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Recent Posts
- CA6: The SW affidavit here was thin, but it wasn’t completely bare bones, so GFE applies
- D.Minn.: Extending stop to run ALPR information on car was with RS
- 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
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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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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)
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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
N.D.Iowa: Officer’s slow walking issuance of ticket to allow drug dog time to arrive wasn’t objectively unreasonable
The officer’s subjective intent to delay the processing of defendant’s speeding ticket didn’t show that it was objectively slowed down to give time to get a drug dog to the scene to conduct a car sniff before the finishing of … Continue reading
A.F.Ct.Crim.App.: AFOSI form that said cell phone consent search would be done in 3 days wasn’t constitutionally binding
An AFOSI form states that a cell phone search has to occur within three days of their acquiring the phone. The court in the past has suggested that form change because it’s unreasonable to expect that it can be done … Continue reading
E.D.La.: Not filing motion to suppress but joining in codef’s renewed motion to suppress was waiver
Where one defendant didn’t file a motion to suppress but joined in a renewed motion to suppress of a codefendant, the motion is treated as waived. The procedure attempted circumvents Rule 12. Moreover, he doesn’t even have standing. United States … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: State court GPS tracking order limited to Indiana didn’t prevent FBI from using it under 4A when car went to California
Defendant was suspected of a bank robbery, and the government presented a GPS tracking warrant affidavit to an Indiana judge to track defendant in Indiana. Shortly thereafter, defendant drove to Los Angeles, and he was stopped for a traffic offense … Continue reading
MA: Search of vehicle outside territorial jurisdiction of officers was void; inevitable discovery rejected
The informant hearsay satisfied Aguilar-Spinneli and thus showed probable cause. The search incident of defendant’s person was thus justified. The search of a car in an adjoining town was unreasonable because there was no statutory authorization for it under state … Continue reading
CA4: Officer who obtained court order for minor ptf to be detained and to get an erection so police could photograph it gets no QI; this isn’t remotely reasonable
Plaintiff was a 17 year old that allegedly sent a picture of his erection to his 15 year old girlfriend. Defendant obtained a court order for plaintiff to be transported to a juvenile detention center to masturbate to get an … Continue reading
D.Kan.: State law does apply under 4A in parole searches; here, there was a reasonable basis for it
In the Tenth Circuit, the area of state probation and parole search is about the only area where the Fourth Amendment is informed by state law, and state law determines limits on state actors in the first instance, and then … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Misreading a “hot sheet” for stop of a car was objectively reasonable mistake
Police had a “hot sheet,” a list of stolen cars from a car dealership, and were on the look out. “In this case, Officer Palmer believed that the red Dodge Challenger had been stolen from the dealership in Excelsior Springs, … Continue reading
GA: Reasonable mistake of law doesn’t mean “good working order” statute requires an interior mirror on a truck; nothing at all in statute on that
The reasonable mistake of law field encounters a new one: Does a truck have to have an inside rearview mirror when under the “good working order” statute? No, and concluding otherwise is not reasonable. The statute doesn’t even come close. … Continue reading
CA5: Witness to police shooting handcuffed and detained for 2 hours stated 4A claim for relief
Plaintiff’s father was acting erratic and was armed, and the police were called. Plaintiff was trying to defuse the situation. The SWAT team showed up, and, after a brief stand-off plaintiff’s father was shot while she was standing next to … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Officer’s belief that driver couldn’t stay in the passing lane wasn’t reasonable mistake
The officer’s belief that driving too long in the left lane of a divided highway was a traffic violation wasn’t reasonable because nothing in the statute allows that construction. Therefore, the stop was invalid. United States v. Buruato, 2017 U.S. … Continue reading
D.Haw.: 20 day delay in getting SW for backpack was unreasonable
The seizure of defendant’s backpack for 20 days without seeking a search warrant was unreasonable. It infringed on defendant’s possessory interest, even though he did not seek return of the backpack. United States v. Uu, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 170636 … Continue reading
Miami Herald: Guantánamo guards seize confidential Sept. 11 terror trial defense files
Miami Herald: Guantánamo guards seize confidential Sept. 11 terror trial defense files by Carol Rosenberg: In the latest challenge to attorney-client confidentiality here, prison guards on Wednesday seized the court-approved, non-networked laptop computers and hard drives issued to the accused … Continue reading
WI: Checkpoint minutes after an armed robbery was reasonable; only two cars stopped
Officers responding to an armed robbery call were in the vicinity and parked in the street with top lights on along a possible escape route creating de facto checkpoint or roadblock. Because of time of day, there were few cars … Continue reading
NPR: Judge Limits DOJ’s Warrant For Records From Anti-Trump Site
NPR: Judge Limits DOJ’s Warrant For Records From Anti-Trump Site by Laurel Walsley:
OH2 follows Heien on reasonable mistake of traffic law
Whether defendant properly stopped at the “stop bar” was at worst a reasonable mistake of law and thus still reasonable under Heien. Once stopped, the officer discovered defendant’s license was suspended. State v. Deacey, 2017-Ohio-8102, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 4457 … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Even though PA requires PC for certain traffic stops, 4A doesn’t
Pennsylvania’s requirement of probable cause for lane violations isn’t binding in federal court under the Fourth Amendment. “Accordingly, even though a Pennsylvania court may have held that Officer Sampere required probable cause to pull Defendant over for a violation of … Continue reading
OH Ct.Claims: Ptf prison visitor didn’t prove her strip search was justified or unreasonably conducted
Plaintiff failed to prove her visitor strip search claim against the prison guards involved. The search was based on sufficient particularized suspicion that drugs were coming in through this visitor. The court finds she didn’t remember signing the form about … Continue reading
TX1: Money was lawfully seized by SW from attorney’s bank account as proceeds of theft
The state seized $80,600 from a criminal defense lawyer’s bank account transferred from IOLTA account that was alleged to be the proceeds of crime. The attorney claimed it was earned attorney’s fees under his retainer agreement. “At the hearing, Fisch … Continue reading