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- TX1: Def has a duty to make his record on PC and the SW; missing affidavit was on him
- N.D.Ala.: SW not invalid because issuing judge previously represented the target
- The Guardian: ‘We should be worried’: report sheds light on ICE’s booming arsenal of hi-tech surveillance tools
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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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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: Plain view, feel, smell
CA2: Second Tasing of nonresisting detainee was unreasonable
On this record, the second Tasing of plaintiff could be found unreasonable for lack of resistance, which the jury did. Jones v. Treubig, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 19883 (2d Cir. June 26, 2020). The search under defendant’s consent for “firearms/evidence” … Continue reading
OH9: Def’s observed association with wanted fugitive permitted his seizure at time of fugitive’s arrest, too.
Defendant was in a car wash and the USM fugitive task force was tailing a person in another car at the car wash. That person came over to defendant’s car and spoke to him. When the person being surveilled started … Continue reading
Cal.3: Odor coming from a car and a baggie of MJ isn’t PC of a crime in a recreational MJ state
Because of legalization of recreational marijuana in California: “In summary, the facts in this case comprised of a parked car missing a registration tag and having an expired registration, the odor of marijuana emanating from the car, the observation of … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: Alleged Brady material found two years after SW wouldn’t change SW outcome
Alleged Brady material found two years after the search warrant in this case would not have changed the outcome of the search issue. United States v. Vandyck, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 101842 (D. Ariz. June 10, 2020). The officer was … Continue reading
CA9: In California, the smell of marijuana alone coming from a car no longer provides PC
In California, the smell of marijuana alone coming from a car no longer provides probable cause for search of the car. United States v. Martinez, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 12536 (9th Cir. Apr. 20, 2020):
CA3: Police in pursuit of a shooting suspect crossed into def’s backyard; plain view of drugs sustained
Police were in pursuit of a shooting suspect and went into defendant’s back yard. Drugs in plain view could be seized. Levys v. Shamlin, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 13267 (3d Cir. Apr. 24, 2020). An open container stop permits a … Continue reading
OH12: Bloody clothes on ER floor were subject to plain view
Seizure of defendant’s bloody clothing from the floor of the emergency room was valid as a plain view despite his possessory interest. He was perceived at the time as the victim, but it later developed he wasn’t. State v. Jackson, … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Pill bottle in bedroom is not subject to plain view because incriminating nature not immediately apparent
A pill bottle on top of a dresser wasn’t subject to plain view because its incriminating nature wasn’t immediately apparent. United States v. Crawford, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74440 (E.D. Tenn. Apr. 6, 2020), adopted, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73477 … Continue reading
CA8: Police looking at undercarriage of stopped car doesn’t require PC
The officer here had reasonable suspicion on the totality to extend the stop aside from the fact the two adults in the vehicle had no drivers licenses and the insurance card didn’t match them. The officer’s looking at the undercarriage … Continue reading
CA6: Trash pulls not unreasonable despite local ordinance that only trash collectors permitted in trash
Trash pulls by police are not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment, notwithstanding a local ordinance that limits trash collectors to rummaging in trash. United States v. Mathis, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 10275 (6th Cir. Mar. 30, 2020). Defendant’s probation search … Continue reading
OH9: Medical records allegedly unlawfully seized weren’t in appellate record, so prejudice couldn’t be determined; held waived
Defendant claimed his medical records were unlawfully seized and admitted at evidence as an admission at this DUI trial. Without them in the appellate record, the appellate court can’t determine prejudice. Thus, this is waived. State v. Miller, 2020-Ohio-1209, 2020 … Continue reading
LA2: Officer’s leaning in open window wasn’t a plain view; def’s demands to know why he’s detained can’t be RS when he has a right to know
Officer’s leaning into the open window of defendant’s car with a flashlight to get a better view was not a plain view. Statute “commands police officers, upon detaining a citizen in connection with the investigation or commission of any offense, … Continue reading
PA: Syringes in plain view on floorboard was PC
Officer’s seeing syringes on the floor of defendant’s car just by looking was plain view and probable cause for search. Commonwealth v. Bumbarger, 2020 Pa. Super. LEXIS 206 (Mar. 16, 2020).* “Mr. Sealey’s motion to suppress, the court did not … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Search of camper being lived in parked on the street in violation of ordinance was inevitable
The question of standing and alleged illegal search of defendant’s camper were moot. The camper was parked on an Albuquerque city street where it’s illegal to live in a camper. Given those facts, the camper would have otherwise been inventoried, … Continue reading
AL: Officer was lawfully in position for plain view of def’s computer screen
The trial court erred in suppressing the search here because the officer who did it was a law enforcement officer under state law able to do so. On the merits, the officer was in position to make a plain view … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: Address of a building is usually sufficient for particularity
The address of a building is generally sufficient particularity for a search warrant. Even so, the good faith exception would apply. United States v. Wilson, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37210 (E.D. Tex. Jan. 17, 2020), adopted, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: Conclusory objections to R&R are denied
Conclusory objections to the R&R on this search issue are overruled. United States v. Wilson, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36571 (E.D. Tex. Mar. 3, 2020). Feeling a firearm during a patdown is plain feel. United States v. White, 2020 U.S. … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Despite MMJ law, def rolling a joint when stopped could have his car searched
When defendant was stopped, he was seen rolling a joint. Despite the medical marijuana law, the officer could search the car for more because it was still a violation of federal law. United States v. Hinds, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Issues over the territorial jurisdiction of state issuing magistrate for geolocation information was subject to GFE
Defendants’ challenges to the state issuing magistrate’s jurisdiction over geolocation information that crosses jurisdictional lines were based on a Franks challenge that was negligence at worst and not an intentional misrepresentation as to the judge’s jurisdiction. Besides, as interesting as … Continue reading