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- W.D.N.Y.: Possibility of co-conspirators in mass murder justified emergency disclosure request to Apple, Verizon, and Facebook
- E.D.N.Y.: Flight out a window is exigency for police to enter
- W.D.Tenn.: A driveway isn’t always curtilage
- FL: Violation of knock-and-announce statute doesn’t require exclusion
- TX3: DUI blood draw while in restraint chair not 4A unreasonable
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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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)
ACLU on privacy
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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
IL: 5-7 minute delay before dog sniff wasn’t unreasonable
The court of appeals thinks that the officer having the driver close the windows and turn on the heater for a dog sniff is a search, but the state supreme court disagrees, and the court is bound by it. Also, … Continue reading
MI: Failure to appeal drug testing of deliquent’s parents until after refusal to test a year later was waiver
A drug testing and search condition of a delinquent’s parents and home was in effect a year before there was a refusal on Fourth Amendment grounds. The objection comes too late. If the order was unconstitutional, which it might have … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Trace evidence on a firearm justified DNA sample from defendant
A search warrant was properly issued for defendant’s DNA to attempt to link him to firearms found in the take down of a heroin operation. There was probable cause for the warrant and trace evidence was found. In any event, … Continue reading
NYTimes: State of the Art: Police Cameras Can Shed Light, but Raise Privacy Concerns
NYTimes: State of the Art: Police Cameras Can Shed Light, but Raise Privacy Concerns by Farhad Manjoo: But the technology raises privacy concerns both for the police and the public, and there are no national guidelines for how they should … Continue reading
MA: Baggies of drugs supported DUI detention since no alcohol signs
Defendant was stopped for possible impaired driving, but he didn’t show signs of alcohol intoxication. Instead, officers saw baggies that one would obviously associate with drugs and that supported the officer’s later actions. The motion to suppress should not have … Continue reading
USPS mail imaging helps solve ricin mailing case
Ark. Democrat-Gazette: Texas ricin mailer sentenced to 18 years by Chad Day (sub. req.) Three letters were mailed to President Obama, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and a gun control advocate by former actress Shannon Guess Richardson. Only the latter was … Continue reading
VI: Alleged “plain view” of drugs inadequate without a showing that it was “immediately apparent” drugs were there
Defendant had an accident and was being detained because he appeared under the influence. His vehicle was searched, and a plastic bag inside a plastic bag was seen. The prosecution having produced no evidence that the officer had reason to … Continue reading
CA11: Inference of firearms nearly always with drugs less likely in small scale operations
While firearms are implicitly involved in drug transactions, the smaller the dealer, the less likely the inference. The search warrant here didn’t specify firearms, and, in drug distribution cases, it’s usually likely a gun will be found. Here, officers thought … Continue reading
OH1: Driveway not curtilage but front porch is
Defendant was in his driveway when he unreasonably refused to identify himself when the officer had reasonable suspicion. That was not on the curtilage. When he retreated to his porch, he was on the curtilage, but this gun was in … Continue reading
KS: Exigency permitted officers to enter home when DUI suspect needed to go inside
Defendant was detained in his driveway for DUI and potential violation of an order of protection, which were both jailable offenses. He wanted to go inside to put his kids to bed, and it was not unreasonable for officers to … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Police searching for CP left without a computer; its later seizure was covered by warrant
The police executed a search warrant for computers for child pornography. After they left the house, defendant’s grandfather called them to say that there was another computer in a closet that was not seized. He consented to that seizure. The … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Custodial arrest for littering supported search incident
Police responded to a 911 call and saw defendant, who appeared to be wearing body armor, throw a food wrapper on the ground. They arrested him for littering and took him in. The search incident of the body armor was … Continue reading