Archives
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Recent Posts
- CA8: Admission of anonymous tip that led to stop violated Confrontation Clause
- CO: Anonymous report of student smoking pot in school justified backpack search
- CA6: CI’s lie to get into def’s house to video him making a drug deal with the CI didn’t violate 4A
- TN: Def lived in a van left wide open in a public area, but it didn’t belong to him, so no REP as to interior
- VI: Despite ubiquity of cell phones, nexus has to be shown to alleged crime
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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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Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
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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)
--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (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: Arrest or entry on arrest
W.D.Wash.: Warrantless arrest in def’s doorway violated 4A
Defendant’s warrantless arrest in his doorway violated the Fourth Amendment. After objecting, defendant acceded to their demands when they pulled a Taser on him. The remedy of what to do with his statement will be addressed later. United States v. … Continue reading
FL3: Officers could enter def’s home to make his arrest with an arrest warrant
Defendant was convicted of resisting arrest without violence. The jury was properly instructed that the officers could enter his home on an arrest warrant. Martinez v. State, 2024 Fla. App. LEXIS 6538 (Fla. 3d DCA Aug. 21, 2024). Plaintiff’s malicious … Continue reading
MD: No claim for false arrest under an arrest warrant approved by a judge on PC
After being acquitted in a bench trial on interpretation of the statute involved, plaintiff sued for false arrest and malicious prosecution. The arrest warrant was issued on probable cause by a neutral and detached magistrate, and the officers had to … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Out-of-bounds camping stop led to RS and that led to PC
Defendant was stopped for out-of-bounds camping by a park ranger. The conversation led to reasonable suspicion then to probable cause for a search. United States v. Gearhart, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 146610 (E.D. Cal. Aug. 16, 2024). Obviously, vehicle stops … Continue reading
D.Conn.: Failure to disclose prior likely unconstitutional entry into def’s property in SW affidavit was material
The search warrant here was based on an unconstitutional prior entry to photograph firearms, and the issuing magistrate wasn’t told about that. That was material. Motion to suppress granted. United States v. Mahama, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 145463 (D. Conn. … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Merely repeating the 4A argument to the USMJ isn’t a sufficient objection to the R&R
“Defendant does not explain how the Magistrate Judge erred in her consideration of this [Fourth Amendment] argument or explanation of the binding precedent that compelled her conclusion; he merely reiterates his prior argument on this issue. This is not a … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Slapping ptf during her arrest to control her not shown to be unreasonable
Plaintiff does not plausibly allege that slapping during arrest to control her was objectively unreasonable. Harding v. Gould, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 141944 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 9, 2024).* The officer here shot and killed a 13-year-old holding and raising a toy … Continue reading
CADC: Ptf’s arrest on mistaken identity was still reasonable
The District Court correctly granted qualified immunity to an officer who detained plaintiff due to a mistaken identity fugitive warrant because there was no showing that any reasonable official in the defendant’s shoes would have understood that he was violating … Continue reading
W.D.N.C.: While NCIC data error on warrant was “troubling,” the arrest was still in good faith
While there was an NCIC warrant entry error which was “troubling,” it has nothing to do with the good faith of the officers in executing it under Evans. United States v. Valdez, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138952 (W.D.N.C. Aug. 6, … Continue reading
CA9: Ptf’s protestations of innocence at arrest doesn’t undermine this arrest warrant
“Farber’s § 1983 claims also fail because she has not shown an underlying constitutional violation. Her arrest did not violate the Fourth Amendment because the arresting officers ‘had a good faith, reasonable belief that [Farber] was the subject of the … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Govt has burden to show first appearance more than 48 hours after arrest was reasonable
“Mr. Williams alleged enough facts to support an inference that his rights were violated. Mr. Williams contends that the County Sheriff violated his Fourth Amendment rights because he was jailed without a timely decision about whether there was probable cause … Continue reading
CA11: “[W]hile an in-the-presence observation may be sufficient for a warrantless misdemeanor arrest, it is not necessary under the Fourth Amendment.”
“[W]hile an in-the-presence observation may be sufficient for a warrantless misdemeanor arrest, it is not necessary under the Fourth Amendment.” United States v. Gonzalez, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 17813 (11th Cir. July 19, 2024):
IN: No standing to challenge arrest of another person
Defendant had no standing to contest the arrest of another person that led to his arrest under either the Fourth Amendment or the state constitution. Zuniga v. State, 2024 Ind. App. LEXIS 196 (July 8, 2024). “Next, Windham says that … Continue reading
NE: Return of property denied where post-conviction time hadn’t run
Defendant’s motion for return of property is denied because the time hasn’t run for post-conviction and it still may be needed by the state. State v. Assad, 317 Neb. 20 (July 5, 2024). Defendant did not present a real Franks … Continue reading