Archives
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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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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)
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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
S.D.Tex.: Def driving away from home when warrant executed; he couldn’t be stopped and searched under this warrant
Officers elected to wait to execute the search warrant on defendant’s house until after he left it. Defendant was driving away from his residence when he was stopped, and he was searched and brought back. The stop and search of … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Nexus to crime showed on one phone but not another; second phone suppressed
Information that a cell phone was being used in drug trafficking was nexus to one phone for a search warrant. As to the other phone, probable cause is actually lacking, and the tracking of that phone is suppressed. United States … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Def has burden of showing standing in business premises; he can’t just rely on govt’s theory of case
Defendant had the burden of showing standing in business premises to challenge the search, and he cannot rely on the government’s theory of the case to do so [the latter is a premise on which I disagree: why isn’t that … Continue reading
CA2: Inadequate findings made to support obstruction USSG enhancement for suppression hearing testimony
The District Court enhanced defendant’s sentence by two levels under the U.S.S.G. for perjury at the suppression hearing. The District Court merely adopted the PSR’s statement without making sufficient findings of false testimony. It could have been misremembering. Merely crediting … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Where SW issued by video conference, lack of record of conference leaves gov’t with “four corners” of application; no suppression
The state officer here applied for a search warrant by video conference and either email or fax of the documents (the opinion doesn’t say how the judge had them) as permitted under Georgia statute. There was no recording made of … Continue reading
WI: Confrontation clause does not apply to suppression hearings
“P11 … [We conclude the Confrontation Clause simply does not apply to pretrial hearings such as the suppression hearing at issue in this case, and the circuit court’s reliance upon the hearsay evidence from the recording was not improper. [¶] … Continue reading
WI: John Doe campaign finance investigation special prosecutor invalidly appointed; all materials gathered by SW and subpoena must be destroyed
In the Wisconsin campaign finance John Doe investigation with a special prosecutor, the state Supreme Court concludes that the appointment of the special prosecutor was statutorily invalid, and the materials gathered by search warrant and subpoena will ultimately have to … Continue reading
PA: State’s burden in warrantless search case is triggered by defense motion alleging facts and some law
The burden in a warrantless search case is on the state, but the defense must “state specifically and with particularity the evidence sought to be suppressed, the grounds for suppression, and the facts and events in support thereof.” The invalidity … Continue reading
LA3: Typo in SW could be disregarded where the correct place was searched
The search warrant here used a form off a computer, and the officer forgot to put in the correct address, and the two were 2.69 miles apart. The officers went to the place they intended, not the place specified in … Continue reading
TX1: Issuing magistrate could conclude 11:59 am really meant 11:59 pm
When the magistrate read the search warrant for a blood draw, the magistrate was authorized to conclude that 11:59 am should have been pm instead, so the warrant was not stale. Somoza v. State, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 12037 (Tex. … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: SW for pain management clinic permitted search of office manager’s purse because some smaller objects of search might be there
The search here was for a pain management clinic, and defendant was the officer manager, and her purse was searched under the warrant. “At the time of the search, agents were aware that Rosso was the office manager of the … Continue reading
CA6: RS for def’s stop for transporting a firearm in commerce with the intent that it be used unlawfully in furtherance of a civil disorder, not the traffic offense asserted by the govt
“Defendant Darren Wesley Huff was convicted in federal district court of transporting a firearm in commerce with the intent that it be used unlawfully in furtherance of a civil disorder, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 231(a)(2).” He was a … Continue reading
CA2: Def surprised at trial with unknown alleged consent search gets a post-trial evidentiary hearing on it
Defendant was surprised at trial with testimony that defendant’s wife had consented to a search of his computer prior to the search warrant issuing. Defendant moved for a mistrial. The FBI agent involved in that search was from Alabama and … Continue reading
TX: Counsel’s isolated statements a SW wasn’t obtained for a blood draw was not enough to put state and court on notice that exigency needed to be decided
“Are isolated statements globally asserting that a blood draw was conducted without a warrant enough to apprise the trial court that it must consider whether there were exigent circumstances to permit a warrantless search in a driving while intoxicated case, … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: 1-2 yr old info coupled with current info showed ongoing drug operation at house
Information that was 1-2 years old was included in the affidavit, and there was current information, too. The old information supported showing that defendant’s counterfeiting operation was “protracted and continuous and that it was ongoing just two days to two … Continue reading