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- D.Utah: Minor time detours to writing up a traffic ticket didn’t unreasonable extend this stop; the dog was quickly on its way
- KY: Despite lack of nexus, SW sustained under GFE
- CO: DNA could be seized from trash
- CA8: Nebraska statute allowing SWs to cross state lines doesn’t violate 4A
- WA: Sweat patch as condition of release violated state constitution’s privacy provision
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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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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. 
Monthly Archives: July 2021
CA9: Massage parlor “closely regulated business” under CA law
A massage parlor is a closely regulated business under New York v. Burger, and it has been for 40 years. The operators thus had no reasonable expectation of privacy against inspections. Killgore v. City of S. El Monte, 2021 U.S. … Continue reading
ABAJ: Chemerinsky: Supreme Court looks to common law for guidance in Fourth Amendment cases
ABAJ: Chemerinsky: Supreme Court looks to common law for guidance in Fourth Amendment cases (“The Supreme Court decided three cases concerning the Fourth Amendment during the October 2020 term. They shared several characteristics.”)
D.Nev.: Questioning passengers about names and DOBs during parking violation stop excessive
Questioning passengers for their IDs or birthdates in a stop for a parking violation was a detour from the mission of the stop under Rodriguez. United States v. McCowan, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 126194 (D. Nev. July 7, 2021):
CA4: In open carry state, firearm plus bit more can be RS
Even in an open carry state, open possession of a firearm plus a bit more can be reasonable suspicion on the totality. Walker v. Donahoe, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 20130 (4th Cir. July 7, 2021):
CA3: No REP in sent text messages
“[C]ounsel notes that he moved to suppress the text messages Bereznak and A.G. exchanged, arguing that those messages were acquired from A.G.’s cellphone in violation of Bereznak’s Fourth Amendment rights. This issue lacks merit because Bereznak had no reasonable expectation … Continue reading
CA11: District Court’s § 1983 SJ credibility determinations on PC require reversal
“Because the District Court weighed testimony and made credibility determinations, it erroneously found that Officer Williams had arguable probable cause to detain Ms. Khoury. We must therefore vacate the District Court’s summary judgment order holding that Officer Williams had qualified … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Search incident of unconscious man unreasonable without arrest or justification
A search incident of the unconscious defendant was unreasonable because it lacked any justification. He wasn’t arrested to be searched incident to it. United States v. Johnson, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125188 (N.D. Ind. July 6, 2021). Defendant abandoned his … Continue reading
NC: Complete failure of SW affidavit to show or infer time voided it
The search warrant’s affidavit complete failure to specify the time couldn’t even be inferred from the totality, so the search warrant failed to show probable cause for issuance. State v. Logan, 2021-NCCOA-311, 2021 N.C. App. LEXIS 327 (July 6, 2021). … Continue reading
CA7: Groin search for drugs on side of highway was reasonable
Defendant’s side-of-the-road groin search and the reach into his underwear for a ball of drugs was reasonable on the totality. Brown v. Kazmierski, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 19962 (7th Cir. July 6, 2021):
WaPo: Editorial: Want to know how federal law enforcement uses facial recognition? Tough luck.
WaPo: Editorial: Want to know how federal law enforcement uses facial recognition? Tough luck. (“How is federal law enforcement harnessing facial recognition technology? We don’t know the half of it — because federal law enforcement doesn’t know itself.”)
W.D.Ark.: Govt motion for voice exemplar granted
A blast from the past not seen in the case law in years: Defendant has no reasonable expectation of privacy in not providing a voice examplar on the government’s motion. United States v. McClain, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124835 (W.D. … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: No REP in a civil deposition under protective order obtained by SW
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy or due process right in a civil deposition subject to a protective order obtained by search warrant from the law firm. Her argument that she would have taken the Fifth if she thought … Continue reading
CA6: CI’s PC doesn’t have to be decided because there was good faith
The district court erred in finding no probable cause on information from defendant’s CI and no good faith exception. The CI was stopped one day out of jail driving a stolen motorbike that he said came from defendant. “In the … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Failure to comply with state mental health hold law voids inventory occurring with it
An inventory following a mental health hold didn’t even come close to complying with state law to justify it, so the inventory was invalid. Inevitable discovery fails for lack of proof from the government. United States v. Rapada, 2021 U.S. … Continue reading
CA7: PC on the totality; kind of invoking Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Defendant’s post-conviction argument that there wasn’t probable cause as to the age of the child in his child pornography case fails because common sense dictates the age from the age of the parents. In addition, defendant’s own word choice for … Continue reading
RI: One-sentence description of alleged CP didn’t show PC
The twelve word one-sentence description of defendant’s alleged child pornography was insufficient to show probable cause. The court declines the state’s invitation to adopt the good faith exception without adequate briefing. State v. Reisner, 2021 R.I. LEXIS 87 (June 30, … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: SW for cell phone permitted accessing his apps via internet with phone
The search warrant for defendant’s cell phone was issued with probable cause. The permissible scope of search included applications on the phone but having to go to the internet via the app. Moreover, the warrant for searching the phone included … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Hot pursuit of man with gun into apt was reasonable; and it wasn’t his apt
Defendant didn’t have standing to contest a warrantless entry into his close friend’s apartment when he was hiding there from the police after having fled an apparent arrest. They were also in hot pursuit of a man with a gun. … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: Pretext on pretext too much for this court; no RS for stop
A lane change without signaling that affected no other motorist wasn’t justification for defendant’s stop. One crossing the fog line isn’t enough. Pretext on pretext is just too much. Motion to suppress granted. United States v. Womack, 2021 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading