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- CA6: ChatGPT’s opinion that evidence was “newly discovered” for a successor habeas is wrong
- 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
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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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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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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Section 1983 Blog -
"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
D.Ariz.: Body camera video and audio showed the officer was diligent and not prolonging the stop
“Indeed, as pointed out by the magistrate judge, the ‘body camera video and audio demonstrate that Trooper Duckett was working diligently in trying to locate Ms. Glenn’s license information, but it did take some time to find it.’” Finally, the … Continue reading
OH2: Direction to def to not reach into his own pocket for a consent search wasn’t a seizure
Defendant’s attempt to reach into his own pocket did not constitute an unequivocal withdrawal of the consent to search he had given to the officer. Defendant’s conduct appeared to have been an attempt to help facilitate the search, not to … Continue reading
MO: Two week old information in call to child maltreatment hotline was not stale nor without exigency
A call to a child maltreatment hotline was made two weeks after the observation that motivated the phone call. The exigency still existed for a warrantless entry. State v. Prince, 2017 Mo. App. LEXIS 348 (April 25, 2017). Defendant’s vehicle … Continue reading
VA: PC for arrest for reckless driving wasn’t stale after three hours
The officer saw defendant recklessly driving, but wasn’t able to stop him. Staleness for arrest for that did not dissipate within three hours before he saw defendant again. Hairston v. Commonwealth, 2017 Va. App. LEXIS 99 (April 11, 2017) (see … Continue reading
VA: PC for stop for reckless driving didn’t get stale in 3 hours
The officer saw defendant recklessly driving, but wasn’t able to stop him. Staleness for arrest for that did not dissipate within three hours before he saw defendant again. Hairston v. Commonwealth, 2017 Va. App. LEXIS 99 (April 11, 2017) (see … Continue reading
CA1: SW for guns on 4 mo old information wasn’t stale
Defendant was a reputed Boston mobster on the lam in Idaho with a different name. Police were tipped off to his location, interviewed neighbors learning about guns, and then allegedly went to his house and peeked in the window. Even … Continue reading
Cal.1: Telling def to keep hands out of pockets and move to sidewalk was not a seizure
Defendant was not detained when officers asked him to keep his hands out of his pockets and to step onto the sidewalk. The encounter did not become a detention until the officers used force to grab defendant’s arm and told … Continue reading
D.Colo.: GPS tracking a car after it had been sold by target was unreasonable
Defendant bought a car that had a GPS device placed by the police with a 60 day tracking warrant. He paid for it for his girlfriend, with whom he had a child, and he drove it at the time of … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Typo in the affidavit for SW didn’t merit suppression; when corrected, no staleness
The wiretap underlying the search warrant has already been sustained by the USDJ, so that can’t support suppressing the search. Defendant’s Franks challenge to the affidavit because of the date is really just a typo (2004 v. 2012), so it … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: 911 caller’s info was transmitted and she revealed enough about herself to not be an anonymous CI
911 calls aren’t always truly anonymous. A 911 caller, whose number was captured by the system, called about a man pacing in a motel parking lot with a gun in hand. The caller gave enough information about herself that she … Continue reading
CA5: SW for video voyeur’s recordings not stale; they are intended to be kept
An affidavit for a search warrant for a video voyeur’s recordings wasn’t stale because the digital information was to be downloaded, stored, and kept. United States v. Aleman, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 618 (5th Cir. Jan. 12, 2017). On the … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Even a closed email account adds nothing to a child porn staleness argument
Officers in the U.S. received information from Queensland, Australia that an Australian using a hotmail account had been emailing child pornography. One of those was in this district. By the time the search warrant was sought nine months later, the … Continue reading
D.Nev.: GPS warrant based on transaction from car three weeks earlier wasn’t stale
A GPS tracking warrant wasn’t stale based on a drug deal out of the car three weeks earlier. That led to probable cause to stop and search the vehicle two weeks later. United States v. Cabrera, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
OH8: New information added to older information overcame staleness objection
Three months between seizure of defendant’s cell phone and search of his house based on the product of the first seizure wasn’t stale. Defendant was in a gang that recorded their crimes and uploaded them by phone to social media, … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: CP warrant on year old info wasn’t stale
Defendant’s child pornography search warrant wasn’t based on stale information even a year old. United States v. Ornelas, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 133809 (C.D.Cal. Sept. 27, 2016).* Defendant’s consent was involuntary, but the automobile exception justified the search of the … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Probable cause did not become stale as defendant drove from Philadelphia to Erie with drugs
Probable cause did not become stale as defendant drove from Philadelphia to Erie with drugs. United States v. Andino, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 117097 (E.D.Pa. Aug. 31, 2016). “The fifteen minute period between Defendant’s initial stop and the contested canine … Continue reading
CA9: Motion to suppress after conviction wasn’t timely
Defendant’s motion to suppress her cell phone search two weeks after conviction wasn’t timely, and no good cause shown. Riley being decided after her conviction is not “good cause.” United States v. Gonzalez, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 14298 (9th Cir. … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Independent source rule satisfied; illegal entry didn’t factor into SW
There was an illegal entry, but the police had probable cause already, and the search warrant affidavit didn’t include a word of it. Therefore, the first prong of the independent source doctrine was satisfied. As to the second, the investigation … Continue reading
TN: There is no constitutional requirement that the homeowner be identified in a SW
The IP address for the house defendant was staying in was linked to child pornography, and the search warrant for the premises clearly described the single family dwelling. Thus, all the personal property of those associated with the property, except … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: CP warrant not stale; in addition, even deleted files were subject to recovery
Ten months was not too old in a child pornography case to make the information stale. Even so, deleted files were potentially recoverable by forensic analysis of the computer. United States v. Pinchot, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 67274 (E.D.Mich. April … Continue reading