert, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61799 (S.D. Miss. Apr. 8, 2020). The trial court’s order allowing defendant’s motion … Continue reading
CA7: Anonymous call of suspicious person lacked corroboration and wasn’t RS
This anonymous tip revealed nothing but identifying characteristics, and it didn’t show reasonable suspicion. “Additionally, the tip itself contained no further indicia of the informant’s reliability. It also offered nothing but a barebones description of the suspect: the caller identified … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Ambiguities in affidavit for SW not a Franks violation
Alleged ambiguities in the affidavit for the search warrant didn’t show a Franks violation where there clearly was probable cause. United States v. Jenkins, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69247 (E.D. Ky. Apr. 21, 2020). A 911 call from a cell … Continue reading
CA11: 911 call about def threatening people with a gun in his house justified protective sweep
A 911 call reported that defendant pointed a gun at two people and threatened them in his house. Responding, they talked to the victims outside. They entered to do a protective sweep for the weapon, and saw drugs. They got … Continue reading