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Recent Posts
- CA3: In seeking arrest warrants, officers need not present all exculpatory evidence to issuing magistrate unless it’s “conclusive”
- D.Idaho: Trial references to SW not barred, but govt limited in what it can say
- D.D.C.: PO’s alleged violation of probation regulations doesn’t warrant suppression if a reasonable mistake
- E.D.N.C.: SW not required to look in def’s jail property bag and retrieve car keys
- D.N.M.: Consent attenuated unreasonable search
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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: Inevitable discovery
ME: Entry on curtilage for “security check” just before SW issued was inevitable discovery
Officers arrested defendant’s housemate at a motel for attempting to buy oxycontin. Somehow, not described, this led to probable cause to search her house. While other officers were obtaining a search warrant, two officers went to the house for a … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: No IAC for not raising search issue that would lose on merits by inevitable discovery
“Nevertheless, Petitioner’s arguments for suppression do not succeed. [¶] This is because police ultimately found the firearm and ammunition from an independent source, thus defeating the need for suppression. Under the independent source doctrine, evidence that was ‘initially discovered during … Continue reading
ID: Search of driver while waiting for confirmation of outstanding warrant suppressed; second search after finding it was valid; no inevitable discovery
Defendant was stopped for a traffic offense, and it came back that there might be a warrant for him. Under state practice, the police then seek confirmation of the warrant before acting on it. Here, however, defendant was frisked incident … Continue reading
CA8: Def has burden of showing illegal detention was “but for” cause of finding evidence
Defendant was a known drug dealer, and he was parked with his hood open. He said he was checking the belt on the engine. The officer was not prohibited from approaching the car and looking under the hood, too. Defendant … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Inevitable discovery cures a Rodriguez violation
While extending the stop violated Rodriguez, inevitable discovery applies and the evidence is not suppressed. United States v. Conteh, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25542 (D. S.D. Feb. 16, 2018):
E.D.Cal.: A civil detainee has no REP in his cell, despite not being a convict
A civil commitment detainee has more rights than a convict in a jail, but still practically none in his living area from a search for alleged contraband. Warrior v. Santiago, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22742 (E.D. Cal. Feb. 12, 2018). … Continue reading
NE: Even if OnStar produced information the same day before the SW actually issued, inevitable discovery applies
Defendant claimed that the police obtained his OnStar information just before the search warrant for it issued. While that’s not conceded, it doesn’t matter because the search warrant was issued and the information retrieved the same day. Inevitable discovery applies, … Continue reading
ME: Inevitable discovery doctrine doesn’t provide an incentive for police misconduct
The drugs here would have been inevitably found one way or the other. The inevitable discovery rule doesn’t provide the police an incentive to not comply with Fourth Amendment protections. State v. Prinkleton, 2018 ME 16, 2018 Me. LEXIS 15 … Continue reading
CA1: Inevitable discovery applies to patdown; safety ultimately justified it
The district court credited the testimony of the officer that the patdown was justified by legitimate safety concerns after he got inconsistent dates of birth from the passenger. While the patdown otherwise would have exceeded the scope of a lawful … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Misreading a “hot sheet” for stop of a car was objectively reasonable mistake
Police had a “hot sheet,” a list of stolen cars from a car dealership, and were on the look out. “In this case, Officer Palmer believed that the red Dodge Challenger had been stolen from the dealership in Excelsior Springs, … Continue reading
N.D.Fla.: Entry into motel room was valid with arrest warrant when officers reasonably believed he would be there
The U.S. Marshal’s fugitive task force, with arrest warrant in hand, was looking for defendant. They were watching his motel room and saw him outside and gave chase. They lost sight of him and circled back to his hotel room … Continue reading
M.D.La.: Bench warrant surfacing for def made pat down legal by inevitable discovery even if frisk invalid
Officers responded to a wellness check and found two people passed out in a car. One couldn’t be roused, but defendant could and he was removed from the car and patted down for officer safety. The patdown was reasonable. Even … Continue reading
CA4: Inevitable discovery applies to def’s name
The district court did not err in finding the inevitable discovery doctrine applied where officers responded to an assault call and saw defendant, believed to be a felon, with a gun. It was inevitable that police would have lawfully discovered … Continue reading
OR: State’s inevitable discovery argument was speculative and rejected
The state’s argument that the finding of a used syringe and a “cooker” on him would have been found lawfully anyway during a patdown was based on speculation the court can’t accept. State v. Sigfridson, 287 Ore. App. 74, 2017 … Continue reading
NY3: Def’s live-in girlfriend shared premises and had apparent authority to consent
Defendant’s girlfriend with whom he lived had apparent authority to consent to a search of their joint premises. People v. Gray, 2017 NY Slip Op 05873, 2017 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 5809 (3d Dept. July 27, 2017).* There were two … Continue reading
IL: Because def’s car matched description of a stolen car, it was reasonable to handcuff def
Considering that the vehicle defendant was stopped in matched the description of a stolen car, it was reasonable for the officer to handcuff him. People v. Richardson, 2017 IL App (1st) 130203-B, 2017 Ill. App. LEXIS 314 (May 12, 2017). … Continue reading
CA4: Inventory would happen so that’s inevitable discovery
The discovery of the contraband was by inevitable discovery because an inventory was going to occur in any event. The fact the policy wasn’t written isn’t determinative as long as it is reasonable. United States v. Bullette, 2017 U.S. App. … Continue reading
CA11: No nexus shown for cell phone SW, but def was on probation, so inevitable discovery applies
Cell phone search warrant failed to show nexus between the phone and the alleged crime. In considering remedy, the court decides not to apply the good faith exception and instead goes with inevitable discovery. Defendant was on probation and there … Continue reading
Cal.2d: Sandra Bullock’s stalker’s home search remains suppressed
Defendant was Sandra Bullock’s stalker arrested in her house. He lawyered up but the police kept questioning and got consent which was held involuntary by the trial court. The state appealed. They tried inevitable discovery, and that was rejected. Finally, … Continue reading
NY4: Search of cell phone for texts led to SW; not inevitable discovery because SW sought because of illegal search
Defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights in his cell phone text messages were violated by the police searching them without a warrant. The fact they got a warrant later didn’t help them because that was the only reason to search the phone, … Continue reading