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- CA6: State officer’s arrest for violation of federal MJ law likely wouldn’t violate 4A
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- VI: Smell of MJ no longer PC in VI since legalization
- Reason: 3 Charlotte Cops Resign After Group Chat Reveals Competition To Arrest the Most Black People
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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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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
MT: Field test of seized drugs is a reasonable search
A field test of drugs seized off defendant’s person finding them presumptively methamphetamine is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment and the state constitution. There is no enlarged reasonable expectation of privacy as to them when seized. State v. Funkhouser, 2020 … Continue reading
Law Rev. article: A New Report of Entick v. Carrington (1765)
T. T. Arvind & Christian R. Burset, A New Report of Entick v. Carrington (1765), Notre Dame Legal Studies Paper No. 200131 (2020). Abstract:
CA10: 15-minute call to EPIC when officer given inconsistent travel plans wasn’t unreasonable
Inconsistent travel plans coming from the driver and passenger justified a 15 minute call to EPIC to see if the vehicle had crossed the border recently, and this was not unreasonable. United States v. Morales, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 17865 … Continue reading
MA: Owner’s DL was suspended, and it wasn’t apparent that driver wasn’t owner when stop occurred
Similar to Glover, Massachusetts held well before that the suspension of the owner’s DL can justify a stop. There was no indication [such as gender] here that the driver could not be the owner, so the stop was with reasonable … Continue reading
AR: No abuse of discretion in not forcing state to disclose that which it couldn’t get from HBO camera crew being at search
An HBO crew was present at the drug raid here while filming “Meth Storm.”The prosecutor didn’t know about it until the eve of trial, and he sought to get the video and couldn’t, and he disclosed to the defense. The … Continue reading
KY: Criminal history check during traffic stop is reasonable; the officer needs to know who he or she is dealing with
The stop had not concluded, and it wasn’t unreasonably extended by the officer. Criminal history checks are reasonable. “Accordingly, the officer may take reasonable steps to ascertain whether the persons with whom he is dealing might be dangerous. To this … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Open container in car justified search
An open container violation is an offense justifying a search of a vehicle for more. United States v. Hoskins, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90256 (E.D. Wis. May 22, 2020).* The stop reached the level of reasonable suspicion before dispatch responded, … Continue reading
D.C.: Four day delay in getting SW for car and then searching it was unreasonable and interfered with def’s possessory interests
A four day delay between the seizure of defendant’s car and obtaining a search warrant for it unreasonably infringed on defendant’s possessory interest in the car. The exclusionary rule should be applied here because the delay was all the actions … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Holding def’s computer for 6 hrs to get SW after he revoked consent was reasonable
Defendant at first consented to the government holding and then searching his cell phone and laptop. The next day he revoked his consent on the computer. The government continued to hold the laptop to preserve evidence and got a search … Continue reading
CA11: Officer reasonably mistook dog’s whimper inside for person in distress; entry valid
“The major question presented on appeal is whether it was reasonable for officers, mistaking a dog’s whimper for a person in distress, to enter Evans’s home without a warrant. Given the totality of the circumstances, we say yes.” United States … Continue reading
D.Utah: Dog handler’s subjective belief dog alerted unreasonable
The dog handler’s subjective belief that his drug dog alerted is inadequate for a search of a person’s car. United States v. Jordan, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71048 (D. Utah Apr. 21, 2020):
IN: Arrival of drug dog while ticket being written didn’t extend stop
The dog arrived at defendant’s traffic stop while the information was being entered into the traffic ticket program in the police car’s computer, so the dog sniff did not prolong the stop under the Fourth Amendment. Separately considering the state … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Forced catheterization of drug suspects with SW merely to see if drugs are in their system was unreasonable
Forced catheterization of drug suspects with a search warrant, who refused to urinate on demand, because of suspicion of drug use was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment under Schmerber. The individual defendants get qualified immunity, however, because of a lack … Continue reading
Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Judge: Forced catheterizations by South Dakota law enforcement violated Constitution
Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Judge: Forced catheterizations by South Dakota law enforcement violated Constitution by Jonathan Ellis (“South Dakota law enforcement’s practice of using forced catheterizations to obtain urine samples from suspects violates the U.S. Constitution, a federal judge has … Continue reading
Quarantines and the Fourth Amendment
Is a government quarantine order for a person or group of people a violation of the Fourth Amendment as a reasonable seizure? Despite being an ardent civil libertarian, I must conclude the Constitution means: No. Protection from infectious diseases … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: “The Court should stop imbuing the ‘objectively reasonable’ officer with a cloak of constitutional comfort for justifications …”
The court finds the stop was unjustified and any mistake on the officer’s part was not objectively reasonable. “The Court should stop imbuing the ‘objectively reasonable’ officer with a cloak of constitutional comfort for justifications that strain credulity and discount … Continue reading
CA6: The fact the officer was investigating a misdemeanor that didn’t happen in his presence doesn’t confine the 4A inquiry despite the common law
The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit officers from investigating misdemeanors and making stops based on that, even if the common law prohibits arrests for misdemeanors not committed in the officer’s presence. United States v. Jones, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 9038 … Continue reading
CA7: Running warrants on stopped panhandlers was reasonable
Chicago PD officers stopped panhandlers and ran warrants once they had their IDs. “We conclude that officers may execute a name check on an individual incidental to a proper stop under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 16, 88 S. … Continue reading
MA: GPS monitoring as a condition of pretrial release unreasonable under state constitution; doesn’t serve proper state interests
GPS monitoring as a condition of pretrial release violated the state constitution’s search and seizure provision. It was a great intrusion on privacy, and it did not serve the purposes of pretrial release: the return of the accused to court. … Continue reading
CO: Opening door to confirm VIN of possible stolen car was reasonable when the dashboard VIN was covered
The officers had reasonable suspicion that the car was stolen. They exhausted all the possibilities without confirming one way or the other, and the VIN on the dashboard wasn’t visible. Opening the door to see the VIN on the door … Continue reading