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- D.Mont.: Delay of USPS Express Mail for dog sniff didn’t violate 4A
- S.D.W.Va.: Warrantless arrest at door for CSAM didn’t support plain view seizure of cell phone
- OH2: Parking on the grass justified stop
- CA11: NCMEC’s cybertips are reliable enough to support PC and the GFE
- MS: Execution style murder in public in broad daylight was exigency to get suspect’s CSLI
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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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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)
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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: Abandonment
W.D.Pa.: Court doesn’t find running away from a wrecked car was unequivocally an abandonment
Defendant was an accused bootlegger who knew he was being tailed and he wrecked his car and ran away. The court doesn’t find this to be unequivocally an abandonment because he knew he was being followed but not necessarily by … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Bank robbery suspect who fled car after PIT maneuver stopped it abandoned it
“After looking at the collective knowledge of law enforcement at the time of the arrest—which includes four eyewitness identifications, one voice identification, and a tip from the defendant’s own girlfriend turning him in for the People’s Bank robbery—the court finds … Continue reading
NY1: Tossing backpack from car is waiver of REP
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a backpack he tossed from a car as he was being stopped by the police. (This conviction was February 2013; nearly six years being decided on appeal.) People v. Febo, 2018 N.Y. … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Dropping gun just before arrest treated as abandonment [?]
A firearm that fell from defendant’s pants as he was being arrested and getting out of a car was treated as abandoned. United States v. Franklin, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 197783 (W.D. Mo. Nov. 20, 2018). I have to disagree … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Car not abandoned by fleeing def because a co-def stayed with it
A car is not abandoned by the defendant merely because, when he fled, a confederate stayed behind. United States v. Gibbs, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 187572 (N.D. Ga. Nov. 2, 2018). The audio recording of the police-citizen interaction has enough, … Continue reading
PA: There was no PC for entry on a two-month-old capias
Defendant was arrested as a result of an entry on a capias for a domestic relations “violation.” The warrant was two months getting served, and there was no inquiry into whether defendant was residing at the home of a friend … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Collective knowledge doctrine doesn’t require any specifics be held by officer making the stop
Under the collective knowledge doctrine, the officer actually making the stop doesn’t have to know much of anything that the officers with knowledge know. Nothing needs to be communicated, other than the identity of the person or car stopped. There … Continue reading
AL: Def waived REP in cell phone by leaving it at crime scene
Defendant waived any reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell phone by leaving it at the crime scene. Tolbert v. State, 2018 Ala. Crim. App. LEXIS 65 (Oct. 15, 2018). The child pornography affidavit for search warrant wasn’t a “model … Continue reading
CA8: Def abandoned a rental car he didn’t rent and didn’t have keys to on another’s back property
Defendant drove a rental car rented by another and parked it in someone’s backyard he didn’t know. He knocked on the door, got no answer, and left the car there. The owner, however, was there and didn’t answer the door. … Continue reading
TX6: Intentionally leaving phone behind to avoid tracking was still abandonment
Defendant claimed that she did not abandon her cell phone; she willingly left it behind so her partner couldn’t track her. Still, the password was known and that’s how the private search occurred which revealed sex acts with children on … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Def parked car near his house but left it in gear with the key in the ignition; it was not abandoned
Defendant did not abandon his car. He parked it at his house and went inside. His dog was still inside. The entry into his car was reasonable under the community caretaking function because it was left in gear, and a … Continue reading
M.D.La.: The govt alleged the house was abandoned, and def had the burden to prove standing and failed
“The parties’ briefing and the testimony at the hearing further suggest that the house was abandoned and that any search occurred away from Defendant’s ‘residence of record’ or an ‘additional residence on Osceola Street.’ … Contrary to a suggestion in … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Payton‘s standard is “reason to believe” under a common sense approach and not PC
The Payton standard for determining whether a person is home for execution of an arrest warrant is “reason to believe” under a common sense approach and not a more demanding probable cause requirement. In addition, defendant’s actions showed he abandoned … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Overdetention claim doesn’t lie under 4A but does under 5A
Plaintiff’s overdetention claim doesn’t lie under the Fourth Amendment but it does under the Fifth. “According to Jones, strip searching an inmate who has been ordered released before returning that inmate to the general population violates the Fourth Amendment unless … Continue reading
TN: Parole search applied to bedroom def shared with girlfriend but not to another bedroom in the house occupied by a non-parolee
Defendant shared a bedroom with his girlfriend, and another person lived in the house. He was subject to reasonable parole searches, and the court concludes that it applies to everything in the room he shared with his girlfriend. It did … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Carpenter doesn’t apply to CSLI gathered 17 months before under GFE
In January 2017, defendant was in a car where the driver was arrested, and he was detained too. Calls were made from their cell phones to tell the codefendant’s father to “clean out” the house before a search warrant arrived. … Continue reading
D.Mass.: USMJ’s spouse’s employment as a doctor at a related institution that was a victim doesn’t make her not neutral and detached when she signs SW
The USMJ here was still neutral and detached. The victim of the crime was a non-profit associated with Harvard. Her husband worked as a doctor for hospital associated with Harvard. That wasn’t a close enough relationship to require recusal. United … Continue reading
SC: Of course def didn’t intend to leave his cell phone at the scene of a burglary, but he did, and that’s still abandonment
Defendant lost his cell phone at the scene of a burglary. The court grants the fundamental premise that a cell phone has the “privacies of life,” but his unintentional abandonment of the phone doesn’t preclude the government from searching it … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Declining to interact with an officer is not RS
Defendant’s declining to interact with the officer and trying to avoid him is not reasonable suspicion because people have a right to do that. United States v. Brown, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 97602 (N.D. Ga. May 10, 2018). Defendant abandoned … Continue reading
VA: Gun in plain view left in car was seizable under Long
Defendant fled from a car, and a gun was in plain view in the car. The officer acted reasonably in searching the car to secure the firearm under Michigan v. Long [aside from abandonment of the car] because defendant could … Continue reading