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- 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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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) -
“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
N.D.Cal.: Decision of a USMJ to issue a search warrant is reviewed by the District Court for “clear error”
The decision of a USMJ to issue a search warrant is reviewed by the District Court for “clear error” in the Ninth Circuit. United States v. Alvarez, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75970 (N.D.Cal. June 10, 2016):
TX: Def’s failure to get trial court ruling on constitutional question was defaulted
The constitutional claim of the legality of defendant’s blood draw was argued, but the trial judge never ruled, so the claim wasn’t preserved for appeal. Court of Appeals reversed. Smith v. State, 2016 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 89 (June 8, … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Officer’s inability to remember minutia of search two years ago doesn’t make him unbelievable; opposite would more likely be true
The officers’ testimony is credited, and the defense cross didn’t make it better. “The inconsistencies, which in the Court’s view, were de minimis, were sought to be established by photographs of isolated portions of the living room and of Smith’s … Continue reading
PA: Totality and common sense overcomes typo on year in SW application
On the totality and by common sense, the record and the affidavit for the search warrant show that a critical date in the search warrant application had a typographical error as to the year (March 2013 v. March 2014), and … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: The fact two officers recollect the facts somewhat differently at suppression hearing doesn’t mean one or both are lying
That two officers recollect defendant’s traffic offense and stop somewhat differently doesn’t mean that one of them was lying. On the totality, there was reasonable suspicion. United States v. Maldonado, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 67881 (N.D.Iowa May 24, 2016),* R&R … Continue reading
S.D.Ala.: No suppression hearing if defense doesn’t contradict govt’s assertions of fact
When the defendant doesn’t controvert the material facts in the government’s response to his motion to suppress, a hearing isn’t required because all the court has is to apply the law to the facts. United States v. Sledge, 2016 U.S. … Continue reading
GA: Forfeiture answer pleading illegal search and seizure has to plead facts
“Loveless also complains that the trial court erred by striking his Answer when he had raised therein a sufficient defense, namely that the search and seizure occurred in violation of the Fourth Amendment. However, the Answer did not include those … Continue reading
GA: Officer searched after a private search, but state failed in burden of showing any justification for officer’s search
Defendant was transported to the hospital by ambulance after a car wreck. Hospital security smelled marijuana in his backpack and searched it and called the police. An officer arrived and searched the backpack without consulting with hospital security. The search … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: No point in reopening suppression hearing for new evidence that won’t change the outcome
Defendant sought to reopen the suppression hearing, and it’s denied because the new evidence wouldn’t alter the outcome at all on the question of apparent consent. United States v. Archambault, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61783 (W.D.N.Y. May 9, 2016). “The … Continue reading
CA1 seems to shift burden of proof to defendant to show that his detention was unreasonable because of a show of authority
The First Circuit seems to shift burden of proof to defendant to show that his detention was unreasonable because of a show of authority, rather than it being on the government that it was reasonable. United States v. Fields, 2016 … Continue reading
MA: SW for def’s house authorized seizure and a search of his person on his front sidewalk
A search warrant for defendant’s house authorized police to detain and search him on the sidewalk out front of his house and seize his cell phone from him under Michigan v. Summers and state cases applying it. Commonwealth v. Mattier, … Continue reading
MO: Delay in resolving traffic stop was reasonable because of heavy radio traffic
The delay in getting basic information back on defendant was caused by heavy radio traffic at the time, and the officer didn’t unduly delay resolution of the stop. Defendant also consented. (This was reviewed under plain error for a failure … Continue reading
TX6: Generic motion to suppress and hearing didn’t specify issue appealed; held all waived
Defendant’s generic motion to suppress was denied and there was no specific proof or argument at the suppression hearing as to what it was all about. It was essentially waived for appeal by failure to articulate the ground argued on … Continue reading
GA: Cell phone search was harmless because of another legally searched phone
While defendant was being interviewed by the police, his cell phone was on the table getting text messages from “Head.” The officer opened the phone to see Head’s number. Whether the search of the phone was lawful or not doesn’t … Continue reading
VI: Where search was irrelevant to the charge it’s moot
The search of defendant’s car is irrelevant to the charge against her, so it doesn’t matter. It also doesn’t matter that the courtroom flag is a “civil” or “wartime” flag since there is no legal difference. People v. Floyd, 2016 … Continue reading
Microsoft reports child porn in OneDrive accounts
Microsoft found child pornography in a folder saved by defendant on its cloud service, and it reported it to NCMEC. Law enforcement was afraid to contact him directly because he might delete images, so they found he was on probation … Continue reading
PA: Trial court abused discretion in reopening twice reversed suppression order for third hearing; no change in law
“Therefore, because the Jones decision did not present an intervening change in the law, we conclude the trial court abused its discretion in re-opening Sodomsky’s suppression hearing for the second time after its two prior suppression orders were reversed by … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Only one of three officers saw gun under streetlight; credibility here goes to the officer and why
Three officers were on patrol and only one saw defendant allegedly remove a chrome gun from one pocket and the glint of a streetlight off the gun. Defendant provided an affidavit that he never pulled the gun out, but he … Continue reading
FL5: Def showed standing in duffle bag in car he was a passenger in
The trial court denied the motion to suppress without a hearing, and the state concedes error. Defendant showed enough standing in at least the search of his own bag in the car to get a hearing on the legality of … Continue reading