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- E.D.Ark.: Ptf stated claim for SW entry without proper announcement
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- E.D.Mich.: Missing 14 yo cell phone pinging at def’s house was exigency for entry to find her
- CA3: Smell of MJ but none found can still be PC
- Cal.4: SW not needed to test DNA abandoned in a rape
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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)
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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: Forfeiture
Gothamist: City Council To Force NYPD To Account For The Millions They Seize From Innocent NYers
Gothamist: City Council To Force NYPD To Account For The Millions They Seize From Innocent NYers by Christopher Robbins:
Business Insider: Conservatives are trashing Jeff Sessions’ controversial asset-seizure program
Business Insider: Conservatives are trashing Jeff Sessions’ controversial asset-seizure program by David Choi:
Legal Insurrection: DOJ Expands Asset Forfeiture Program…Even in States That Have Banned It
Legal Insurrection: DOJ Expands Asset Forfeiture Program…Even in States That Have Banned It by Mary Chastain Local authorities can bypass asset forfeiture laws through the DOJ’s “adoption” policy.
The Hill: GOP lawmaker blasts Sessions over asset forfeiture
The Hill: GOP lawmaker blasts Sessions over asset forfeiture by John Bowden: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Tuesday blasted Attorney General Jeff Sessions for announcing that the Justice Department would be increasing asset forfeiture around the country. In a statement … Continue reading
TX9: Texas provides no exclusionary remedy for illegal search and seizure in forfeiture cases
Texas provides no exclusionary remedy for illegal search and seizure in forfeiture cases. $102,450.00 in United States Currency v. State, 2017 Tex. App. LEXIS 5761 (Tex. App. – Beaumont June 22, 2017):
CA9: Second coordinated traffic stop after first was prolonged in violation of Rodriguez was “fruit of the poisonous tree”; cash for forfeiture suppressed
“We hold that the search of Gorman’s vehicle following the coordinated traffic stops violated the Constitution and affirm the district court’s order granting Gorman’s motion to suppress. Gorman’s first roadside detention was unreasonably prolonged in violation of the Fourth Amendment. … Continue reading
RealClear Policy: Civil Asset Forfeiture Harms Innocent Americans
RealClear Policy: Civil Asset Forfeiture Harms Innocent Americans by Rep. Doug Collins: The mechanics of civil asset forfeiture can be hard to follow because its abuses are rooted in circular reasoning. So it’s helpful to trace out how the statutes … Continue reading
WaPo: ‘Wonkblog’: Since 2007, the DEA has taken $3.2 billion in cash from people not charged with a crime
WaPo: ‘Wonkblog’: Since 2007, the DEA has taken $3.2 billion in cash from people not charged with a crime by Christopher Ingraham: The Drug Enforcement Administration takes billions of dollars in cash from people who are never charged with criminal … Continue reading
The Libertarian Republic: Rand Paul Reintroduces “FAIR Act” to Restore Respect for the 5th Amendment [in forfeitures]
The Libertarian Republic: Rand Paul Reintroduces “FAIR Act” to Restore Respect for the 5th Amendment [in forfeitures] Kentucky conservative Senator Rand Paul reintroduced S. 642, the FAIR (Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration) Act on Wednesday. The intention of the bill is … Continue reading
USA Today: ‘Innocent until proven guilty’ should mean what it says: Column [repealing civil forfeiture]
USA Today: ‘Innocent until proven guilty’ should mean what it says: Column by Derek Draplin and Kahryn Riley: Every state should join Nebraska and New Mexico in repealing civil forfeiture.
New York Magazine: Watching Donald Trump Try to Puzzle Out What ‘Asset Forfeiture’ Means Is Deeply Discomfiting
New York Magazine: Watching Donald Trump Try to Puzzle Out What ‘Asset Forfeiture’ Means Is Deeply Discomfiting by Jesse Singal:
Bloomberg: Trump Quips He’d ‘Destroy’ Texas Lawmaker Who Irked Sheriff [over forfeiture reform]
Bloomberg: Trump Quips He’d ‘Destroy’ Texas Lawmaker Who Irked Sheriff by Toluse Olorunnipa & Margaret Talev: President Trump jokes about destroying a politician’s career
Reason: Majority of States Lack Transparency on Asset Forfeiture
Reason: Majority of States Lack Transparency on Asset Forfeiture by C.J. Ciaramella: Want to know how much stuff police are seizing from people and where all that money goes? Good luck. Asset forfeiture programs in the majority of states across … Continue reading
Orange County Register: Editorial: DEA must end its informant program now
Orange County Register: Editorial: DEA must end its informant program now: The DEA and other law enforcement agencies face skewed priorities when they can search and seize property — and then keep the proceeds — without so much as probable … Continue reading
Reason: ‘Hit and Run’ Blog: Inside Mississippi’s Asset Forfeiture Extortion Racket
Reason: ‘Hit and Run’ Blog: Inside Mississippi’s Asset Forfeiture Extortion Racket by C.J. Ciaramella: State narcotics police seized $4 million in cash—as well as couches, comics, and 18-wheelers—through asset forfeiture in 2015.
WaPo: ‘The Watch’ Blog: Albuquerque concedes forfeiture was illegal, continues with illegal forfeitures
WaPo: ‘The Watch’ Blog: Albuquerque concedes forfeiture was illegal, continues with illegal forfeitures by Radley Balko:
CATO at Liberty Blog: 84% of Americans Oppose Civil Asset Forfeiture
CATO at Liberty Blog: 84% of Americans Oppose Civil Asset Forfeiture by Emily Ekins: Eighty-four percent (84%) of Americans oppose civil asset forfeiture–police ‘taking a person’s money or property that is suspected to have been involved in a drug crime … Continue reading
W.D.Okla.: A school district’s alleged indifference to bullying complaints stated a 4A claim
“In light of Plaintiffs’ allegations, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have alleged sufficient facts which allow the Court to draw the reasonable inference that the District maintains a policy of retaliating against parents who advocate for their children, in violation … Continue reading
MS: A case seizure after a consent search leads to no forfeiture; no evidence of wrongdoing
Claimant was stopped, and he consented to a search producing money. The order of forfeiture is reversed. The facts, when taken as a whole, did not show by more than just suspicion that the money discovered in a driver’s vehicle … Continue reading
AL: Forfeiture claimant failed to show standing to contest the search that led to seizure of his cash
Defendant for all appearances was visiting the house searched but not an overnight guest. At any rate, he did nothing to show standing. When asked for consent, defendant refused saying it wasn’t his place, but he took the officers inside … Continue reading