September 2026 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Archives
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Recent Posts
- WaPo: Americans have turned against police cameras that track license plates, new survey shows
- W.D.Tex.: What is the duty of the neutral and detached magistrate?
- D.Me.: Yes, more investigation could have been done, but there’s still PC on what there was
- CA3: Brady doesn’t apply to SW materials
- E.D.Mich.: Person a cell phone was given to as gift could consent to search
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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)
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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)
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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: Motion to suppress
DC: Failing to file a motion to suppress is waiver of the issue
Defendant never filed a motion to suppress prior to trial, so the search and seizure claim is waived. Proctor v. United States, 2017 D.C. App. LEXIS 55 (March 16, 2017), amended 2017 D.C. App. LEXIS 331 (Oct. 26, 2017). The … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: USMJ declines adversary briefing by Google for a SW for email; take it to the USDJ
Google objected to a search warrant for two email accounts, whether located in the U.S. or not. Its motion for a briefing schedule is denied. Despite case law elsewhere, the District Judge is the one to take up adversarial litigation … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Untimely motion to suppress summarily denied
Defendant’s untimely motion to suppress is denied. United States v. Drexler, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13833 (D.Nev. Feb. 1, 2017). Defendant was arrested for bank robbery, and a search incident to arrest of his person was valid and based on … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Motion to suppress denied without prejudice for failure to plead any facts or law or brief the issue with cases
Motion to suppress denied without prejudice for failing to cite facts or authority or provide a cogent argument. United States v. Guerrier, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14405 (M.D. Pa. Feb. 2, 2017):
M.D.Pa.: General motion to suppress denied for not pleading any facts or law
“In light of the fact that Defendant fails to specify which statements he is seeking to suppress and the insufficiency of Defendant’s explanation for why the arrest warrant lacks probable cause, I am unable to properly consider these motions. Fourth … Continue reading
IA: Two finding defective inventory due to police investigative motive
“In any event, it is clear that Officer Carter failed to remove the license plates and registration receipt before impounding the car. Because the officer overlooked the legislatively imposed requirements for the impoundment, it appears he was motivated solely by … Continue reading
OH8: Failure to file a pretrial motion to suppress is a waiver of a 4A claim
Failure to file a pretrial motion to suppress is a waiver of a Fourth Amendment claim. State v. Gibson, 2017-Ohio-102, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 107 (8th Dist. Jan 12, 2017). Defendant was stopped for swerving on the highway. When he … Continue reading
DE: Trial court couldn’t decide PC where def didn’t raise it in motion to suppress; reconsideration granted; def has to frame the issues in the motion to suppress
At issue was a seizure and then search of defendant’s cell phone with a search warrant looking for an incriminating text message that was already seen by the police on the recipient’s cell phone. At the hearing, the Superior Court … Continue reading
FL2: 12 year old accosted for no reason didn’t voluntarily consent
Police searched two 12 year old boys playing in the grassy common area of their mobile home park. Their alleged consent was involuntary because of their young age and no reason to accost them in the first place. Marijuana was … Continue reading
NJ: Protective sweep requires at least some slight justification another person may be present; here, there was none
A woman called police as a victim of domestic violence. When they arrived, she was in her car, and she gave an address of where her assailant was but no name. They go to that address and enter, and then … Continue reading
IA: All specifics of lack of PC need to be raised in trial court; here, this argument was waived
Defendant was stopped for having one headlight. The specific claim that there was no probable cause for pulling him over because he wasn’t on a public road was never presented to the trial court, and it’s waived. State v. Tusler, … Continue reading
CA9: Motion to suppress after conviction wasn’t timely
Defendant’s motion to suppress her cell phone search two weeks after conviction wasn’t timely, and no good cause shown. Riley being decided after her conviction is not “good cause.” United States v. Gonzalez, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 14298 (9th Cir. … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Motion to suppress wasn’t timely and discovery wasn’t that complicated; but he’d lose on standing or merits anyway
Defendant’s motion to suppress wasn’t timely, and he had plenty of time to get it filed and didn’t give an excuse or even mention it being late. “Large volumes of discovery can indeed constitute good cause for addressing a motion’s … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Motion to suppress denied for lack of proffer on standing
Defendant’s motion to suppress was denied because he didn’t even suggest in his papers he had standing in the vehicle he was only a passenger in. United States v. Londonio, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8472 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 13, 2016). There … Continue reading
TN: Laptop search issue first raised in MNT is way too late; issue waived
Defendant was convicted of four counts of rape of a child. A laptop was properly seized from his car with probable cause under the automobile exception. It was searched without a warrant. Defendant waived the search of the computer by … Continue reading
OH9: For appellate court to consider trial testimony on motion to suppress, motion to reopen or reconsider required
To get the appellate court to consider trial testimony to supplement the motion to suppress, it’s necessary to renew the motion in the trial court after that point. Otherwise, the appeal proceeds on what was developed at the suppression hearing. … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: A mismatched license plate to the vehicle is more indicative of crime than other traffic offenses
A mismatched license plate to the vehicle is more indicative of crime than other traffic offenses. It is a reasonable suspicion warranting a patdown. “Such a risk was only heightened here because the ‘traffic violation’ at issue—using forged or stolen … Continue reading
OH3: Trial court decided issue defense didn’t raise, and state prejudiced
The trial court erred in sua sponte raising a length of detention issue that the state did not get to respond to. State v. Miller, 2015-Ohio-3529, 2015 Ohio App. LEXIS 3443 (3d Dist. August 31, 2015):
OH9: A challenge to evidence under the rules of evidence is brought by a motion in limine, not a motion to suppress
A challenge to evidence under the rules of evidence is brought by a motion in limine, not a motion to suppress. That’s for constitutional grounds. State v. Johnson, 2015-Ohio-3449, 2015 Ohio App. LEXIS 3327 (9th Dist. August 26, 2015). One … Continue reading
MD: Oral motion to suppress cell phone was waived: neither timely nor specific
Defendant’s oral motion to suppress the contents of his cell phone the morning of trial was neither timely nor specific as to what was to be suppressed, so it’s treated as waived. Sinclair v. State, 2015 Md. LEXIS 496 (July … Continue reading