Archives
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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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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)
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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.Cal.: 55 day delay in getting cell phone SW didn’t matter because this was a supervised release revo proceeding, and the exclusionary rule wouldn’t apply
Defendant’s cell phone was seized in an arrest for loitering for pimping. After his probation officer went back and forth with the police, he declined to search it under defendant’s search condition, and 55 days elapsed, and a search warrant … Continue reading
CT: Keeping def’s knife because he was too drunk to be safe with it was reasonable; later he was discovered to have been in an assault with it
Defendant was first thought to be an assault victim, and the police took him home because he was intoxicated. He was asked about weapons on him, and he admitted to a knife, which he was relieved of, and it was … Continue reading
IL: When a stop is based on an “investigative alert,” the basis has to be shown to be reasonable; here, the state couldn’t
Defendant was stopped on an “investigative alert,” which would have been sufficient if there was reasonable suspicion under the collective knowledge doctrine. There was no showing of the basis for the alert, and the stop was thus without reasonable suspicion … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: “Under ordinary circumstances, drawing weapons and using handcuffs are not part of a Terry stop,” but the totality of the circumstances here justified it
“Under ordinary circumstances, drawing weapons and using handcuffs are not part of a Terry stop,” but the totality of the circumstances can justify it. Here, it did. Defendants were stopped on a rural road with reasonable suspicion. Although a frisk … Continue reading
NJ: SW for def’s person made it reasonable to frisk him them move him elsewhere for the search of the person
Officers had a warrant to search defendant’s person and house. When they found him, they conducted a patdown and then moved him elsewhere for the more intrusive search. The second search was objectively reasonable under the warrant, and moving him … Continue reading
Two on Rodriguez and extended stops
The stop of defendant’s vehicle was extended for a dog sniff. The defense argued that it was unreasonable, and the trial court found it was de minimus. Rodriguez was then decided, and it applies. The dog sniff occurred after defendant … Continue reading
DC: Warrantless anal cavity search in courthouse cellblock not shown to be reasonable
The government failed to carry its burden that the anal cavity search of defendant in a courthouse cellblock was reasonable without the use of medical personnel. They may not always be required, but they may be, and what case law … Continue reading
GA: Overlong stop was reasonable here because officer was dealing with two cars
Defendant was not seized, although the stop was long. There was another driver in another car also being dealt with, and the officer had to get another to the scene. Defendant was never told he was under arrest, nor was … Continue reading
IN: Officer’s stop for no paper license except in rear window was unreasonable because it was now lawful to have it there
State law had changed a year before defendant’s stop to allow for temporary plates to be hung in the rear window. Defendant was stopped for no license plate. As the officer approached, he could see a plate in the rear … Continue reading
NY3: It’s not IAC to not listen to the audio of the SW application where there was a motion to suppress for lack of PC
Defense counsel was not ineffective for not listening to the audio of the oral application for the search warrant challenging probable cause. The defense moved to suppress on lack of PC, and it was denied by the trial court and … Continue reading
GA: If the dog sniff comes before dispatch reports back on the DL check, the dog sniff is valid (4-3)
A dog sniff of a car while waiting for the driver’s and passenger’s DL info to come back did not in any way extend the stop, so it’s valid. (4-3) State v. Allen, 2015 Ga. LEXIS 789 (Nov. 2, 2015), … Continue reading
New Law Review Article: Wayne A. Logan, Cutting Cops Too Much Slack
Wayne A. Logan, Cutting Cops Too Much Slack, 104 Georgetown L.J. 87 (2015): Police officers can make mistakes, which, for better or worse, the U.S. Supreme Court has often seen fit to forgive. Police, for instance, can make mistakes of … Continue reading
Cal.1: Juvenile probation order to disclose all electronic passwords was overbroad
Juvenile probation order to disclose all electronic passwords was overbroad, following other recent cases. In re Ricardo P., 2015 Cal. App. LEXIS 931 (1st Dist. Oct. 22, 2015):
NM: Police helicopter flyover at 50-100′ disrupted and damaged the property and scared the occupants and violated curtilage
A police helicopter flyover at 50-100′ disrupted and damaged the property and scared the occupants. Therefore, it violated the curtilage under the Fourth Amendment. Thus, the state constitutional issue does not have to be decided. State v. Davis, 2015 N.M. … Continue reading
N.D.N.Y.: Violation of Rule 41 in delay in searching cell phone doesn’t require suppression
The government obtained a search warrant for defendant’s cell phone and seized it promptly. The forensic search of the phone, however, didn’t occur for 85 days, after the 60 day window in the warrant. The defense, however, can show no … Continue reading
Cal.4: Dispatch told officer that def was on probation for one crime, but it actually had expired; he was, however, on probation for something else; GFE applied
The officer here responded to a suspicious activity report and found a stolen trailer in defendant’s yard with a piece of pipe on it. He inquired of dispatch and was told defendant was on probation for brandishing a weapon. He … Continue reading
OR automobile exception requires vehicle must be mobile when first encountered in connection with a crime
To justify the automobile exception in Oregon, the vehicle must be mobile when first encountered in connection with a crime. If parked, a warrant must be sought. State v. Belander, 274 Ore. App. 167, 2015 Ore. App. LEXIS 1175 (September … Continue reading