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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: Excessive force
CO: Not 4A or state constitutional violation for govt to access def’s computer via peer-to-peer sharing with BitTorrent software
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in files on his computer that were open for peer-to-peer sharing. Therefore, when the government used BitTorrent to access his computer, it did not violate the Fourth Amendment or the state constitution. People … Continue reading
CA10: Tribal and state court SWs: state judge wanted more information, but that didn’t make tribal warrant lack PC
Defendant lived on tribal lands with a co-occupant who was not Native American. Officers obtained two search warrants: one from a tribal court and one from a state court. The applications were identical. The state judge, however, wanted more information, … Continue reading
CA5: Officer’s touching parent’s arm to get her through a school door for four seconds was de minimis
In a school grounds dispute, a parent’s arm was grabbed for four seconds to move her through a doorway. “Under the circumstances, we cannot say that such de minimis force was ‘clearly’ excessive and unreasonable. … Dupuy knew that the … Continue reading
VA: 12 second question about drugs didn’t unreasonably prolong the stop that was going to take a while anyway
This was a traffic stop, and defendant had a suspended license. She was able to call her son to come to drive her and the car home, and she would not be arrested. The officer’s taking 12 seconds to ask … Continue reading
VA: Statutory requirement to provide SW papers only applies to “places of abode”
Defendant sold drugs in a store in a controlled buy. The statute on providing a warrant and affidavit to the occupant only applies to places of abode. Blow v. Commonwealth, 2026 Va. LEXIS 29 (Apr. 16, 2026). A narcotics officer … Continue reading
CA4: PIT maneuver with unmarked car for detectives making a stop could be excessive force
Using an unmarked police car to stop plaintiff with a PIT maneuver requested by detectives without warning here raised sufficient factual disputes that the officers do not get summary judgment nor qualified immunity on an excessive force claim in his … Continue reading
OH8: Seeing gun magazine justified protective sweep of car for gun it could belong to
Defendant was pulled over and officers could see the magazine to a gun. They asked if he had a gun in the car and he said “I don’t admit to that.” He said it was home. He was a known … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Video surveillance of public housing hallways is like a pole camera with no REP
Plaintiff sued a public housing project which has sophisticated video surveillance but only in common areas. The court holds that it doesn’t rise to the level of the mosaic theory and is more akin to a pole camera. Pondexter-Moore v. … Continue reading
MS: By denying living at the place searched, def lacked standing to challenge its search
By denying living at the place searched, defendant lacked standing to challenge its search. Armstrong v. State, 2026 Miss. App. LEXIS 151 (Mar. 31, 2026). In addition, “Bailey’s non-compliance with the deputies’ commands and expressions of suicidal intent—with an alleged … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: CI’s being incorrect about which drug was involved wasn’t material
The CI’s being incorrect about which drug was involved isn’t really a Franks violation. United States v. Mooneyham, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 67746 (E.D. Tenn. Mar. 30, 2026). Plaintiff reasonably believed that one of the officers was sitting on him … Continue reading
NY Co.: Pulling def out of his doorway when he opened his door was not a violation of Payton
Pulling defendant out of his doorway when he opened his door was not a violation of Payton. People v. Honyghan, 2026 NYLJ LEXIS 435 (N.Y. Co. Mar. 18, 2026). “The arresting officers’ body-worn camera videos reveal that Plaintiff was visibly … Continue reading
NC: Informant doesn’t need “track record” to be creditable
The informant doesn’t need a “track record” to be credited as a source of information. State v. Vandergrift, 2026 N.C. App. LEXIS 202 (Mar. 18, 2026). Police responded to a stolen ATM report and found defendant near an ATM in … Continue reading
CA8: Non-lethal force during George Floyd curfew violating disturbance was reasonable
During the George Floyd riots, the day after a Minneapolis’s third police precinct was burned down, there was another protest around the fifth precinct in violation of a city-wide curfew. Plaintiff was shot in the head with a nonlethal projectile … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Recognizes $800 per hour for 10-year lawyer in civil rights case
In a discovery fee sanctions case in a First Amendment case, the USMJ notes that $395-450 per hour was reasonable, noting that seven months ago the court approved $800 in a First and Fourth Amendment case. Goldberg v. Teachbk, Inc., … Continue reading
CA11: QI in excessive force cases can be raised for the first time mid-trial
Qualified immunity in excessive force cases can be raised for the first time mid-trial without it being waived. Edwards v. Grubbs, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 7500 (11th Cir. Mar. 13, 2026). “However, Groth must show not only that the officers … Continue reading
CA7: Use of force during book-in here was subject to QI
Officers get qualified immunity for arrestee who was alleged to have resisted booking and was removed, while handcuffed behind his back, to an intake cell with a concrete bed, and he hit the floor with his face when “pushed” down. … Continue reading
CA8: Crowd dispersal was not a seizure
Police actions in dispersing a crowd were not a seizure, even using less than lethal force. Perkins v. City of Des Moines, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 6528 (8th Cir. Mar. 5, 2026).* CBP officer’s conviction for excessive force on a … Continue reading
TN: Failure to allege what should have been suppressed defeats IAC claim
Failure to allege what should have been suppressed if a motion to suppress had been filed is fatal to an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Coyne v. State, 2026 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 104 (Mar. 3, 2026). Qualified immunity denied: … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Younger doctrine didn’t apply when plaintiff’s criminal case was over
Younger doctrine didn’t apply when plaintiff’s criminal case was over. Harris v. Trent, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42416 (W.D. Pa. Mar. 2, 2026). “Here, assuming the factual disputes in Franke’s favor, the relevant question is whether it was clearly established … Continue reading