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- N.D.Cal.: Tribe’s suit over overbroad SW can proceed
- DE: Warrantless entry in DUI case unreasonable
- E.D.Ark.: Ptf stated claim for SW entry without proper announcement
- E.D.Ky.: Being a lookout vehicle at a crime is RS
- E.D.Mich.: Missing 14 yo cell phone pinging at def’s house was exigency for entry to find her
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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)
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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: Staleness
TN: Because a probation search doesn’t require PC, staleness of information is not an issue
A probation search does not require probable cause, so staleness is not an issue. State v. Ward, 2018 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 666 (Aug. 30, 2018). Defendant had a GPS put on his vehicle and thermal imaging of his building, … Continue reading
WA: 20 days not too long for staleness in a theft case
In a theft case, 20 days between the theft of someone’s personal belongings and a search warrant for defendant’s house was not too stale. “Yet not too much time had passed to raise staleness concerns.” State v. Barboza-Cortes, 2018 Wash. … Continue reading
LA2: No IAC for not challenging search of house two months after murder
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not moving to suppress a search of defendant’s home two months after a murder because it wasn’t meritorious [and the court never says why it wasn’t]. State v. Critton, 2018 La. App. LEXIS 1618 (La. … Continue reading
WA: Even if CP warrant was overbroad (it’s not), severability makes seizure valid
One month old information received from Microsoft to NCMEC was not stale. (That is settled everywhere.) The search warrant was not too vague, and, even it if was, the court’s ability to sever invalid parts makes this search valid. State … Continue reading
MA: Two day delay in getting SW for cell phone wasn’t unreasonable
Defendant’s cell phone was reasonably seized to preserve any evidence in it. The two day delay in getting a search warrant for it did not unreasonably interfere with defendant’s possessory interest in it. Commonwealth v. Cruzado, 2018 Mass. LEXIS 549 … Continue reading
CA6: Nexus not shown by old and speculative information
The showing of nexus to defendant’s house for drug dealing was wholly insufficient: (1) a suspected drug dealer once parked there, (2) the owner had a 17 year old conviction for drugs, and (3) a four month old uncorroborated tip. … Continue reading
CA9: Def didn’t have standing in her parents’ house that she used just to store stuff
Defendant kept stuff at her parents’ house, which was searched with a warrant for her stuff. She lacked standing because it was merely a storage place shared with others. The search warrant was narrowed by the district court with partial … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Cell phone seized during child porn raid was initially seized and searched, and then seven months later searched again; no exclusion
The defendant’s cell phone was seized during a child pornography raid. The phone was attempted to be searched reasonably promptly, and it was confirmed there was child pornography on it. The search was not completed, however, because of problems with … Continue reading
TN: Seizure of a cell phone incident to arrest is provided for in Riley; search still requires warrant
Defendant’s cell phone was properly seized incident to his arrest, as contemplated by Riley. It was not searched until a search warrant was obtained. State v. Wade, 2018 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 523 (July 13, 2018). The search warrant for … Continue reading
E.D. Mich.: Typo on date of affidavit can be overlooked when proven
The search warrant was facially stale, having been issued on February 7th where the affidavit was signed on January 7th. It’s shown to be a typographical error that may be overlooked. The search warrant was accompanied by its affidavit, and … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: CI information was a little stale, but the officer’s corroroboration was with current information and that overcame staleness
The CI’s information was a little dated and potentially stale, but it was corroborated by current information and that was probable cause. United States v. Mobley, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 101640 (S.D. Ga. June 18, 2018). “In this case, by … Continue reading
NC: 20 month old information wasn’t stale in a counterfeit goods case
The affidavit for search warrant in this counterfeit goods case at defendant’s house had information 20 months old. But, the keeping of the counterfeit goods was an ongoing operation being sold around the area, and the search warrant wasn’t stale. … Continue reading
NC: “Thursday” in a SW affidavit means the previous Thursday, and the search warrant wasn’t stale when issued
This case started with an anonymous letter about alleged drug sales at defendant’s residence. A trash pull was conducted on “Thursday.” Read in context, that means the previous Thursday, and the search warrant wasn’t stale when issued. State v. Teague, … Continue reading
IL: PC existed ten days after a crime to seek the weapon involved in the crime
There was probable cause for a search warrant for defendant’s house for a firearm involved in a crime ten days after the crime. Firearms are possessions usually kept. People v. Rodriguez, 2018 IL App (1st) 141379-B, 2018 Ill. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: Def’s admissions on body camera duffle bag wasn’t his denies him standing
“The body camera recording clearly shows that Defendant denied any ownership interest in the duffel bag at the time of the stop. As such, the Court finds that Defendant voluntarily abandoned the duffel bag and therefore lost any reasonable expectation … Continue reading
PA: Date typo in affidavit for SW could be corrected in context of totality
A typographical error in a date of an occurence in the affidavit for search warrant for the year (2013 instead of 2014) could be overlooked in context of the affidavit as a whole which showed it a mere typo. Commonwealth … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Def’s disclaiming ownership of cell phone when seized is a lack of standing, even when he claimed it after it rang
Defendant had no standing to challenge a search of a cell phone found in his car that he said belonged to his girlfriend. “Jackson does not deny that he disclaimed ownership of the phone at the time it was seized. … Continue reading
D.N.J.: Previous finding of good faith applies to later Franks challenge
Defendant had already filed a suppression motion and lost on good faith. Now he files a motion based on Franks that statements of witnesses in quote marks weren’t accurate. The previous finding of good faith carries over to here, and … Continue reading
CA11: While time wasn’t clearly stated, it was inferred on the totality; therefore, not stale
While the affidavit for the search warrant didn’t clearly specify a time frame, it was inferred, and it was clearly reasonable to conclude on the totality that the defendant would still have the sought after images on his computer. United … Continue reading