Archives
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Recent Posts
- CA3: In seeking arrest warrants, officers need not present all exculpatory evidence to issuing magistrate unless it’s “conclusive”
- D.Idaho: Trial references to SW not barred, but govt limited in what it can say
- D.D.C.: PO’s alleged violation of probation regulations doesn’t warrant suppression if a reasonable mistake
- E.D.N.C.: SW not required to look in def’s jail property bag and retrieve car keys
- D.N.M.: Consent attenuated unreasonable search
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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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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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"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: May 2023
CA8: Exit border search of electronic devices was based on reasonable suspicion
There was reasonable suspicion for defendant’s intensive exit border search of his electronic devices. “The officers and agents had background information, much of it corroborated, that provided a basis for assessing Xiang’s actions in May and June 2017. Their experience … Continue reading
ScotusBlog: Petition of the Week: One police officer opens a car door, and another looks inside. Did they search without a warrant?
ScotusBlog: Petition of the Week: One police officer opens a car door, and another looks inside. Did they search without a warrant? by Kalvis Golde
NJ: Two-hour delayed SI for forensic evidence on def’s sweatshirt in axe murder case was reasonable
A two-hour delayed search incident of defendant’s sweatshirt for blood and other evidence was reasonable when he was in custody under U.S. v. Edwards (1974, 10 hours) and more compelling probable cause developed he committed an axe murder. Swabbing of … Continue reading
N.D.Tex.: Arrest on NCIC warrant from Michigan reasonable despite it not labeled extraditable
Defendant’s arrest in Texas on a Michigan warrant shown on NCIC was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment despite the claim that it was not flagged for out-of-state extradition. Six months earlier, he was arrested and released before getting to jail … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: SW still based on PC as to new place even though def moved after the crime
The search warrant for defendant’s new place was issued a year after the crime, but the affidavit showed the police they were involved in a long and intense investigation. Moreover, some specific evidence had not been located, and, even though … Continue reading
Denver Post: Colorado Supreme Court hears first-of-its-kind challenge to police’s use of Google search terms to ID murder suspects
Denver Post: Colorado Supreme Court hears first-of-its-kind challenge to police’s use of Google search terms to ID murder suspects (“The groundbreaking legal case considers for the first time in Colorado — and, attorneys said, nationally — whether police can legally … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Even if Brooklyn checkpoint was unreasonable, def’s flight from it was intervening circumstance
NYPD set up a vehicle checkpoint in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, because of heavy traffic and crime in general. Every third vehicle was to be stopped except anything apparently a violation would cause a stop. Defendant was stopped for no front … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: No REP in DEA’s license plate reader database
“First, Officer Josh Powers did not violate Toombs’ Fourth Amendment rights by accessing license plate reader data from the Department of Justice’s Drug Enforcement Administration System Information License (‘DEASIL’). Second, Powers had reasonable suspicion of criminal activity when he extended … Continue reading
MN: Purse in car could be searched under automobile exception
The warrantless search of defendant’s purse was lawful under the automobile exception because there was probable cause to believe that the car contained a controlled substance, and the purse was a container within that car. State v. Barrow, 2023 Minn. … Continue reading
CA3: When relying on social media posts for PC, innocent explanations aren’t required
The warrant affiant adequately corroborated the CIs. When relying on jewelry visible in defendant’s social media posts, it isn’t necessary for the affiant to prove they are real or actually his. For probable cause, innocent explanations don’t have to be … Continue reading
N.D.W.Va.: Checking on warrants of occupants of car reasonably extended the stop
Checking on the outstanding warrants on the occupants of the car reasonably extended the stop. United States v. Hamlet, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 76568 (N.D. W.Va. May 2, 2023).* Presence of drugs in one’s car doesn’t make probable cause to … Continue reading
CA5: 4A doesn’t apply to a letter carrier
“In co-defendant Johnlouis’s case, our court upheld the denial of the motion to suppress because we determined that the letter carrier was ‘not a government actor to whom the Fourth Amendment applies.’ United States v. Johnlouis, 44 F.4th 331, 337 … Continue reading
CA10: Def’s response ‘I don’t have a backpack’ was abandonment of the backpack
“Mr. Porter nonetheless attempts to distinguish this case from our other abandonment cases, claiming that in those cases, the defendant’s denial of ownership was clear and unequivocal. But it is hard to imagine a statement plainer than ‘I don’t have … Continue reading
D.V.I.: No REP against a flyover of a MJ grow
There was no objective reasonable expectation of privacy in a flyover of a marijuana grow operation. A warrant to flyover and photograph was not required. United States v. Soogrim, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75183 (D.V.I. May 1, 2023). The court … Continue reading
N.D.W.Va.: Pulling open def’s pocket to search it was intentional and unreasonable; exclusionary rule applied
Pulling open defendant’s pocket to search it was intentional and required applying the exclusionary rule. United States v. Jenkins, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74739 (N.D. W.Va. Apr. 28, 2023). The close relationship between the participants supported probable cause. It was … Continue reading
OH3: Def’s motion to determine legality of arrest never sought to suppress anything and wasn’t appealable
Defendant’s motion to determine the legality of his arrest was not even called a motion to suppress. It was not even appealable as it was framed. “[T]he motion filed by Sanchez on October 28, 2020, was not captioned a ‘motion … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Holding ptf’s car for 9 weeks without justification states 5A, not 4A, claim
Police seized plaintiff’s car and held it without justification for nine weeks. Plaintiff’s states a claim under the Fifth Amendment, but not the Fourth. Kelly v. Bell, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 74807 (M.D. Pa. Apr. 28, 2023). “A search-warrant advisory … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Warrant for ion scan of defendant’s door and door frame was issued on PC
Because a drug dog wouldn’t alert to fentanyl, the government showed probable cause on the totality of circumstances for an ion scan of defendant’s apartment door for traces of fentanyl. Warrants for ion scans have been approved in other cases. … Continue reading
ABA: Regulating Forensic Genetic Genealogy: Balancing Privacy Concerns with the Needs of Law Enforcement in a Time of Consumer DNA Testing Services
Regulating Forensic Genetic Genealogy: Balancing Privacy Concerns with the Needs of Law Enforcement in a Time of Consumer DNA Testing Services by Devinder Hans (ABA Mar. 28, 2023)