Archives
-
Recent Posts
- OH7: Magistrate signing SW for something outside of territorial jurisdiction not a 4A violation
- OH2: Stop outside the officer’s jurisdiction doesn’t violate 4A
- RawStory Opinion: Trump just declared these parts of America are outside the Constitution (within 100 miles of any border)
- CA1: SW for iPhone 6S didn’t permit search of iPhone 13 despite same phone number
- CA7: It wasn’t a 4A violation to place a pole camera to look over def’s fence he built knowing he was under surveillance
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
-
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)
ACLU on privacy
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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)
-
“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. 
Search Results for: dog
D.S.D.: No RS on totality when drug dog called for
The USMJ found that the officers abandoned the mission of the traffic stop (for Rodriguez purposes) when they called for the drug dog. So, the question is then whether there was reasonable suspicion at that point, and the answer is … Continue reading
OH6: RS not needed for dog sniff of car on curtilage during SW execution on house
Officers had a warrant for defendant’s house, and they didn’t need reasonable suspicion for a drug dog sniff of his car parked in the driveway. State v. Desarro, 2026-Ohio-1672, 2026 Ohio App. LEXIS 1692 (6th Dist. May 7, 2026).* “We … Continue reading
ND: Dog sniff occurred before the Rodriguez moment and was reasonable
The dog sniff occurred before the Rodriguez moment and was thus reasonable. State v. Cooper, 2026 ND 68, 2026 N.D. LEXIS 99 (Mar. 12, 2026) On the totality of circumstances, there was reasonable suspicion as to defendant as the subject … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: RS and PC for stop and then search, so justification for drug dog is irrelevant
Based on two bases of collective knowledge, the officer had justification for a stop and a search, so the justification for the drug dog isn’t even relevant. United States v. Carter, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45275 (N.D. Iowa Mar. 5, … Continue reading
CA10: RS didn’t dissipate during wait for drug dog
Reasonable suspicion here once developed didn’t dissipate before the 20-30 minute wait for the drug dog. United States v. Labs, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 5789 (10th Cir. Feb. 27, 2026). By statute, “[t]he evidence admissible for meeting the State’s burden … Continue reading
CA8: Duty to warn of use of police dog was clearly established
Officers sicced a police dog on plaintiff who was fleeing, but without warning. Use of a police dog usually requires a warning. “The warning requirement was clearly established by the time of Cameron’s arrest. As we stated in Adams, Kuha … Continue reading
N.D. Iowa: Drug dog’s 50% hit rate was reliable enough
Past cases in this circuit hold that even a drug dog’s 50% hit rate is sufficient for probable cause. “And other indications of the presence of illicit drugs can rehabilitate a less-than-reliable canine alert.” United States v. Harbach, 2026 U.S. … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: No dog alert shown on video
Defendant’s stop in front of his house on the curtilage was a valid stop. A dog sniff was based on reasonable suspicion but the court finds no valid alert. The search of the car came after an ambiguous statement from … Continue reading
CA8: Stop unreasonably extended for drug dog; denial of suppression reversed
Window tint violation should have taken 5-6 minutes, but it dragged out for 20 minutes while the drug dog was coming. The stop was overlong under Rodriguez and the motion to suppress should have been granted. United States v. Johnson, … Continue reading
IN: The fact a drug dog could alert to hemp doesn’t mean an alert isn’t PC
The fact a drug dog can alert to hemp as well as marijuana doesn’t make the dog alert violate the Fourth Amendment. Akins v. State, 2026 Ind. App. LEXIS 39 (Feb. 6, 2026):
ID: Finding drugs in 43% of dog alerts doesn’t mean dog unreliable or no PC
This drug dog only found drugs in 43% of alerts. That’s still enough for probable cause. Dogs can alert where drugs have been. Lack of success doesn’t mean false hits. State v. Barritt, 2026 Ida. LEXIS 16 (Jan. 29, 2026). … Continue reading
OH2: Dog handler’s testimony of dog certification was sufficient to show reliability
The dog handler’s testimony that the dog was certified before this sniff was sufficient to show the dog was reliable. State v. Murphy, 2026-Ohio-143 (2d Dist. Jan. 13, 2026). Search warrants can be based on hearsay. Mendenhall v. City & … Continue reading
D.D.C.: A dozen officers involved in traffic stop slow walked it for drug dog
A dozen officers purposely delayed the traffic stop for a dog sniff. “The Government has failed to show that police conducted this stop in a reasonably diligent manner. To the contrary, Officer Brennan’s decision to delegate all four warnings to … Continue reading
GA: REP against dog sniff at apartment door in gated complex where management let police in
A dog sniff at defendant’s apartment door seams was unreasonable, despite it being in a common area of a gated apartment building [where the general public wasn’t allowed, but management let the police in]. State v. West, 2026 Ga. App. … Continue reading
KY: Def needs to make a record on how long the drug dog extended the stop under Rodriguez
The drug dog arrived while the traffic tickets were still being written. All the record shows is that. The record doesn’t “reveal how much time elapsed between the canine’s arrival and it alerting to the odor of unlawful drugs emanating … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Fact drug dog wasn’t trained on fentanyl wasn’t defect when he alerted on it and cocaine
The drug dog wasn’t trained on fentanyl but alerted on it. It was trained on cocaine and did alert on it. That doesn’t make the dog unreliable. After probable cause developed, using the key fob to open the car wasn’t … Continue reading
SCOTUSBlog: The dog sniff at the center of a Supreme Court petition
SCOTUSBlog: The dog sniff at the center of a Supreme Court petition by Kelsey Dallas:
LA1: Accelerant detection dog’s alert supported PC despite negative lab test
The fact the accelerant detection dog alerted supports probable cause despite later negative lab tests. State v. Hale, 2025 La. App. LEXIS 1749 (La. App. 1 Cir Sep. 19, 2025). Officers did not violate curtilage by observing shell casings in … Continue reading
ID: Drug dog’s nose touching a car door handle was not a search
Drug dog’s nose touching a car door handle was not a search. State v. Pendleton, 2025 Ida. App. LEXIS 38 (Aug. 29, 2025). The defendant officer violated no reasonable expectation of privacy by accessing plaintiff’s public Facebook posts. Dicks v. … Continue reading
IN: Drug dog’s instinctive entry into car is reasonable, but this was facilitated by the officer and wasn’t
Indiana adopts the drug dog rule that “a K9’s instinctive entry into a vehicle does not implicate the Fourth Amendment so long as it is not directed, encouraged, or facilitated by officers.” This one was, and without probable cause, and … Continue reading