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Recent Posts
- PA: Shining flashlight into hole in a shoebox was a search; there was a REP in the closed box
- CA5: Accidentally shooting the man who disarmed the shooter from a residence was not a constitutional violation
- CA9: False evidence to arrest violates due process
- 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
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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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Section 1983 Blog -
"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
CA9: LAPD’s and California’s 30 day vehicle impoundment policy violates 4A
LAPD’s and the State of California’s policy of requiring all impounded vehicles be held 30 days violates the Fourth Amendment. Plaintiff loaned her car to her brother-in-law who was arrested for a suspended license, and the car was impounded. She … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Possible violation of state law doesn’t mean exclusion in federal court
The CI’s identity was not kept secret, and there was probable cause for the search warrant. The affidavit was not bare bones. The possible violation of state law isn’t shown to be of constitutional magnitude for exclusion of evidence in … Continue reading
MI: Predawn knock-and-talk was a trespass under Jardines; even Girl Scouts know better
Predawn (4 am in one case, 5:30 am in other) knock-and-talk was a trespass and violated social norms under Jardines. Implied license to enter the curtilage is time sensitive. People v. Frederick, 2017 Mich. LEXIS 1113 (June 1, 2017):
MI: Unreasonable mistake of law voids search
Defendant’s arrest was without probable cause for violating a no trespassing ordinance. It was a public place, open for business, defendant briefly entered and did nothing wrong. The search incident to the arrest thus fails too. Mistake of law as … Continue reading
AZ: Being directed to get out of the car alone doesn’t extend the stop
“Urrea has not explained how his being directed to exit his vehicle while the deputy conducted a records check illegally prolonged the stop.” Even so, his coming back to the patrol car to talk about it was by consent. [Really?] … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: It’s not for LEO to second guess a probation search condition’s validity or application
If the probation search condition applies on its face, and even if the search is for general law enforcement purposes, it’s not for the searching officer to inquire into the details of whether there might be some argument behind the … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: Entry with CPS worker to retrieve diaper bag was reasonable
A couple was arrested, and their infant was going with child protective services. An entry into the house with the CPS worker to recover the infant’s diaper bag was reasonable.United States v. Wright, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 72738 (N.D. Ala. … Continue reading
D.Utah: No 4A requirement for a police car in the field to have internet access to more speedily check records without radioing it in
There is no constitutional requirement for a police car in the field to have internet access to more speedily check records without radioing it in. Also, he testified that rural service is spotty. United States v. Lopez-Casillas, 2017 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
IA doesn’t recognize officer’s mistake of law
Defendant was stopped in what was thought to be a county park after midnight, but there was no proof that the park was properly established or had closing hours. Assuming that the officer committed a mistake of law, Iowa does … Continue reading
OH2: Mistaken entry of LPN into computer that resulted in erroneous stop still made the stop reasonable
The Ohio officer entered in the license number of an Illinois vehicle but omitted a letter in smaller type on the side that made the number complete because he didn’t know it was required. The wrong LPN came back as … Continue reading
D.Mont.: Search for gun outside house in curtilage was reasonable based on exigency or public safety
A search outside for a gun was reasonable for both public and officer safety. Officers responded to a domestic call at 2 am and there were four brothers there who concerned them. United States v. Sturdevant, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Bringing federal officers along on a cigarette tax search was not unreasonable; no duty to clean up after an otherwise reasonable search
(1) Under New York state law, cigarette retailers are pervasively regulated. Here, NY tax officials were checking on tax stamps. (2) While officers seemed to think they had authority to search defendant’s purse under the administrative search doctrine, they didn’t. … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Violations of state law on jurisdiction of investigative subpoenas not a federal issue
Defendant’s motion to reopen his suppression hearing to explore a state law claim on jurisdiction of subpoenas is denied because it has no relevance to the federal investigation. One of his issues is jurisdiction: which county had jurisdiction over the … Continue reading
Cal.2d: Emergency aid search of wrong house was still objectively reasonable
Based on a police dispatch of a screaming woman who was also moaning in distress, the police went to the address (2314) given and entered. They did not find the woman and kept looking upstairs and in closets and found … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Turn signal statute is unambiguous, and officer’s mistake wasn’t objectively reasonable under Heien
The Tennessee turn signal statute is clear and unambiguous, unlike the brake light statute in Heien. Officer “Garrison did not have a reasonable suspicion that Pate had violated the traffic laws. Thus, the stop was unlawful. As a passenger, Fortune … Continue reading
CA7: Officer did not violate 4A in reasonably handcuffing road rage suspect until RS dissipated
The district court erred in not granting summary judgment to the officer in this § 1983 case for his use of handcuffs on the plaintiff in his mid-60’s. There was reasonable suspicion for his stop as a suspect in a … Continue reading
OH11: Knocking on door jamb and pushing open partly open door was reasonable and with exigent circumstances
Defendant’s motel room door was partly open, and the officer knocked on the door jamb and then pushed the door open. This was reasonable because there was both probable cause and exigent circumstances for opening the door. State v. Fletcher, … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Opening car door to check the Nader sticker for the VIN on RS was not unreasonable
Opening a car door to check the Nader sticker for the VIN was not unreasonable and did not involve invading a space inside the car. By the time that happened, there was reasonable suspicion. Then there was consent to search … Continue reading
NJ permits limited search of the console when the def makes a half-hearted attempt to locate the papers for the vehicle
New Jersey again permits a limited search of the console [and likely glove compartment] when the defendant makes a half-hearted attempt to locate the papers for the vehicle. This is a limited search for the papers only, which would be … Continue reading