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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)
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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: Reasonableness
IL: Officer’s interpretation of lane movement statute was unreasonable and stop suppressed
Defendant’s move within his lane was clearly not a violation of the lane change statute, so the stop based on that was not objectively reasonable. The product of the stop is suppressed. People v. Jackson, 2022 IL App (3d) 190621, … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: 6 day delay in getting SW for seized cell phones not unreasonable
There was a six day delay between seizure of six cell phones and issuance of a search warrant for them. This was reasonable under CA11 precedent. Moreover, the good faith exception applies. United States v. Norwood, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Police entry into a commercial gym with an unauthorized keycard violated the owner’s REP
Plaintiff operated a gym entered by the police for an administrative search during Covid when it should have been temporarily closed under a state executive order. They accessed it with a keycard from the prior owner who sold it years … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: There is no the state courts got it “really wrong” exception to Stone
“Paraphrased, this amounts to arguing that if the state courts got the Fourth Amendment issues really wrong, the habeas court can put Stone aside and decide the merits of the Fourth Amendment claims. [¶] Hashi cites no authority in support … Continue reading
CA7: Record supported finding that stop was not unreasonably extended
Whether a traffic stop was unreasonably extended for a drug dog to arrive is reviewed for clear error. The stop here was for overtinting, and the officer processed a warning by entering the information into the patrol car’s computer. He … Continue reading
MS: Open fields covered by state const.; warrant required for administrative search
A warrant is required for administrative searches under the Mississippi constitution, which also protects all land owned by the complainant, including open fields. Plain view is inapplicable here. The exclusionary rule applies to this administrative search and seizure. Okhuysen v. … Continue reading
N.D.Okla.: Cross designated tribal officer could obtain state SW then used in federal court
A Cherokee Nation officer was cross-deputized to act for the “City of Tulsa, the State of Oklahoma, the United States, and the Cherokee Nation.” “Second, the Supreme Court has found that reviewing courts should give ‘great deference’ to a magistrate’s … Continue reading
D.Del.: The traffic stop question is only reasonableness, not whether state law was violated
One officer stopped defendant at the request of another. Defendant challenges its basis. “The question here is not whether the stop was authorized by [state law]. The question is rather whether the car stop was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” … Continue reading
TX3: Statute as interpreted was clear; state’s Heien argument rejected
The maintaining one’s lane statute has long been construed to require that any movement be unsafe. The officer’s mistaken belief defendant violated the statute here without being unsafe was unreasonable under Heien and state cases. Daniel v. State, 2021 Tex. … Continue reading
W.D.La.: Where the search was valid under the automobile exception, the officer’s subjective assessment is irrelevant
“Here, the facts known to Broussard at the time of the search—Dyson’s prior arrest for the illegal possession of a firearm and drugs, and the smell of marijuana emanating from the vehicle during the present stop—support a Terry pat-down search … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: There can’t be a pretextual SW for a plain view; it’s objectively reasonable or not
Court rejects claim that search warrant could be pretextual to seize something else in plain view. That’s a foray into subjective intent the court won’t do. United States v. Contreras, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 242185 (N.D.Ill. Dec. 20, 2021):
CA7 (en banc): Questions about travel plans during traffic stop not unreasonable
Resolving an apparent conflict between Rodriguez and pre-Rodriguez case law, the officer’s normal inquiries here about defendant’s travel plans were legitimate and produced answers that he could legitimately doubt. Defendant volunteered seven states other than where the stop occurred, and … Continue reading
KY: Seeking consent to search car by threatening to use drug dog unreasonably extended stop
Defendant was stopped for a traffic offense, but the officer readily abandoned it by seeking consent and “repeatedly threatened the use of a dog sniff” if he didn’t. Commonwealth v. Conner, 2021 Ky. LEXIS 419 (Dec. 16, 2021):
NC: This traffic stop was not based on an objectively reasonable view of statute; stop suppressed
The officer’s mistaken view of the law allegedly justifying the stop was not objectively reasonable under Heien and thus completely without reasonable suspicion. State v. Jonas, 2021-NCCOA-660, 2021 N.C. App. LEXIS 678 (Dec. 7, 2021). This probation search was valid: … Continue reading
LA1: Subjective beliefs of officer irrelevant when PC exists
The trial court is reversed. There was probable cause for defendant’s stop. “Under the law, ‘the subjective beliefs or expectations of the detaining officer’ are irrelevant.” State v. Lee, 2021 La. App. LEXIS 1840 (La. App. 1 Cir. Dec. 6, … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Evil intent irrelevant in excessive force case if it all still objectively reasonable
“Issues of motive and intent are essentially irrelevant in [an excessive force] case. The test in an excessive force case is an objective one. Thus, ‘[a]n officer’s evil intentions will not make a Fourth Amendment violation out of an objectively … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Failure to record videoconference SW application under state law not 4A violation
Georgia has allowed video conferencing search warrant application for years. The statute requires a recording, but the federal courts have never held that a failure to record violates the Fourth Amendment when a state search warrant ends up in federal … Continue reading
WA: No REP in text message exchange
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in text messages exchanged with another, even under the state’s more protective constitution of “private affairs.” State v. Pouncy, 2021 Wash. App. LEXIS 2811 (Nov. 30, 2021) (unpublished).* The reasonableness of a traffic … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Arrestee left out in cold in t-shirt stated 4A claim
Plaintiff states a Fourth Amendment claim that he was arrested and left outside in the snow in jeans and a t-shirt for more than 30 minutes. Bolin v. Prater, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 225777 (N.D.Ind. Nov. 23, 2021). Leaving drugs … Continue reading