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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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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 2025
DE: Trial court holds Kansas v. Glover not followed under state constitution
A Delaware trial judge holds that the state constitution, adopted before the Fourth Amendment, provides more protection for motorists than Kansas v. Glover. State v. Coffey, 2025 Del. Super. LEXIS 266 (May 22, 2025). (This will be appealed.) There’s no … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Incomplete PC showing here was essentially knowing, so motion to suppress granted
The police here presented incomplete probable cause here that a phone call could have corrected. Since the officer knew it (and that probable cause might be lacking) and said he was charging defendant anyway, the motion to suppress the automobile … Continue reading
D.Neb.: The fact of omissions from the affidavit for warrant that might have made it less incriminating doesn’t help any here; there was PC and evidence to be found
The fact the omissions from the warrant application might make it appear less incriminating doesn’t help here; the warrant was based on jail calls and pointed to evidence in defendant’s safe. That’s not a Franks violation. United States v. Wright, … Continue reading
TX8: Motorcycle parked on driveway closer to road than house wasn’t on curtilage
Officers didn’t enter the curtilage to look at defendant’s motorcycle. It was parked on dirt strip driveway closer to the street than the house, all confirmed by bodycam. Groh v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 3572 (Tex. App. – El … Continue reading
S.D.Ind.: No REP in ALPR tracking; not as intrusive as GPS
Tracking defendant’s vehicle with automatic license plate readers can’t be equated with GPS placement, so Jones distinguished. There’s no reasonable expectation of privacy in an LPN. There is also interesting Franks and staleness issues. Defendant got a Franks hearing but … Continue reading
GA: GPS data in a child porn image on def’s phone was PC to search his house
GPS data in a child porn image on defendant’s phone was probable cause to search his house. Bibbs v. State, 2025 Ga. App. LEXIS 186 (May 13, 2025). Briefly crossing the centerline is not an offense unless it appears unsafe. … Continue reading
The Intercept: U.S. Spy Agencies Get One-Stop Shop to Buy Highly Sensitive Personal Data
The Intercept: U.S. Spy Agencies Get One-Stop Shop to Buy Highly Sensitive Personal Data by Sam Boddie (“The government wants to build a centralized platform where spy agencies can more easily buy private info about millions of people.”)
E.D.La.: Def still a danger to community after grant of motion to suppress; reopening detention hearing denied
After defendant’s motion to suppress was granted, he moved to reopen his detention hearing. It’s denied. The government superseded the indictment, and he’s still found to be a danger to the community. “The Court may thus properly consider suppressed evidence … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: The court just doesn’t buy that the officer smelled raw marijuana, justifying a search
“This is not to say that Officer Rukamp was lying. The issue before the court is not whether the defense has proved that the officer lied; the issue is whether the government has met its burden of proof. In granting … Continue reading
MI: Lifetime electronic monitoring of this sex offender on parole not 4A violation
Lifetime electronic monitoring of this sex offender when on parole doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. People v. Van Mai, 2025 Mich. App. LEXIS 3912 (May 20, 2025). DUI checkpoint: “The only issue Defendant raises is whether the check point was … Continue reading
CA6: Affidavit about smell of MJ from house was not so bare bones GFE didn’t apply
“Even if the search-warrant affidavit at issue lacked probable cause, the district court did not err in denying Noble’s motion to suppress because the good-faith exception applies. The search-warrant affidavit is not bare bones.” The smell of marijuana coming from … Continue reading
WaPo: Police secretly monitored New Orleans with facial recognition cameras
WaPo: Police secretly monitored New Orleans with facial recognition cameras by Douglas MacMillan and Aaron Schaffer (“For two years, New Orleans police secretly relied on facial recognition technology to scan city streets in search of suspects, a surveillance method without … Continue reading
KY: Def carries burden on curtilage; he failed to show motorcycle parked near front door was on it
Defendant’s motorcycle was parked near his front door, but he fails to show that it was within the curtilage of his house. He carries that burden. Bessinger v. Commonwealth, 2025 Ky. App. LEXIS 42 (May 16, 2025):
PA: No REP in data on use of EBT card
Appellant’s argument that the search incident failed because of a lack of an arrest warrant wasn’t presented below so it’s waived. He had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the data on his EBT card that Wawa wouldn’t turn over … Continue reading
WA: 911 call about following a DUI was RS for stop
Officers could rely on a 911 call about an alleged drunk driver who was reporting what she was seeing. “Law enforcement officers may effectuate a Terry stop based on a 911 caller’s tip when the tip is reliable and contains … Continue reading
D.Vt.: Coast Guard’s reboarding boat was with PC
It was revealed there was a firearm on board, and a later warrants check revealed a conviction that was wrong. Yet, it turned out later there was yet another not mentioned. The Coast Guard reboarded and took the gun and … Continue reading
TX5: Warrantless removal of GSR was reasonable
Warrantless swabbing for GSR from defendant’s hands was reasonable because of exigency because it could likely be immediately lost. Argumedo v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 3375 (Tex. App. – Dallas May 16, 2025). Defendant’s Franks claim is more like … Continue reading
Reason: New Montana Law Blocks the State From Buying Private Data To Skirt the Fourth Amendment
Reason: New Montana Law Blocks the State From Buying Private Data To Skirt the Fourth Amendment by Joe Lancaster (“The Big Sky State becomes the first to close the ‘data broker loophole’ allowing the government to get private information without … Continue reading
TX5: Def driving his boss’s truck by permission had standing
Defendant driving his boss’s truck by permission had standing. Here, the issue was the scope of his consent to search it. The trial court’s conclusion he only was agreeing that he wasn’t the owner of the truck was sustained on … Continue reading
NY3: Judge who issued SW not barred from handling trial
Defendant’s claim that the judge issuing the search warrant couldn’t preside at the trial was not preserved because there was no objection. It would have failed anyway. People v Coston, 2025 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3046 (3d Dept. May 15, … Continue reading