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- N.D.Ala.: SW not invalid because issuing judge previously represented the target
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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)
--Overview of the 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: Probation / Parole search
IL: Refusal of consent to a parole search is a violation of parole conditions in itself
Under Illinois law, refusal of consent to a parole search is a violation of parole conditions in itself. That did not make the consent invalid. The court was entitled to believe he consented knowing that he had 800 g of … Continue reading
KY declines to suppress parole search where violation of some procedural rule but not the Fourth Amendment
Defendant was subject to a parole search condition, and the search violated some internal policy of the Department of Corrections. It did not, however, violate the Fourth Amendment, and the court holds that the policy violation did not require that … Continue reading
C.D.Ill.: Calls to wife showed exigency for potential removal of drugs hidden in safe in house
Defendant’s calls to his wife showed there was exigency in the contents of a safe at their house because he wanted it moved immediately. That was exigency. Also, she had apparent authority to consent. United States v. Simmons, 2015 U.S. … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Riley doesn’t require SW for parole search of cell phone
Riley doesn’t apply to a parole search of a cell phone because of the defendant waiving his Fourth Amendment rights by accepting parole. United States v. Johnson, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 106925 (N.D.Cal. August 13, 2015). Even though the patdown … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Def’s parole status admissible to show why he was subjected to a rigorous search so motives of officers wouldn’t be questioned
Defendant’s being on parole was admissible to explain why he was subjected to a rigorous search because, otherwise, the officers’ motives might be questioned. United States v. Johnson, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105518 (N.D.Cal. August 11, 2015):
S.D.N.Y.: Def’s waving in PO was consent to enter
Defendant’s gesture to parole officers at his door was reasonably interpreted by them as waving them in. Once they were inside he didn’t protest. When his girlfriend came out of a room, they asked if there was anybody else in … Continue reading
TN: Fleeing, crashing, and abandoning car, taking another, and fleeing to another state is abandonment of the first car
“By leaving his crashed vehicle in a position that was blocking the roadway and fleeing in another vehicle [to another state], the defendant manifested through his own actions an intent to abandon the truck and its contents. As a result, … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Police daily briefing provided PO with RS of a probation violation
Defendant’s PO received a daily brief from the police that mentioned that defendant was in a car stopped and identified as a gang member. One of his conditions of parole was to avoid gang activity. That was justification for a … Continue reading
CA2: A can in a brown paper bag justified a drinking in public stop; just because it might have been a soft drink isn’t determinative
The district court erred in suppressing a stop by a parole officer of a parolee walking down the street with an apparent beer can in a brown paper bag that concealed what it was. Just because it could have been … Continue reading
OH10: Asking for DL of driver of parked car was a stop of everybody in the car
Defendant was in a parked car with others when the police pulled up. It became a stop of everybody in the car under Brendlin when the officer asked for ID, and there was no reasonable suspicion of any crime whatsoever. … Continue reading
IA applies special needs doctrine to parole searches for first time
Iowa applies the special needs doctrine to parole searches for the first time. It alluded to something like that in 1970, but the special needs doctrine hadn’t developed then. This parole search was reasonable under Griffin and the special needs … Continue reading
NY Co. Court: Despite Samson, parole search here was arbitrary and suppressed
Despite Samson, New York case law has engrafted a requirement of some cause for a parole search to avoid arbitrariness and harassment, which Samson doesn’t even allow. The stop and search here was arbitrary, and it is suppressed. People v. … Continue reading
LA: Probationer in the house of another probationer during a PO home visit was searched with RS
Defendant was a probationer in the house of another probationer when the other probationer was subjected to a home visit. After finding marijuana in the bedroom, the officers conducted a protective search of defendant and found drugs. The search was … Continue reading
IA: Officer’s even reasonable mistake of fact makes stop unreasonable
A mistake of fact about the existence of a stop sign (down because of construction) denies reasonable suspicion for the stop. This is not a mistake of law under Heien, a question reserved for another day. State v. Schueman, 2015 … Continue reading
OH9: Def’s innocent explanations don’t per se undermine reasonable suspicion
Defendant’s innocent explanations for being in the parking lot in a high crime area don’t undermine the officer’s reasonable suspicion developed at the time. State v. Starr, 2015-Ohio-2193, 2015 Ohio App. LEXIS 2113 (9th Dist. June 8, 2015).* The probation … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: “Stalking horse” theory of police involvement in probation searches is apparently no longer valid
The “stalking horse” theory of police involvement in probation searches is apparently no longer valid. United States v. Flowers, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71673 (M.D.Pa. May 14, 2015):
CA10: Unnecessarily overlong detention while handcuffed when it was apparent ptf not the man wanted was clearly established as a 4A violation
Plaintiff was detained too long after it was obvious that he was not the person they were looking for with the same last name during a familial dispute. That right was clearly established. There was no other independent justification. Martinez … Continue reading
MI: Lifetime GPS monitoring of a sex offender is a search, and it is reasonable on a balancing of interests
Lifetime GPS monitoring of a doctor convicted of criminal sexual contact with a patient under 13 was a search under Grady, but it was reasonable. It is reasonable on balancing the government’s interest in keeping up with sex offenders and … Continue reading