September 2026 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Archives
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Recent Posts
- WaPo: Americans have turned against police cameras that track license plates, new survey shows
- W.D.Tex.: What is the duty of the neutral and detached magistrate?
- D.Me.: Yes, more investigation could have been done, but there’s still PC on what there was
- CA3: Brady doesn’t apply to SW materials
- E.D.Mich.: Person a cell phone was given to as gift could consent to 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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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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)
--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (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: Seizure
The Atlantic: Papers, Please | passengers on a domestic flight ordered to produce ID to prove who they were
The Atlantic: Papers, Please by Garrett Epps:
Law.com: Eleventh Circuit Questions Calhoun’s Challenge of Injunction on Indigent Bail
Law.com Daily Report: Eleventh Circuit Questions Calhoun’s Challenge of Injunction on Indigent Bail by R. Robin McDonald: Lawyers representing the city of Calhoun appeared Thursday before a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit seeking to … Continue reading
OR: Automobile exception applies to any lawful stop where PC of a crime develops
The automobile exception applies when a vehicle is lawfully stopped for any reason and then probable cause develops. State v. Bliss, 283 Ore. App. 833, 2017 Ore. App. LEXIS 256 (Feb. 23, 2017). Defendant requested a meeting with the police … Continue reading
CA5: Detention on a “mental writ” was reasonable
“Holloway is a six-foot-six, former Mississippi State University offensive lineman who was in a car accident with a deputy near Hattiesburg in Lamar County, Mississippi.” Later, he was described as “formidable.” It turned out there was a “mental writ” issued … Continue reading
D.S.C.: No REP in a rental rented by another and loaned to def where he wasn’t on the rental contract
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in a rental car rented by another and loaned to him when the rental company didn’t authorize him as a driver. United States v. Dorsey, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21112 (D.S.C. Feb. 15, … Continue reading
CA10: Officers pulled up next to def walking along road and finally told him to stop; this was a seizure without RS
Defendant was walking down the street at night and a police car pulled up beside him and officers were talking to him as he walked. Finally they told him to stop. This was a seizure for which there was no … Continue reading
E.D.Okla.: Search of vehicle on roadside not unreasonable because it started as a proper inventory
Defendant was stopped for his tag light being out, and it resulted in finding that his DL was suspended. That meant that his vehicle would be towed. The inventory by all appearances was starting, because a video showed the inventory … Continue reading
CA6: Sheriff’s deputy relying on writ of execution didn’t violate 4A
Defendant deputy sheriff and the state court plaintiffs acting on a writ of execution issued by the trial court couldn’t be sued over it. Without even considering Tennessee’s post-judgment execution law and even assuming the writ was improperly issued, no … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: Rodriguez is not merely a durational test; RS allows continuing the stop
Rodriguez is not merely a durational test. Here, reasonable suspicion developed during the stop that justified the detention, something absent in Rodriguez. The video of the defendant’s stop doesn’t support his position, and it doesn’t undermine the government’s. It does … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Def’s refusal to show his hands wasn’t a seizure when he didn’t comply with it
Direction to defendant to show hands was not responded to, so there was no submission to authority and thus no seizure. United States v. Jones, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 171988 (W.D.N.Y. Dec. 13, 2016), rejecting, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 108477 … Continue reading
KS: Directions and control of defendant made it clear to defendant he wasn’t free to leave: “congenial conversation during the prolonged encounter” doesn’t undo it
The directions and control of defendant made it clear to defendant he wasn’t free to leave. This is an important analysis for any practitioner. State v. Cleverly, 2016 Kan. LEXIS 606 (Dec. 23, 2016):
CA6: Shooting dogs during drug raid was a seizure, but here it was reasonable
Officers executing a high risk warrant on plaintiff’s house shot and killed two pit bulls, one of which was standing in a corner of the basement not yet attacking. The warrant was considered high risk because the target of the … Continue reading
NC: Officer waving arms to stop def for benign reason wasn’t conducting a “stop”
Officer waving his arms standing in the street to get defendant to stop did not conduct a “seizure” when defendant stopped. The officer was trying to gather information about others, and had not focused on defendant. “Officer Johnson waved his … Continue reading
LA3: Reasonable suspicion defendant is trafficking methamphetamine means there is likely the presence of firearms
Reasonable suspicion defendant is trafficking methamphetamine means there is likely the presence of firearms. State v. Flournoy, 2016 La. App. LEXIS 2225 (La.App. 3 Cir. Dec. 7, 2016). Defendant juvenile was “in custody” and handcuffed in a patrol car being … Continue reading
ID: The state conceded the DL held too long, but taint was not purged, so suppression should have been granted
The trial court erred in denying defendant’s motion to suppress and in finding that the evidence was purged from the taint of an unlawful detention. The State conceded that an unlawful seizure occurred when the officer held onto defendant’s driver’s … Continue reading
IA: Ordering def off his porch and out to the driveway is a seizure
“[W]e conclude that White was seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when Officer Stricker directed White to step off of the front porch and onto the driveway. We reach this conclusion for several reasons. …” State v. White, … Continue reading
OH3: Showing of PC justified nexus to SW for def’s home
There was probable cause to believe that evidence of defendant’s gambling and money laundering would be found in his home because he could store records at home and run his business from there. State v. Robinson, 2016-Ohio-7823, 2016 Ohio App. … Continue reading
W.D.Ark.: Search for electronic evidence can be intense; digital media can be “mere centimeters long”
A search for digital evidence in a Facebook threat case led to a plain view of firearms and drugs, and the search was valid. The digital evidence could have been on flash drives “mere centimeters long” and that permitted an … Continue reading
D.Ore.: Request for DL and holding on to it is a seizure of the person
“While Defendant was not seized during his initial encounter with Officer Fender, the encounter escalated into a seizure at the moment Defendant provided his identification in response to Officer Fender’s request.” [After all, one’s ID is required for many transactions … Continue reading
CA11: Def wasn’t seized despite the officer’s holding his DL for a while
Defendant was not “seized” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment at any time before giving his consent to search the vehicle. Despite the trooper’s retention of his driver’s license, the officer’s request to have him sit in the front … Continue reading