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)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
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First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
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Eighth Circuit
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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
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LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
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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
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)
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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
NBC: 2 Missouri officers accused of stealing nude photos from dozens of women’s phones at traffic stops
NBC: 2 Missouri officers accused of stealing nude photos from dozens of women’s phones at traffic stops by Austin Mullen and Doha Madani (“Two former Missouri officers were charged in separate, unconnected cases in federal court this week over allegations … Continue reading
LATimes: Are automated license plate readers in your city? Here’s how to find out
LATimes: Are automated license plate readers in your city? Here’s how to find out by Nathan Solis (“Will Freeman wants people to know they’re being tracked. [¶] His desire to shed light on the proliferation of license plate readers in … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Judge actually participating in seizure denied absolute immunity
A state judge is denied absolute immunity for allegedly participating in a seizure in the courthouse rather than just ordering it. Rockett ex rel. His Minor Children v. Eighmy, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 205918 (W.D. Mo. Nov. 13, 2024). A … Continue reading
CA9: Inevitable discovery doesn’t apply when it’s speculative
The good faith exception doesn’t apply where binding appellate precedence doesn’t specifically authorize the officer’s actions. And, as to inevitable discovery of defendant’s cell phone seizure, it was found speculative because he happened to be at the scene and they … Continue reading
Govt. Technology: NYPD Using Drones to Respond on ‘Select Priority’ Calls
Govt. Technology: NYPD Using Drones to Respond on ‘Select Priority’ Calls (“The Drone as First Responder program, piloted earlier this year, is now operational in five command areas of the New York City Police Department. The devices are intended to … Continue reading
KY: Warrant on passenger ordered from car was attenuated circumstance
Although officers lacked reasonable articulable suspicion to detain the vehicle occupants, the attenuation doctrine applied because the temporal proximity between the illegal seizure and discovery of evidence was short but not dispositive. The existence of an outstanding warrant for a … Continue reading
Digital Information World: Did You Just Agree to Be Tracked? Apps Secretly Fuel Government Surveillance!
Digital Information World: Did You Just Agree to Be Tracked? Apps Secretly Fuel Government Surveillance! by Asim BN: ________* Just another government contract?
N.D.Cal.: No REP against police squeezing a package in transit in the mail
Squeezing a mail package in transit isn’t the same as a suitcase near at hand (Jones), and there was no reasonable expectation of privacy. Quinonez v. United States, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 204220 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 8, 2024). A blanket … Continue reading
Reason: Dallas Voters Nix an All-Purpose Excuse for Police Harassment: ‘I Smelled Marijuana’
Reason: Dallas Voters Nix an All-Purpose Excuse for Police Harassment: ‘I Smelled Marijuana’ by Jacob Sullum (“The ballot initiative says a whiff of weed does not establish probable cause for a search or seizure, which was already doubtful in light … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: An inventory at the scene and not at the police station is still valid
The fact an otherwise valid inventory of defendant’s satchel happened in the field and not at the police station doesn’t make it unreasonable. United States v. Soto, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 202833 (D. Ariz. Nov. 7, 2024). Small talk between … Continue reading
FL2: Search incident of lockbox in a backpack removed from def at time of arrest unreasonable
A lockbox in a backpack removed from defendant’s person when he was arrested was not subject to search incident. The state relied on Gant, but it applies to vehicles. Rivera v. State, 2024 Fla. App. LEXIS 8647 (Fla. 2d DCA … Continue reading
CA3: Handcuffed detainee can still be frisked with RS
Just because a detainee is handcuffed, the potential threat hasn’t abated, and a frisk can occur. United States v. Jackson, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 28229 (3d Cir. Nov. 6, 2024). The affidavit for the warrant for defendant’s home was based … Continue reading
MA: Three SWs building on each other to ultimate PC
Here there were three search warrants. The second built on the first, and the third on the second, leading to a computer search that was founded on defendant disposing of a body. “When considering the foregoing details together, there was … Continue reading
AZ: A traffic offense could be used to stop defendant to question him about a fatal accident 11 days earlier
Defendant committed a traffic offense and was stopped. Officers had reasonable suspicion he left the scene of a fatal accident 11 days earlier, and officers wanted to talk to him about that. The stop was not pretextual because there was … Continue reading
W.D.Wash.: Not applying exclusionary rule here would put all at risk of police excessive searches
“Here, the Court finds that the officers did not unreasonably extend the scope or duration of the stop. The officers were permitted to ask basic questions of Mr. Russell, including whether he had identification or whether he had any weapons … Continue reading
OH4: Asking motorist about destination doesn’t measurably extend stop under Rodriguez
Asking a motorist about his or her destination during a traffic stop does not measurably extend the stop under Rodriguez. State v. Woods, 2024-Ohio-5301, 2024 Ohio App. LEXIS 3997 (4th Dist. Oct. 29, 2024). Similar: “Officers may question the driver … Continue reading
FL3: There is a lower expectation of privacy in a boat than in a car; stop for license, registration, and safety inspection was reasonable
“The [Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission officers] had authority to stop the boat to inspect licenses, registration, and safety equipment. State v. Casal, 410 So. 2d 152, 155 (Fla. 1982) (‘In sum we find that the state’s interest in random … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: After first SW attacked, second SW supported by independent sources
When defendant filed a motion to suppress, the government sought a second search warrant for the same telephone not using the prior information. The USMJ holds the second warrant shows probable cause but the independent source doctrine not satisfied. On … Continue reading