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- 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
E.D.Mich.: Defense can’t get “activity logs” of officers for 60 days prior to his stop to see if they also smelled MJ then; what would it prove?
Defendant filed a motion to suppress and a motion to produce the “activity logs” of the officers involved for the 60 days prior to his stop. He wants to see whether the officers claimed to have smelled marijuana during those … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Court credits that officer could smell burnt marijuana coming from def’s car while driving
The court credits the officer that while driving behind defendant’s vehicle, the officer could smell burnt marijuana coming from it, and that was at least reasonable suspicion. United States v. Theus, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26719 (D. S.D. Feb. 27, … Continue reading
OH10: Smell of MJ from car justified its search; suppression reversed
The trial court erred in granting defendant’s motion to suppress because the officer smelled marijuana in defendant’s car, and that justified its search. Moreover, defendant wasn’t in custody when he was speaking to the officer, so his statements aren’t suppressed. … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Officer’s testimony is just too convenient to be believed
In a remarkable opinion, the court finds the officer’s testimony just too convenient and, thus, incredible and suppresses the seizure by an alleged plain view. Also, the plain view required manipulation, and that’s not plain view. United States v. Mata-Peña, … Continue reading
TX11: Smell of MJ from car and def’s person justified search of both
The smell of marijuana coming from a car and then defendant’s person when he got out is probable cause to search both. Defendant said he smoked all the marijuana five hours before the stop. Then he was found chewing it, … Continue reading
FL1: Officer was reasonable in reentering car to retrieve money he took off def and put in car seat; plain view sustained
When defendant was frisked, $1,188 was removed from him, and the officer put it on the trunk then thought to put it through the window so it wouldn’t blow away. The officer then acted reasonably going back into the unlocked … Continue reading
CA8: Smell of MJ from car was PC
Defendant was stopped for no license plate and weaving. When the window came down, the smell of marijuana was apparent. The driver appeared under the influence. The passenger became agitated, and that confirmed to the officer he was too. A … Continue reading
OH5: MJ grow in back yard visible from next door permitted officers to come to house to inquire
Defendant’s back porch was not curtilage. [Wrong! It is. We’ll just pretend the court didn’t say that.] Marijuana growing in the back yard was visible from the next door neighbor’s property, and that brought the officers to the house to … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Squeezing bag of MJ when taking it off def wasn’t unreasonable; it was apparent what it was
Squeezing a baggie of suspected marijuana to sense its feel was not unreasonable, if that is part of defendant’s argument, which isn’t obvious. It was at arms length when seized, and its appearance was marijuana anyway. United States v. Barnes, … Continue reading
MD: Even with MJ decrim, smell of pot in car is PC
Despite decriminalization of less than 10g of marijuana, the officer here had probable cause to search vehicle where he detects odor of marijuana emanating from vehicle, as marijuana in any amount remains contraband, notwithstanding decriminalization of possession of less than … Continue reading
IN: Smell of meth was PC, aside from knowledge of purchase of precursors
Officers knew that defendant had bought precursors to make methamphetamine, and that they were likely in his car. There was enough information for probable cause for a search of the car, independent of what the officers smelled. The appellate argument … Continue reading
WV: GSR removal subject to search incident–no SW required
Taking gunshot residue without a warrant incident to arrest is reasonable because it disappears so fast. [The court analogizes blood alcohol, but GSR can disappear easily within minutes, simply by putting one’s hands in pockets or rubbing hands together.] State … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Officer isn’t obliged to ask about MMJ card when he smells MJ coming from car
Odor of marijuana in car was still probable cause. “Johnson contends that Sergeant Simmont’s failure to ask whether Johnson carried a medical marijuana card undermined any finding of probable cause. But Johnson cites no authority for the proposition that Sergeant … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Smell of PCP from a car was PC
On officer on an unrelated call in the neighborhood in early morning hours heard a nearby gunshot. Dispatch reported that the shot was reported by ShotSpotter to be likely at a certain address. There the officer found people milling around. … Continue reading
CA8: Plain view of cell phone screen supported seizure of phone
The 75 day delay in getting the IP address and a 51 day delay after associating the IP address with defendant in a child pornography search warrant case did not make the warrant stale. Defendant turned on his phone in … Continue reading
IN: Search incident of jacket left in car on arrest for outstanding warrant was unreasonable
Defendant was pulled over because an LPN check showed his license was suspended and there was a warrant out for him. When he got out of the car, he took off his jacket and left it in the car. Since … Continue reading
NJ rejects the state’s prior subjective inadvertence requirement of the plain view doctrine
The prior subjective inadvertence requirement of the plain view doctrine is rejected prospectively only. State v. Gonzales, 2016 N.J. LEXIS 1177 (Nov. 15, 2016) (summary by the court):
OH5: Raw marijuana shake around in the front area of the car was PC for a search
Raw marijuana shake around in the front area of the car was probable cause for a search. State v. James, 2016-Ohio-7660, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS 4531 (5th Dist. Oct. 31, 2016). “In conclusion, Pankey is incorrect to present this case … Continue reading
CA8: Key fob in pocket, common today, is not RS def was driving a nearby stolen car
A key fob in one’s pocket, common today, is not reasonable suspicion defendant was driving a nearby stolen car. The seizure was suppressed. United States v. Craddock, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 20118 (8th Cir. Nov. 8, 2016):