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Recent Posts
- CA8: Admission of anonymous tip that led to stop violated Confrontation Clause
- CO: Anonymous report of student smoking pot in school justified backpack search
- CA6: CI’s lie to get into def’s house to video him making a drug deal with the CI didn’t violate 4A
- TN: Def lived in a van left wide open in a public area, but it didn’t belong to him, so no REP as to interior
- VI: Despite ubiquity of cell phones, nexus has to be shown to alleged crime
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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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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: Standards of review
OH2: Not clearly erroneous for court to rely on dashcam over officer’s testimony re stop
The trial court could rely on the dashcam video over the officer’s testimony where there was an apparent contradiction. State v. Wilson, 2017-Ohio-9317, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 5816 (2d Dist. Dec. 29, 2017). Defendant’s stop was based on reasonable suspicion … Continue reading
MO: Where 2 SWs authorize search, both have to be suppressed for def to prevail; challenging only one is moot
There were two search warrants authorizing the search of defendant’s computers for child pornography. He challenged the second but not the first, and that makes his argument moot. State v. Cato, 2017 Mo. App. LEXIS 1298 (Dec. 12, 2017). A … Continue reading
OH12: Without def bringing up a suppression hearing transcript, findings uncontradicted
With no transcript of the suppression hearing, there’s nothing to contradict the trial court’s findings. State v. Harding, 2017-Ohio-8930, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 5373 (12th Dist. Dec. 11, 2017). Defense counsel’s failure to file a motion to suppress wasn’t ineffective … Continue reading
AZ: State didn’t argue GFE and court gives it a pass
The state didn’t raise the good faith exception in the trial court, but the court applies the “we can affirm on any ground” rule to apply it anyway. State v. Weakland, 2017 Ariz. App. LEXIS 202 (Nov. 28, 2017):
OH12: Def’s petition for discretionary review dismissed for failure to file briefs leaves appellate result intact
The trial court suppressed but the court of appeals reversed. The supreme court granted discretionary review, but it was dismissed for defendant’s failure to file a brief. The case was remanded back to the trial court, and the appellate reversal … Continue reading
NY: Officer safety a mixed question of law and fact with record support; affirmed
“The issue whether ‘the likelihood of a weapon in [defendant’s] car [was] substantial and the danger to the … safety [of the officers who stopped that vehicle was] “actual and specific”’ … presents a mixed question of law and fact … Continue reading
TX4 seemingly applies wrong standard of review to RS
Defendant wasn’t seized just because he and an officer were conversing. On the totality, the trial court reasonably concluded that the officer had reasonable suspicion to continue it and ask for consent to search defendant’s wallet. [The court says, however: … Continue reading
MA: Trial judge’s omission of significant facts made finding of no exigency error
The trial judge’s finding that there were no exigent circumstances is reversed. Her findings of fact omitted serious facts in support of exigency, and thus was clearly erroneous. Commonwealth v. Arias, 2017 Mass. App. LEXIS 148 (Nov. 9, 2017):
HI: Moving to suppress seizure of pill bottle incident to arrest didn’t cover later search of the bottle; issue waived
Defendant’s challenge to removal of a pill bottle from his person did not preserve a challenge to search of the pill bottle at the police station. “In any event, we conclude that Sado’s argument on appeal is without merit. Officer … Continue reading
VT: Where no testimony supports the trial court’s finding of fact, the finding is clearly erroneous
“One of the findings could be based only on testimony from the officer: ‘Although [defendant’s girlfriend] had not expressly stated that [the officer] could come into the house, he interpreted her action as inviting him in.’ There is no testimony … Continue reading
MA: Inventory was not shown to be pretextual and was within policy
The suppression hearing judge found the officer credible on the question of whether the inventory was pretextual and concluded it was not. As a credibility determination, it can’t be reversed on appeal. The inventory was otherwise reasonable. Commonwealth v. Ehiabhi, … Continue reading
VA: CoA erred in reversing conviction for 4A error where it didn’t contribute to verdict
The Court of Appeals erred in reversing defendant’s conviction because of an alleged Fourth Amendment error where the uncontested evidence demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that a rational juror would have found him guilty without the disputed evidence, because that … Continue reading
IA: Officer’s checking on car parked on rural road at 1 am was valid welfare check
The officer stopped to check on the welfare of defendant parked on the side of a rural road at 1 am. This was a bona fide welfare check and not a criminal investigation, and it was reasonable. State v. Coffman, … Continue reading
GA engages in de novo review of consent claim when facts aren’t in dispute
Since the facts are undisputed, the court does de novo review and finds that defendant consented to the breath test and reverses. State v. Jacobs, 2017 Ga. App. LEXIS 361 (Aug. 2, 2017). “Counsel was not ineffective in failing to … Continue reading
CT: When two grounds are found to support the search, def on appeal has to challenge both
Defendant’s claim that the officers did not follow administrative regulations on conducting his parole search was moot where the trial court also found defendant consented to the search and he didn’t challenge consent. State v. Holley, 2017 Conn. App. LEXIS … Continue reading