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- CA6: ChatGPT’s opinion that evidence was “newly discovered” for a successor habeas is wrong
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- 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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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
MO: Trial court erred in suppressing car search incident without also considering automobile exception
The trial court erred in applying the search incident doctrine to defendant’s vehicle search and suppressing when the state also argued the automobile exception. Remanded for consideration of that issue, too. State v. Walker, 2015 Mo. App. LEXIS 501 (May … Continue reading
CA9: No prohibition to placing GPS on car at night
A tracking order was issued with probable cause, and there’s no special requirement that a GPS device can’t be placed at night, compared to the nighttime search requirements. United States v. Brock, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 7195 (9th Cir. April … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: When a SW expires before execution, a new affidavit is not required if timeliness can still be met
The first search warrant in defendant’s child pornography case expired when it wasn’t timely served, so another was sought on the same affidavit. While staleness is always a potential issue, there is no mandatory requirement that a new affidavit be … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Apt was small enough that protective sweep was valid, even to balcony
While the record isn’t clear, the apartment here appears to be small enough that a protective sweep validly covered all the space inside, including the balcony near where defendant was arrested. United States v. Washington, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43617 … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Power company was not a state actor in providing electrical usage information
“The aphorism that ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’ would certainly apply to the law enforcement officials who investigated this case.” Here, the city sanitation workers were seeing large amounts of marijuana debris coming in, and they called the … Continue reading
M.D.La.: Telling employees they couldn’t leave during a regulatory inspection was a seizure of their person
In a regulatory inspection, “An order not to leave the business premises for two hours can reasonably be understood to constitute a detention as well as a seizure. Although the inspection was conducted according to regulatory authority, the statutory provision … Continue reading
IN: CI was uncorroborated and his information old; no PC or GFE
The CI’s statement here was uncorroborated and 3-4 months old. Thus, the search warrant lacked probable cause and it was so lacking in probable cause, that the good faith exception cannot apply. Cartwright v. State, 2015 Ind. App. LEXIS 107 … Continue reading
OH5: Six weeks after second controlled buy not stale where there’s ongoing drug dealing
There were two controlled buys of marijuana from defendant’s store on May 3d & 21st. A third buy was July 2d but the test results weren’t back when a search warrant was obtained on July 3d. The July 2d buy … Continue reading
W.D.N.C.: How ten day old information in an ongoing drug operation doesn’t get stale
The ongoing nature of defendant’s drug trafficking operation did not make the search warrant go stale where it was issued only ten days later. United States v. Black, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 176761 (W.D. N.C. December 23, 2014): Taking these … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Staleness is a function of the totality of the circumstances, and it is more than just the passage of time
Staleness is a function of the totality of the circumstances, and it is more than just the passage of time. United States v. Fuqua, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 169173 (W.D. Ky. December 8, 2014):
OH6: Small amount of MJ in trash pull wasn’t PC for SW for evidence of cultivation or trafficking
Officers had three year old information that defendant was involved in marijuana cultivation, and nothing was done about it. A trash pull was done that produced a tiny amount of marijuana. The stale information had to be disregarded, and the … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Old background info coupled with new info doesn’t make warrant stale
The search warrant was not stale. It had pretty old background information that alone would be stale, but it provided recent information as well, and that was sufficient to overcome staleness. United States v. Thomas, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125410 … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Home surveillance system recordings were target of SW, and staleness wasn’t a valid objection
Age alone doesn’t determine staleness; it’s the totality. Here, defendant provided an alibi to a murder and the police learned he had a surveillance system at home. It was reasonable to conclude that evidence would still be found by the … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Four months not too stale for SW when $71k is still missing
There was probable cause and nexus for a search involving $71k in unaccounted for money, even though the theft was four months earlier. United States v. Little, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 100795 (E.D. Pa. July 23, 2014). Officers entered defendant’s … Continue reading
WI: Search of a backpack for sawed-off shotgun was based on exigency
Search of a backpack for a sawed-off shotgun was justified by exigent circumstances. The officer was already investigating when the report was received that there likely was such a weapon involved. Requiring a search warrant at that point was completely … Continue reading
CA11: 13 month old information of possession of a firearm is not stale
13 month old information of possession of a firearm is not stale. “Unlawful possession of a firearm is an ongoing crime, so ‘old’ information is relevant to the question of present probable cause. Additionally, unlike narcotics, firearms are not consumable … Continue reading
NY3: Warrant requirement in rental inspection ordinance made it constitutional
The rental unit inspection ordinance is not unconstitutional. It provides a warrant procedure if the owner refuses consent. “As the inclusion of the warrant requirement is sufficient to safeguard plaintiff’s constitutional rights, his challenge to the facial validity of the … Continue reading