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- CA3: Ptf was arrested on an apparent but recalled warrant, then officers confirmed it and let him go; the arrest was reasonable
- N.D.Ohio: Failure to serve state SW within state mandated time not 4A violation
- NY1: Gunshot through floor from apartment above was exigency
- Reason: Most Civil Forfeiture Victims Never See the Inside of a Courtroom
- CA8: Admission of anonymous tip that led to stop violated Confrontation Clause
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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)
--Outline of 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: Scope of search
LA5: Scope of auto exception search is the PC that authorizes it
Defendant’s car was subject to the automobile exception because it was mobile, despite being parked and not running. “The scope of the warrantless search of an automobile is not defined by the nature of the container in which the contraband … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: SW for premises for “other evidence of distribution” of drugs permitted search of def’s pockets
The search warrant was for “drugs, drug paraphernalia, owe sheets, cell phones, firearms, stolen merchandise, or other evidence of distribution of a controlled substance.” That permits a search of defendant’s pockets, and the cash found there was subject to potential … Continue reading
New Republic: Should Cops Be Allowed to Rip Up Your Stuff While Looking for Drugs?
New Republic: Should Cops Be Allowed to Rip Up Your Stuff While Looking for Drugs? by Matt Ford: How the Supreme Court can curtail the destruction of private property during police searches
AR: Search of def’s wallet in a frisk was unreasonable
The officer made a drug arrest in the park, and defendant was around and fidgeting with his hands repeatedly going in and out of his pockets. A frisk of defendant for a weapon was reasonable, but a search of his … Continue reading
CA4 doesn’t have to decide circuit conflict of whether smell of MJ justifies search of trunk
The smell of marijuana in the passenger compartment and more about the stop and place of stop provided probable cause for search of the entire car, including the trunk. The court notes a circuit split of whether smell in the … Continue reading
D.Minn.: A “search and seizure warrant” not only authorized seizure of defendant’s computer but its search
A “search and seizure warrant” not only authorized seizure of defendant’s computer but its search. “Defendant’s argument that the search warrant authorized the seizure—but not the search—of his computer, phone, and computer storage media strains the bounds of logic and … Continue reading
IA: Mere visitor’s purse couldn’t be searched on execution of SW without an independent connection to premises
When a mere visitor is encountered during execution of a search warrant on the premises, her purse cannot be searched without independent cause linking her to the premises other than mere presence. State v. Brown, 2018 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 1 … Continue reading
D.Me.: Getting def to reveal cell phone passcode was 5A claim, not a 4A claim
Defendant’s cell phone was seized with a warrant. Defendant was questioned and he lawyered up, but the officer ignored it and kept asking questions. Finally, defendant gave up the passcode for the phone. This is a Fifth Amendment issue, not … Continue reading
CA10: Scope of consent to search has to be raised in the trial court
The issue of scope of a consent search has to be presented to the trial court to be preserved. This wasn’t. United States v. Vargas, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 26869 (10th Cir. Dec. 28, 2017). There is no right to … Continue reading
CA10: Smell of MJ authorizes search for MJ, not looking at multiple credit cards
An anonymous caller said defendant was smoking marijuana on his car. This was reasonable suspicion at best. Assuming the smell of marijuana provides probable cause to search, the search was for marijuana, and inspecting credit cards unreasonably expanded the search. … Continue reading
NY3: Failure to raise scope of consent to search in trial court is waiver
The car defendant back seat passenger was in was stopped for a traffic violation, and there was a furtive movement by the front seat passenger just before the vehicle came to a stop. The driver said they were going to … Continue reading
D.Conn.: Police research before the search showed this was a single family dwelling, and it essentially was; remedy for that wouldn’t help def anyway
Defendant argued that the search warrant was overbroad because the property was a multi-family unit. Actually and factually, his argument boils down to: I can lock my door, so I have a separate privacy interest. The officers looked at the … Continue reading
MN: Search of guest’s purse under SW was reasonable on totality because it wasn’t on her when police entered and it could have been associated with premises
Search of a guest’s purse during execution of a search warrant was reasonable here under the totality of the circumstances. The target of the search was a woman, and a purse is commonly associated with women. When it was found, … Continue reading
D.Nev.: SW to seize computers in CP case includes power to search
A warrant to seize computers in a child pornography case includes the power to search it. There was probable cause for the search warrants, and the Franks challenge was too deficient to get a hearing. United States v. Cohen, 2017 … Continue reading
MA: SW for def’s apt in drug case could authorize seizure of cell phone used to arrange drug transaction and orange shirt worn at time
The trial court erred in allowing defendant’s motion to suppress because the warrant affidavit established probable cause to believe defendant, acting through a middleman, sold cocaine to a street-level dealer. Thus, the seizure of nine cell phones found in defendant’s … Continue reading