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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)
--Overview of the 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
MN: By living with a person on probation, one has a diminished REP in common areas
By choosing to live in the same house with a probationer, one has a diminished expectation of privacy in the common areas of one’s abode. In a probation search of the other occupant, defendant objected to the entry, but it … Continue reading
CA3: Frisk was justified by RS and plain feel of drugs resulted
The officer had reasonable suspicion to frisk defendant, and the drugs in his pocket were discovered by plain feel. United States v. Graves, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 25157 (3d Cir. Dec. 13, 2017). Smell of marijuana during a traffic stop … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Def shooting victim’s clothes could be seized from ER floor as plain view or because of exigency
Defendant arrived at a hospital ER after he was shot. His clothing was cut off him and on the floor, and the officer’s seizure was valid because it was in plain view and had clear evidentiary value from blood and … Continue reading
CA5: Def’s girlfriend has actual authority to consent to a search even though she was moving out
“Valenzuela had actual authority to consent to the search, or at the very least, the officer had a reasonable belief she had common authority over the residence. E.g., United States v. Matlock, …; see also Illinois v. Rodriguez, …. Valenzuela … Continue reading
OH8: Anonymous call about drug dealing from car led officers to defendants; smell of burning MJ led to valid search of car
The officer received an anonymous call about drug deals being done from a car in a shopping center parking lot. He pulled up to a parked car to check it out and it was occupied and smelled of burning marijuana. … Continue reading
OH12: 911 call about overdose brought narcs and EMS; entry justified and plain view sustained
Defendant was making methamphetamine in his garage, and he overdosed on heroin. His mother found him and called 911. A narcotics officer arrived shortly before EMS, and he saw defendant on the floor with a used syringe near him. EMS … Continue reading
OH12: Def’s petition for discretionary review dismissed for failure to file briefs leaves appellate result intact
The trial court suppressed but the court of appeals reversed. The supreme court granted discretionary review, but it was dismissed for defendant’s failure to file a brief. The case was remanded back to the trial court, and the appellate reversal … Continue reading
CA6: Auto exception continues to place of inventory; heroin found by plain feel
Defendant’s car was pulled over for a missing license plate and overtinting. The “plain” smell of marijuana was evident, and he was removed from the car for a patdown. The patdown revealed heroin by plain feel, which was valid. The … Continue reading
TX14: Private search in Texas not subject to statute exclusionary rule
Defendant’s girlfriend accessed his cell phones: his Android wasn’t password protected but his iPhone was but she knew the password. This was a private search, and the Texas statutory exclusionary rule doesn’t apply. Thomas v. State, 2017 Tex. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: SW for seizure and search of a computer allows the search to be done at a later time
A second search of a computer’s contents is usually justified by the initial search and seizure warrant for the computer. United States v. Perry, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148336 (N.D. Ga. Sept. 13, 2017). Officers went to a Biloxi motel … Continue reading
D.Mont.: How many ways can this vehicle search be sustained that go unmentioned?
Defendant was stopped for driving erratically through a construction zone, and when stopped, he was acting strange and officers ordered his hands up. He slowly raised them with a cell phone in hand. Hands on guns, officers approached and saw … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Basis for traffic stop doesn’t need to be decided where there was independent RS
There’s no point in quibbling here over the basis of the traffic stop because the officer had reasonable suspicion of drug trafficking, too. United States v. Mejia-Palacio, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 128922 (E.D. Ky. July 25, 2017), adopted, 2017 U.S. … Continue reading
CA8: When a gun is seized in a business, govt must show justification; here it failed to show officer safety was an issue. A gun on a shelf in a business is not exigency per se.
An undercover officer entered a tattoo parlor looking for a “person of interest” in an unrelated case. A gun was seen on a shelf in the “work area.” Officers came back. Customers were allowed in the “work area” by invitation … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Laptop in car was in plain view for seizure where there was PC it contained evidentiary information
Defendant’s laptop was in plain view when it was seized from his car when defendant was arrested because the police believed that stolen credit card information would be on it. United States v. Prado, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 111954 (W.D. … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Protective sweep of garage and upstairs was valid; plain view sustained, but search of closed bag suppressed
“[T]he court finds that extending the protective sweep to the garage and the second floor was within the bounds set forth by the Supreme Court in Buie and the First Circuit in United States v. Winston, 444 F.3d 115, 120 … Continue reading
OH5: Plain view didn’t apply to a firearm where it wasn’t readily obvious it was stolen
The plain view doctrine did not apply because the firearm was not immediately apparent as incriminating evidence or contraband, and testimony at the suppression hearing established the officers could not readily identify the firearm as stolen. State v. Elschlager, 2017-Ohio-5545, … Continue reading