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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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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)
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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: Inevitable discovery
D.V.I.: Inevitable discovery fails here because the govt doesn’t show it was trying to get a SW
Inevitable discovery doesn’t apply here because there was no effort or even indication the government was going to get a search warrant. “Accordingly, while the Court finds that the inevitable discovery doctrine is potentially applicable to Wrensford’s DNA sample, it … Continue reading
N.D.W.Va.: Warrantless entry to prevent destruction of evidence pending SW was reasonable
A warrantless protective sweep before obtaining a search warrant to prevent possible destruction of evidence was reasonable. A search warrant was later obtained [inevitable discovery]. United States v. Beazel, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 136901 (N.D. W.Va. Aug. 14, 2019).* The … Continue reading
KS: Inevitable discovery not fully developed and remanded
Another case on inevitable discovery finds two of the three Brown factors satisfied. “Here, the officer discovered an arrest warrant that predated his encounter with Tatro. And Tatro has not argued the warrant was tainted, invalid, or related to the … Continue reading
KS: The state has to plead inevitable discovery and allow a record to be made or it defaults it
All the factors of inevitable discovery favor suppression of the evidence, even under Strieff. Moreover, for the state to claim inevitable discovery, it has plead it in the trial court and allow a record to be made. State v. Sanders, … Continue reading
CA10: SW for computer fraud revealed CP; inevitable discovery applied
While executing a computer fraud search warrant on defendant’s computers they happened upon child pornography on CDs during the onsite search. They took the computers and the CDs with the child pornography. A later search warrant was issued for the … Continue reading
D.R.I.: Officers don’t actually have to be applying for a SW for inevitable discovery to apply if they have PC
The court finds the consent to search given by a woman in the house was voluntary and wasn’t based on a threat to take her child away by DCYF. She drew that conclusion herself because she was concerned about it. … Continue reading
FL5: State’s failure to prove active pursuit of SW precluded reliance on inevitable discovery
The State failed to show that law enforcement was in pursuit of a search warrant at the time of the improper entry into defendant’s residence. It was thus error for the trial court to rely on the inevitable discovery doctrine … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: PC shown for records of the last number a murder victim called
Defendant’s cell phone number being the last number a murder victim called was at least a minimally sufficient basis for a search warrant for cell phone records to see who it was. It was also at least supported by the … Continue reading
CA6: Dist.Ct.’s findings don’t support inevitable discovery, so court applies independent source instead
The district court’s analysis doesn’t support application of the inevitable discovery exception because the court didn’t make sufficient findings on the second part of the test. Instead, the record fully supports the independent source doctrine instead. United States v. Chapman-Sexton, … Continue reading
DE: Whether a state tracking warrant permits tracking in NJ is avoided in favor of inevitable discovery
A tracking device was put on defendant’s Jeep by warrant, and it was tracked into New Jersey as well. The court offers that it’s a difficult question whether the vehicle could be tracked in New Jersey too, but decides the … Continue reading
AK: Initial warrantless entry after attempted warrantless arrest, standoff, then arrest was saved by inevitable discovery with later warrant
Alaska State Troopers developed information that two men were involved in burglaries and travelled far to arrest them, albeit without a warrant. They ordered the men out of their rented cabin, and that would have been an illegal arrest, but … Continue reading
TX14: Two prior searches for blood constitutionally or statutorily didn’t need to be mentioned in affidavit for third
Defendant was in a car wreck that killed another at 1 am, New Years Day 2014. There were three blood draws: one for medical purposes at the hospital, one directed by the police at the hospital, and one after a … Continue reading
DE applies Carpenter to January CSLI search; no action yet on state’s effort to get it again after motion to suppress
Defendant was the subject of a CSLI warrant in January 2018. After he filed a motion to suppress under Carpenter decided in June, the state sought the same information by a search warrant in August 2018. Carpenter applies here. The … Continue reading
GA: Search of a backpack six days after seizure required a SW
Defendant was granted a new murder trial on ineffective assistance of counsel grounds, one of which was failure to file a motion to suppress. On remand to the trial court, he pursued the motion to suppress claiming that a search … Continue reading
OR: On a domestic call, “The officers heard a man say ‘shut the fuck up,’ a woman crying and whimpering, a loud thump, and then silence.” This was exigency
Police get a domestic call, and when they get there “The officers heard a man say ‘shut the fuck up,’ a woman crying and whimpering, a loud thump, and then silence.” This was enough for exigency for an entry. State … Continue reading
CA9: Search of backpack was inevitable either as SITA or booking
Defendant was booked on two misdemeanors, and his backpack was searched. If his backpack wasn’t subject to a search incident, it was subject to inevitable discovery for a search at booking. Also, for what it’s worth, defendant twice attempted to … Continue reading
FL1: Inevitable discovery requires actual effort to get SW or exception swallows rule
There was no attempt by the officers to secure a search warrant. Probable cause alone isn’t enough: there has to be an effort to get a warrant for inevitable discovery to apply. “Any other result would allow the exception to … Continue reading
OR: There was no PC for an administrative seizure of def’s car
The seizure of defendant’s car was without probable cause for an administrative seizure. While her insurance card did not fully comply with the statute, it was fair on its face that it was her and for her cars. State v. … Continue reading
CA9: On remand for a hearing on inevitable discovery, the district court found it applied three ways
On remand from United States v. Harris, 642 Fed. Appx. 713 (9th Cir. 2016), the district court had a hearing on application of inevitable discovery. “At the supplemental hearing, the district court made three findings in determining that the inevitable … Continue reading