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- 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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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) -
“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
S.D.N.Y.: PCR claim that officer lied about CI eight years earlier wasn’t actual innocence claim
Defendant’s 2018 post-conviction claim that the officer lied about the existence of a CI in 2010 wasn’t cognizable now because he doesn’t claim actual innocence. Edmonson v. United States, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 181045 (S.D. N.Y. Oct. 19, 2018):
VT: A CI who is already in trouble with the police has an interest in truthfulness, and thus is likely more reliable
Statements against penal interest by CIs that are already in trouble are logically going to hurt the CI more if they turn out to be false, so the CI has an interest in being truthful. Reliability may thus be inferred … Continue reading
MI: Controlled buys and corroborated CI was PC
The trial court erred in suppressing the search under the search warrant. There were controlled buys and a corroborated informant, and that was enough for probable cause. People v. Higgins, 2018 Mich. App. LEXIS 3355 (Oct. 18, 2018). Defendant’s right … Continue reading
DE: The affidavit for SW didn’t support the CI; motion to suppress granted
The affidavit for the search warrant here was based on a CI’s information and claim that he was constantly surveilled, but that wasn’t true because the officer admitted he didn’t see the alleged drug transaction go down. On the surface … Continue reading
CA6: Leaving house, doing drug deal, going back home is nexus
Leaving your house, conducting a drug sale, then returning to your house is nexus that there are drugs in the house. United States v. Houser, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 27671 (6th Cir. Sep. 28, 2018). “The magistrate judge presumed that … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: CI’s been buying heroin from def for 3 years, and that’s PC
The named CI’s statement she’d been buying heroin from defendant for three years was probable cause. United States v. Haqq, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 165936 (W.D. Ky. Sep. 27, 2018).* Probable cause here was based on the CI’s statement and … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Request for CI’s identity was speculative venture here and denied
Defendant’s claim he needs the CI’s name to attempt to come up with an alibi defense is essentially speculative and fishing for information without a real goal. It doesn’t overcome Roviaro. United States v. Noble, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 161139 … Continue reading
CA7: Affiant’s omission of adverse info on CI that he had priors, was on probation, and paid didn’t undermine fresh, detailed, and corroborated info
The affiant left out adverse information about the CI including felony convictions, that he was on probation, and that he was paid. Still, the information from the CI was fresh, detailed, and significantly corroborated, and probable cause still existed. United … Continue reading
CA9: Police supervisor’s alleged after-the-fact acquiescence in an alleged illegal search isn’t a § 1983 claim
A police supervisor’s post-hoc alleged acquiescence that he didn’t participate in an alleged illegal search doesn’t state a claim against the supervisor. Hunt v. Davis, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 26265 (9th Cir. Sep. 17, 2018). The officers corroborated enough of … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Impersonating a DEA agent in one’s car justifies automobile exception
Defendant was arrested for impersonating a DEA officer and using his car to do it. That gave probable cause to search the car. Defendant’s argument that there was an unreasonable inventory are off the mark. United States v. Wade, 2018 … Continue reading
D.S.C.: NC CI provided information for SC search; PC shown and GFE would apply
The CI was known to the Fayetteville NC PD, and he provided information there that panned out and led to arrests. Information was provided for North Myrtle Beach SC, and the CI was unknown in SC. Still, there was some … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Violation of state law on informant hearsay [erroneously] imported into federal prosecution
The court finds the search warrant issued without probable cause as to the informant hearsay under New York law, and a hearing will be scheduled to determine whether to exclude. [Considering that state law violations generally have no affect on … Continue reading
MA: Even if some information in CSLI affidavit was incorrect or false, redacting it still leaves PC
The search warrant for defendant’s CSLI was based on probable cause. Defendant challenges parts of the information as wholly inadequate to show probable cause. Redacting that information, however, still leaves probable cause. Commonwealth v. Robertson, 2018 Mass. LEXIS 563 (Aug. … Continue reading
CA4: Where CI only provided info for SW, he wasn’t a material witness for trial so no reason for disclosure shown
Defendant didn’t make a showing to get the CI’s identity under Roviaro. The CI was merely the source of information to get the search warrant and he wouldn’t be a witness at trial. There wasn’t even a sufficient showing to … Continue reading
OH5: Warrantless fire scene search after fire out, power off, and property secured was unreasonable
During a fire in a house, a grow operation was seen and reported to the police. By the time the police came in, the fire was out, the power was off, and the property was secure. The warrantless fire scene … Continue reading
NC: CI merely located defendant; officers already had PC, so no disclosure of CI’s identity
Officers merely used the CI to locate the defendant, not for the probable cause to search, so no reason to disclose the CI is shown. State v. Heard, 2018 N.C. App. LEXIS 828 (Aug. 24, 2018). The dash cam video … Continue reading
PA: Complete lack of corroboration of CI showed no PC for SW
The affidavit for search warrant did nothing to corroborate the CI. The only inference that can be drawn is that more investigation is required, and it wasn’t done. Therefore, there was no probable cause on the face of the affidavit, … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Arrest for possession of cash wasn’t even reasonably valid under state law; exclusionary rule applies in federal court
Defendant was stopped, and the officer gave a warning. He continued asking questions which led to a consent search finding cash. The officer then arrested defendants for possession of the proceeds of a drug transaction. Only there were no probable … Continue reading
CA7: CI was a co-conspirator, and corroboration was required
This § 1983 case over a state court search warrant and search essentially seeks to relitigate in federal court the issuance of the warrant, which is not the prerogative of a federal court. Instead, the court finds corroboration of the … Continue reading
CA6: Video of controlled buy corroborated CI; fact drugs wasn’t mentioned doesn’t mean no PC
The CI’s story is confirmed by the audio and video of the following controlled buy. Defendant’s claim that the money could have been paid for something else doesn’t undermine the probable cause. “Here, despite no explicit discussion of drugs, put … Continue reading