November 2026 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Archives
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Recent Posts
- D.Ariz.: Smell of alcohol in the car on Navajo Nation was PC
- NY3: No REP in parole GPS monitoring as to police
- TX: An entry into a person’s homestead for civil discovery has limits
- S.D.W.Va.: Subpoenas for records on advocacy positions violated 1A
- CA10: Investigative detention that went on for hours did not become an arrest
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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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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 -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
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Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
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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
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LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
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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
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General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
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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)
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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)
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)
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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. 
Author Archives: Hall
E.D.Wis.: Ptf’s claim judge’s signature on SW was forged fails for not even alleging there was a search
“The plaintiff similarly alleges that Miller forged a judge’s signature on a search warrant. But he does not say anything else about this search warrant. Did law enforcement execute the search warrant? What, or where, did they search? Did they … Continue reading
W.D.Mich.: Search and seizure Brady, even if there was one, wouldn’t change the outcome
Defendant makes a 2255 Brady claim about the information for his search and seizure. But, it doesn’t change the outcome. “Defendant fails to explain, and the Court fails to discern, how inclusion of the information Defendant sets forth in support … Continue reading
W.D.Mich.: State law violation in search irrelevant in federal prosecution
Defense counsel can’t be ineffective for not arguing that state law was violated by the search in his federal case. Clark v. United States, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 219107 (W.D. Mich. Dec. 4, 2024).* Defense counsel could not be ineffective … Continue reading
CA4: “Reason to believe” under Gant is less than probable cause
“Reason to believe” under Gant is less than probable cause. United States v. Turner, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 30565 (4th Cir. Dec. 4, 2024):
CA9: Arrest on mistaken warrant was objectively reasonable
Defendant’s arrest on a mistaken warrant was still objectively reasonable. The officer did all he could to verify defendant was the right guy. United States v. Nomee, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 30533 (9th Cir. Dec. 4, 2024):
MO: Def’s 4A ineffective assistance claim fails because he doesn’t show he’d prevail on the 4A claim
Defendant’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim was based on defense counsel’s failure to file a motion to suppress of a marital vehicle. He never, however, showed that he did, in fact, have standing. Moreover, the trial court found that the … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: Requiring a building demolition permit doesn’t state a 4A claim
Requiring plaintiff to get a demolition permit of a building fails to state a claim because “Plaintiffs’ legal theory that the … actions result in a violation of their fourth amendments rights is unclear and conclusory.” Macy v. San Bernardino … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Def’s arrest based on drunkenness was without PC
It’s clear from the testimony that the officer intended to arrest defendant, but it was without probable cause that he was so drunk he was a danger. The motion to suppress is granted, but the grounds change slightly on the … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: Corporate Transparency Act enjoined, but 4A claim as yet unresolved
On the balance of equities, the Eastern District of Texas enjoins the Corporate Transparency Act going into effect January 1, 2025. “[T]he CTA requires a vast array of companies to disclose otherwise private stakeholder information to FinCEN. See 31 U.S.C. … Continue reading
Hell Gate: 83 Percent of ShotSpotter Alerts Might Not Have Been Gunfire at All
Hell Gate: 83 Percent of ShotSpotter Alerts Might Not Have Been Gunfire at All by Nick Pinto (“ShotSpotter, the gunshot detection system used by the NYPD since 2015, doesn’t work—if what you mean by ‘work’ is ‘accurately alert police to … Continue reading
CA8: Use of SWAT team for no-knock drug warrant not clearly established as unreasonable
The use of the SWAT team to execute a no-knock drug warrant was not clearly established to be unreasonable in 2017 when this happened. Davis v. City of Little Rock, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 30415 (8th Cir. Dec. 3, 2024):
D.D.C.: Multiple counts of things seized under SW not severed
In a motion to sever counts for trial, it was significant that the stuff was seized under the same search warrant. United States v. Lewis, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 217086 (D.D.C. Dec. 2, 2024). There was probable cause and nexus … Continue reading
ID: City ordinance on trash collection did not create a REP in trash from police taking it
City ordinance on trash collection did not create a reasonable expectation of privacy in trash from police taking it for investigative purposes. State v. Pulizzi, 2024 Ida. LEXIS 132 (Nov. 29, 2024). The probation officer had a wealth of reasonable … Continue reading
HI: TSA check of powdery substance in luggage seen on x-ray was reasonable
TSA’s x-raying baggage at the Honolulu airport produced an unknown substance in a Ziploc bag that TSA could check to be sure it wasn’t explosives for an IED or other harmful thing. Here, it produced drugs, and the search was … Continue reading
MI: Leatherman tool on belt could be considered weapon for frisk
Defendant was well-known to be a meth abuser, and when he was stopped for a traffic offense and had a Leatherman tool on him, that could be considered usable as a weapon. People v. Babcock, 2024 Mich. App. LEXIS 9506 … Continue reading
Leftovers
2255 petitioner fails to show grounds for a CoA from his search claims, without telling us the rationale. United States v. Renteria, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 30239 (5th Cir. Nov. 26, 2024).* Defendant’s stop and frisk was without reasonable suspicion. … Continue reading
CA11: No prejudice for failing to file motion to suppress drug def was acquitted of
2254 petitioner can’t show prejudice from defense counsel’s failure to file a motion to suppress cocaine when he was acquitted of that charge. Zayas-Acosta v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corr., 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 30236 (11th Cir. Nov. 27, 2024). Challenge … Continue reading
FL6: Def confesses error that his motion to suppress abandoned property shouldn’t have been granted
Defendant moved to suppress something he threw away in flight from the police, and the trial court granted it. On appeal, he confesses error that it was abandoned. Reversed. State v. Howard, 2024 Fla. App. LEXIS 9246 (Fla. 6th DCA … Continue reading
WaPo: TSA PreCheck vs. Clear: What’s better for price and privacy?
WaPo: TSA PreCheck vs. Clear: What’s better for price and privacy? by Tatum Hunter (“Clear saves you time at the airport. Just make sure to read the fine print.” “Airport security is, by nature, at odds with individual privacy. The … Continue reading
Debra Cassens Weiss, Are police responsible for damaging home to oust suspect? Sotomayor and Gorsuch see important issue
Debra Cassens Weiss, Are police responsible for damaging home to oust suspect? Sotomayor and Gorsuch see important issue (ABAJ Nov. 26, 2024) (“The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to decide whether police must compensate a Texas homeowner for damages … Continue reading