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- FL: Violation of knock-and-announce statute doesn’t require exclusion
- TX3: DUI blood draw while in restraint chair not 4A unreasonable
- TX1: Def has a duty to make his record on PC and the SW; missing affidavit was on him
- 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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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)
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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: Probation / Parole search
Cal.1: Electronic search condition on juvenile was unreasonable for possession of a knife and rolling papers at school
The electronic search condition on this juvenile for having a knife, rolling papers, and a lighter in school after a school search was unreasonable. The state says its need to prevent him from procuring more marijuana, but the court disagrees. … Continue reading
LA5: Parole officers were stalking horses for police acting without RS
Defendant’s parole search was without reasonable suspicion. In addition, the parole officers were acting at the request of law enforcement officers acting on an unsubstantiated tip, and that’s unreasonable in this state. State v. Clay, 2018 La. App. LEXIS 1004 … Continue reading
KS: Parole search waiver permitted suspicionless home searches
Defendant’s parole search waiver permitted suspicionless searches of his home, despite the fact the statute didn’t specifically mention it. The court balances the state’s need with the intrusion on privacy, and there is a continuum of much lower privacy expectations … Continue reading
NC: On remand from Grady, realtime satellite based monitoring of a sex offender on release was unreasonable under 4A
On remand from Grady v. North Carolina, 135 S. Ct. 1368, 191 L. Ed. 2d 459 (2015), the state failed to prove that continuous realtime satellite based monitoring of defendant was unreasonable. The lack of a warrant requirement without any … Continue reading
Cal.1st: Cell phone probation search condition not unreasonable; def to rid self of gang affiliations
An electronic search condition of probation is not per se unreasonable under Riley. Here, it was reasonable to show whether defendant ridded himself of his gang affiliations which was a condition of probation. People v. Guzman, 2018 Cal. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Riley‘s cell phone SW requirement doesn’t apply to probation searches of a cell phone
Riley does not require a warrant for a probation search of a probationer’s cell phone. United States v. Fletcher, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65591 (S.D. Ohio Apr. 18, 2018). Officers had probable cause to search the trunk of a car … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Parole search was valid despite def being in jail at time
Defendant was on parole and allegedly shot at somebody. That justified a parole search of his residence. The fact he was in jail at the time didn’t matter. United States v. Jaiman, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64797 (S.D. N.Y. Apr. … Continue reading
CA1: Suppression motion was untimely without a showing of good cause, and it would not be determined on appeal
“Sweeney neither challenged the finding of untimeliness before the district court, nor does he now argue that his delay in filing the motion to suppress was excused by good cause. As such, because of his waiver, we need not address … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: No PC for the warrant, but it wasn’t “so lacking” in PC that the GFE wouldn’t apply
There was no probable cause for issuance of the search warrant, but it wasn’t “so lacking” in probable cause because there was at least something. “The officers, therefore, acted in good faith in executing the warrant because, although the affidavit … Continue reading
Cal.5: Detaining visiting non-probationer during probation search was unreasonable
Defendant was visiting a friend when the friend’s PO showed up for an unannounced search. Defendant was detained, too. His detention was unreasonable. People v. Gutierrez, 2018 Cal. App. LEXIS 282 (5th Dist. Mar. 29, 2018). This defendant challenged the … Continue reading
CA7: State’s use of state’s “John Doe” proceedings was shown to be in good faith
In the court’s second view of Wisconsin’s unique John Doe proceedings, the Seventh Circuit decides only the good faith exception and concludes that the reliance on state law and compliance with the Stored Communications Act was all in good faith. … Continue reading
WA: State const. requires nexus between parole violation and scope of probation search
“It is well established that an individual on probation has a reduced expectation of privacy, and a community corrections officer (CCO) may conduct a warrantless search if he or she suspects the individual has violated a probation condition. The issue … Continue reading
Cal.1: Def’s false name was intended to avoid probation search condition; he’s estopped to argue exclusionary rule
“We hold that when a probationer gives a false name to a police officer, and a record check of that name fails to reveal that the probationer is in fact subject to a search condition, the probationer is estopped from … Continue reading
LA3: Once parolee found in possession of MJ, search of his hotel room was justified
Defendant was arrested for possession of marijuana so the search of his wallet was justified as a search incident. As a parolee, his hotel room was his “residence” for purposes of a parole search. State v. Warren, 2018 La. App. … Continue reading
DE: Exclusionary rule does not apply in probation revocation proceedings
Deciding an issue of first impression in the state, the court concludes that the exclusionary rule does not apply in probation revocation proceedings. Surveying law from other states, some recognize a bad faith exception for probation searches, but this case … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Motorcycle gang’s jacket and other vague things wasn’t RS; a Terry frisk requires separate justification from a Terry stop
A Terry stop doesn’t automatically include the ability to conduct a frisk because they have separate justifications. Here, defendant was wearing a motorcycle gang jacket, but nothing else came close to providing reasonable suspicion, and the motion to suppress is … Continue reading
CA11: District court didn’t commit plain error by imposing suspicionless supervised release condition
Defendant was convicted of wire fraud, and the district court imposed a condition of suspicionless searches for supervised releases. He complains that the court didn’t adequately explain the justification. No case says that the district court needed to, and there … Continue reading
D.Kan.: After entry to arrest parole absconder, the govt could rely on protective sweep, plain view, and plain smell doctrines to expand the entry
Officers had a parole absconder warrant to retake defendant. At his motel room door, they could smell marijuana inside. After the entry, the government could rely on protective sweep, plain view, and plain smell doctrines to expand the entry. Finally, … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: State law limits on parole and probation’s search authority applies in federal court; it defines the REP
Defendant was subject to a state parole search condition that required reasonable suspicion and is also governed by Griffin’s special needs exception. “the language in a parole search condition is an important factor to consider when assessing the reasonableness of … Continue reading