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Recent Posts
- CA6: Knowing passcode to cell phone shows common authority over it to consent
- VI: Smell of MJ no longer PC in VI since legalization
- Reason: 3 Charlotte Cops Resign After Group Chat Reveals Competition To Arrest the Most Black People
- E.D.Mich.: Second SW for cell phone data retained by govt was valid
- S.D.W.Va.: “Shocking” nature of immigration raid on a Mexican restaurant at lunchtime didn’t warrant suppression
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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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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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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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: State constitution
OR: State carries burden of proving the reliability of the drug dog in the first instance (under state const.)
“Here, we easily conclude that the state did not create a sufficient record to support the use of Quincy’s alert as a basis for probable cause to search the car. At the suppression hearing, the state elicited testimony from Raiser … Continue reading
CT: City housing admin SW was properly issued; no state constitutional right to adversary proceeding first
City inspectors suspected defendant’s premises to have an illegal third apartment because there were three mailboxes and entrances and other suspicions. He refused an inspection by city officials, so they applied for an administrative search warrant that showed probable cause … Continue reading
HI: Four flyovers of def’s house violated curtilage and REP under state constitution
Four police flyovers of defendant’s house, one at 420′, was not a search under the Fourth Amendment, but it was unreasonable under the Hawai’i Constitution. 20-25 marijuana plants were seen in the flyover. Driving by the residence, however, no plants … Continue reading
MI: No RS required for administrative SW for rental unit inspections once every 3 years
“Appellant city challenges the district court’s denial of its application for an administrative search warrant to conduct a rental-housing inspection [where inspections are only done every three years], arguing that the district court erred in determining that individualized suspicion of … Continue reading
VT: A mere “home visit” of a probationer is reasonable and it does not include a search of the house
A mere “home visit” of a probationer is reasonable and it does not include a search of the house; merely an entry to look. State v. Levitt, 2016 VT 60, 2016 Vt. LEXIS 58 (May 27, 2016):
The Intercept: Seattle’s sanitation workers can no longer pry through trash without a warrant
The Intercept: Seattle’s sanitation workers can no longer pry through trash without a warrant by Cyrus Farivar: A Washington county judge has ruled that the city of Seattle’s warrantless searches of garbage violated the state’s constitution. In her 14-page order, … Continue reading
TX14: State const. affords no broader privacy in CSLI than Fourth Amendment
Defendant was an occasional guest in the house of another. Assuming he had standing, it’s clear that the owner had authority to consent and did consent to a search. Randolph doesn’t require seeking out the defendant to get consent from … Continue reading
UT won’t require warrant under automobile exception
“Rigby contends that the Utah Constitution provides its citizens greater protection against unreasonable searches than the United States Constitution because Utah courts have required police officers to have both probable cause and exigent circumstances when performing a warrantless search under … Continue reading
MA: State const. gives probationers more rights than parolees; parolee house search may occur on RS
“We conclude that art. 14 offers greater protection to parolees than does the Fourth Amendment. Article 14 does not, however, offer as much protection to parolees as it affords to probationers. Therefore, where a parole officer has reasonable suspicion to … Continue reading
Oregon refuses to follow Illinois v. Rodriguez on apparent authority
Oregon refuses to follow Illinois v. Rodriguez on apparent authority finding it doctrinally different than how it has interpreted the state constitution since the 1970s. State v. Bonilla, 358 Ore. 475, 2015 Ore. LEXIS 955 (Dec. 31, 2015):
CO declines to give greater state const’l rights to closed container
Defendant was stopped for fictitious tags, and he had a revoked DL and no insurance, too. An inventory of the vehicle was conducted, and a closed cooler was searched. Conceding the search valid under the Fourth Amendment, he argued that … Continue reading
UT: While bank records are constitutionally private, once properly disclosed in an investigation, privacy is gone
Bank records of a nonprofit allegedly funneling money to candidates for office were subpoenaed by the state, but no prosecution was brought. Then a public records request was filed for the bank records. There was no overriding privacy interest in … Continue reading
IA: Merely citing state const doesn’t mean it will be applied; argument required
The state constitution will not be followed over the Fourth Amendment unless defendant makes an explicit argument why the state rule should be different. Just citing it isn’t enough. State v. Myers, 2015 Iowa App. LEXIS 695 (August 5, 2015):
OR Const. doesn’t permit weapons inquiry to jaywalker without RS
Oregon Constitution does not permit an officer to inquire of a jaywalking suspect whether he is armed without some reasonable suspicion. State v. Jimenez, 357 Ore. 417, 2015 Ore. LEXIS 441 (July 9, 2015):
SC: Knock and talk requires reasonable suspicion under state law
A knock and talk is a legitimate law enforcement technique implicitly recognized in Jardines. (“We have accordingly recognized that ‘the knocker on the front door is treated as an invitation or license to attempt an entry, justifying ingress to the … Continue reading
IA: Search incident of locked safe in car unreasonable
Defendant was arrested in his car, and the police conducted a search incident of it. A locked safe was in the car, and the police opened it without a warrant. The search of the safe was unlawful under the state … Continue reading
OH: Township officers have no statutory authority to patrol interstates for drugs; violation of statute here violated state constitution
A township officer has no statutory authority to work drug interdiction on an interstate highway. Because statute didn’t authorize the stop, the appellate court properly suppressed under the state constitution. State v. Brown, 2015-Ohio-2438, 2015 Ohio LEXIS 1558 (June 23, … Continue reading
IN: Smell of burnt MJ from car allows officer essentially to detain all
Defendant juvenile was a passenger in the back of a car stopped at 1:30 am, and there was a smell of burnt marijuana coming from the car. Under Pringle, that gave the officer cause to get everybody out of the … Continue reading
D.R.I.: It was reasonable to believe defendant in house entered on arrest warrant when his car had been there and his cell phone ping put him there
Police had reason to believe defendant was in the apartment they entered with an arrest warrant for a Hobbs Act home invasion robbery: “The Court finds that the police reasonably believed prior to entry that Mr. Stewart resided at the … Continue reading
IA: Failure to cite state constitution to trial court was a waiver
A state wildlife officer approached defendant at a boat ramp during ice fishing season. No lights; car not blocked or pulled over. It was not a “stop.” The officer approached only to see if defendant had a fishing license, and … Continue reading