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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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Section 1983 Blog -
"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
D.Minn.: The scene of a shooting is nexus for a SW
The scene of a shooting is a logical place to find evidence of the shooting. Therefore, that’s nexus, and probable cause exists. United States v. Strong, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 170882 (D. Minn. November 21, 2014). Defense counsel was not … Continue reading
CA3: Pointing a gun at a two unarmed men was objectively reasonable
Pointing a gun at a two unarmed men was objectively reasonable for § 1983 purposes. There was reasonable suspicion for a stop and the officer felt threatened until he knew all that was going on. Stiegel v. Peters Twp., 2014 … Continue reading
NYTimes: Op-Ed Contributors: Eric Garner and the Legal Rules That Enable Police Violence
NYTimes: Op-Ed Contributors: Eric Garner and the Legal Rules That Enable Police Violence By Shakeer Rahman and Sam Barr: ERIC GARNER was not the first American to be choked by the police, and he will not be the last, thanks … Continue reading
WSJ: Hundreds of Police Killings Are Uncounted in Federal Stats
WSJ: Hundreds of Police Killings Are Uncounted in Federal Stats by Bob Barry and Coulter Jones: A Wall Street Journal analysis of the latest data from 105 of the country’s largest police agencies found more than 550 police killings during … Continue reading
D.Me.: A private searcher’s fervent desire to help the police is still a private search
A computer tech working on a computer saw “pictures of pre-teen girls in gymnast uniforms,” so he searched the search history and found searches for non-nude preteens and “pre-teen porn.” He reported it to the local police who did not … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Police procedure expert on excessive force won’t get to testify to “nationally accepted police procedures”
In a federal criminal indictment for excessive force, the government’s use of an expert witness on “nationally accepted police procedures” on excessive force was not admissible because a violation of those undefined standards is not a violation of the constitution. … Continue reading
D.N.M.: PD SOPs aren’t admissible in criminal excessive force cases
Police department SOPs aren’t admissible in a criminal excessive force case under settled Tenth Circuit case law and several cases in this court. United States v. Rodella, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164786 (D.N.M. November 20, 2014):
Salt Lake Tribune: Killings by Utah police outpacing gang, drug, child-abuse homicides
Salt Lake Tribune: Killings by Utah police outpacing gang, drug, child-abuse homicides In the past five years, more Utahns have been killed by police than by gang members. Or drug dealers. Or from child abuse. And so far this year, … Continue reading
NC: Excessive force as an unreasonable search has to be raised in trial court first
During a traffic stop, reasonable suspicion was clearly developing, and defendant had something in his hand while denying it. Multiple requests to open his hand were refused, and, fearing a weapon, the officer ultimately had to take defendant down to … Continue reading
CNN: Can cell phones stop police brutality?
CNN: Can cell phones stop police brutality? by Laura Ly: Millions of people have now seen the video. Eric Garner, standing on a sidewalk, asks the NYPD officers surrounding him, “What did I do? What did I do?” Garner, 43, … Continue reading
CA7: Persons tortured for confessions must sue within SOL, not wait for others
Plaintiffs claiming they were tortured for a confession by an “infamous” Chicago cop and his “henchmen” who was later convicted of doing just that could not claim equitable tolling. They had to sue based on when it happened. The case … Continue reading
WaPo: A raid, multiple tasings, two arrests, and a home “ripped apart”: Can you guess the suspected crime?
WaPo: A raid, multiple tasings, two arrests, and a home “ripped apart”: Can you guess the suspected crime? by Radley Balko: If you guessed “underage drinking,” stumble to the head of the class. And all of that doesn’t really even … Continue reading
WSJ: Lynch: Civil Actions Against Police Agencies Can Spur ‘Systemic Change’
Wall Street Journal Law Blog: Lynch: Civil Actions Against Police Agencies Can Spur ‘Systemic Change’ by Jacob Gershman: How would President Barack Obama’s Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch approach a high-profile police controversy like the one that engulfed Ferguson, Mo., … Continue reading
NYTimes: Georgia: Lawsuit Over Taser Death Is Settled
NYTimes: Georgia: Lawsuit Over Taser Death Is Settled by Alan Blinder: The family of a man who died after being stunned up to 13 times with Taser devices during his arrest settled a lawsuit against East Point, an Atlanta suburb, … Continue reading
WaPo: Opinion: Time to call in the SWAT team reform crew
WaPo: Opinion: Time to call in the SWAT team reform crew by Joshua D. Filler: The extraordinary capabilities of SWAT teams have become too ordinary.
NYTimes: Albuquerque Agrees to Changes on Use of Force
NYTimes: Albuquerque Agrees to Changes on Use of Force by Ian Lovett: The Justice Department has reached a settlement with the City of Albuquerque over excessive use of force by the Police Department. Under an agreement announced Friday, an independent … Continue reading
CA2: Entry into curtilage and shooting family dog in front of child not based on exigency
Officers entered the curtilage without a warrant or exigent circumstances and shot plaintiff’s dog in front of his 12 year old daughter. The verdict for the defendant officers is reversed and remanded for trial because they didn’t show reasons for … Continue reading
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Armored vehicle helps collect civil judgment in small town from 75 year old man
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: Armored vehicle helps collect civil judgment in small town by Bruce Vielmetti: When officials in the tiny Town of Stettin in Marathon County went to collect a civil judgment from 75-year-old Roger Hoeppner this month, they sent 24 … Continue reading
Think Progress: Seattle Cops Bring Lawsuit Claiming They Have A Constitutional Right To Use Excessive Force
Think Progress: Seattle Cops Bring Lawsuit Claiming They Have A Constitutional Right To Use Excessive Force by Nicole Flatow: Over the past year, the Seattle police department has revised its policies on when police can use force, as part of … Continue reading