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Recent Posts
- VA: 12 second question about drugs didn’t unreasonably prolong the stop that was going to take a while anyway
- E.D.Tenn.: Application for SW was considered in detention ruling
- TN: RS didn’t develop to continue stop; second stop based on first suppressed
- CA4: Traffic stop immediately became firearms investigation; suppressed
- CA10: Disagreement over spelling of street name didn’t make warrant fail particularity; GFE at least would apply
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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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--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) -
“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: Burden of proof
IA: Where state stipulated needing PC for its actions, it couldn’t argue RS was sufficient on appeal; it’s bound by its argument below
Where the state argues reasonable suspicion justified the officer’s actions, they had to say so in the trial court. Instead, they proceeded on the theory they needed probable cause, and that’s what they’re bound by on appeal. State v. Steffens, … Continue reading
AK: Reconsideration of finding of no PC granted; def never really put lack of PC in issue
At issue was a seizure and then warranted search of defendant’s cell phone looking for an incriminating text message that was already seen by the police on the recipient’s cell phone. At the hearing, the Superior Court granted a motion … Continue reading
CO: Officers had clear indication def had drugs in mouth for body search on exigency
There was a clear indication that defendant had hidden drugs in his mouth, and that was exigency for a search of his mouth. When the state as appellee argues there is probable cause for defendant’s arrest and the opening brief … Continue reading
NY3: Cursory suppression motion properly denied on its face
Defendant’s suppression motion was properly denied. “Defendant made only a brief, conclusory claim that there was no probable cause for his arrest, lacking factual support ….” On his consent claim of lack of consent, the lack of factual support didn’t … Continue reading
OH10: Failing to raise suppression issue at trial court was waived for appeal
Defendant waived his argument related to a prolonged detention by failing to raise it in his motions to suppress or at the suppression hearings, and then only by raising the argument for the first time on appeal. State v. Geiger, … Continue reading
OH8: State admin subpoena might be burdensome and time consuming but it’s not unreasonable
“While GMS might find some of the Commission’s investigative techniques time consuming and burdensome, GMS is unable to show that the Commission’s investigations violated the Fourth Amendment or otherwise fell outside the scope of what is permitted under statute.” GMS … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Clause in SW that is overbroad requires def to show what was seized under it
One overbroad clause in the search warrant didn’t require exclusion of the rest that was specifically covered. Defendant also didn’t show that which was seized under the overbroad section to have it excluded. United States v. Traum, 2016 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
TX: State is obligated to reraise its issues in CoA to not default; here, they defaulted
The state was obligated to argue its alternative theory to the court of appeals after winning in the trial court or it defaults the appellate argument. Here, it did just that. State v. Copeland, 2016 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 1195 … Continue reading
MS: Guilty plea waived 4A claim
Defendant’s guilty plea waived his Fourth Amendment claim. Singleton v. State, 2016 Miss. App. LEXIS 637 (Oct. 4, 2016). Defendant’s claim that the police withheld information about an alleged drug dog alert. That claim was either procedurally barred or unsupported … Continue reading
AR: Apparent scrivener’s error in the PC went uncorrected and became speculation
Search warrant was issued February 5, 2015 and showed the date of defendant’s alleged drug dealing as November 4-5, 2015. Whether it was a typo that should have been 2014, or should have been February 4-5, 2015 (which was speculative … Continue reading
CA9: Defense entitled to discovery on whether San Clemente immigration checkpoint also now a general crime control checkpoint
Defendant sought discovery to show that the San Clemente immigration checkpoint on I-5, sustained 40 years ago in Martinez-Fuerte, had also become a general crime control checkpoint, and the district court denied it. The Court of Appeals held that Rule … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Statement at arrest car was girlfriend’s didn’t show standing; more required
Defendant’s post-arrest statement to the police that the car was his girlfriend’s wasn’t enough to show standing. He could have testified to standing without being cross-examined about the merits of the car, yet he didn’t. Defendant’s statement before arrest that … Continue reading
DE: When state shows PC in forfeiture proceeding, burden shifts to def
This case involves a return of property petition and the state sought forfeiture. The probable cause standard for forfeiture is essentially the same at that applied in Fourth Amendment search and seizure cases. Thus, the State is required to prove … Continue reading
OH8: Video belied testimony about stop; suppression should have been granted
The trooper testified that defendant swerved within lanes, but it was not supported by the video and defendant wasn’t even cited for that. Thus, the motion to suppress should have been granted. City of Cleveland v. Shevchenko, 2016-Ohio-5711, 2016 Ohio … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: General motion to suppress inadequate and denied
Defendant’s motion merely alleging he was subjected to a warrantless search is too general to mean a thing. United States v. Bostic, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 115636 (S.D.Ga. Aug. 29, 2016):
D.Neb.: Information for Franks hearing needs to be made to USMJ, not on appeal to USDJ
When making a Franks challenge to the USMJ, defendant must come forward with the information then, not on the request for review to the USDJ. “The Magistrate Judge did not state on the record his specific reasoning for a finding … Continue reading