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Recent Posts
- N.D.N.Y.: DNA by SW in FL in CODIS could be used in NY; defense counsel not IAC for not making def’s argument
- 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
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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:
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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General (many free):
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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
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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
Law360: Open Questions In Unsettled Geofence Warrant Landscape
Law360: Open Questions In Unsettled Geofence Warrant Landscape by Charles Fowler (“This summer produced the first two federal appellate decisions on the Fourth Amendment implications of geofence warrants…. Neither decision is final. And the dust may well settle somewhere in … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: Reasonable during a traffic stop to ask about firearms in the car
The traffic stop was reasonable, and it was also reasonable for the officer to just ask whether there was a gun in the car for safety reasons because carrying in legal in this state. United States v. Martin, 2024 U.S. … Continue reading
AgWeb: Feds Claim Access to 1.2 Billion Private Acres Without Warrant or Probable Cause
AgWeb: Feds Claim Access to 1.2 Billion Private Acres Without Warrant or Probable Cause by Chris Bennett (“The federal government asserts power over at least 96% of all private land in the U.S.” “How much private land can the federal … Continue reading
OH2: Arrest clothes in jail storage can be searched without a warrant
Under established authority from 1993 in this court, defendant’s clothes from his arrest in storage at the jail can be tested for evidence without a warrant. State v. Wells, 2024-Ohio-4813 (2d Dist. Oct. 4, 2024). Defendant pled guilty and only … Continue reading
IA: A brief detention at the scene is not “arrest” for speedy trial purposes
“Arrest” for speedy trial purposes doesn’t include a brief detention at the scene before the actual arrest. State v. Harris, 2024 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 79 (Oct. 4, 2024). Defendant satisfied his first Franks burden of a substantial preliminary showing of … Continue reading
UT: NCMEC didn’t look at the CP this time, but it had this case, and that’s enough
The fact the hash value of defendant’s material was known to be child pornography, it didn’t matter that NCMEC didn’t view the material before passing it on to the police who did. There was a prior private search. State v. … Continue reading
Law Review: The Automated Fourth Amendment
Maneka Sinha, The Automated Fourth Amendment, 73 Emory L. J. 589 (2024). The abstract:
S.D.Ohio: SW for def’s address produced documents related to another address of his which were lawfully seized
“[T]he Court agrees with Moore that papers listing the 3151 Gobel address that were taken from the 3100 Vienna Woods address fall outside the scope of the search warrant’s plain language. … But that does not end the inquiry as … Continue reading
CO: Unlawfully obtained cell phone PIN used to search phone required suppression
The police unlawfully obtained defendant’s cell phone’s 6-digit PIN number to access his phone after a failed “brute force attack” attempting to get into the phone. That required suppression of the cell phone. People v. d’Estree, 2024 COA 106, 2024 … Continue reading
NY1: Vehicle being involved in recent prior crime was RS for stop
There was reasonable suspicion for the stop of defendant’s car just because the police had information that the car had previously been involved in a potential crime. People v. Zubidi, 2024 NY Slip Op 04824, 2024 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS … Continue reading
D.Minn.: No need to test a roach for PC, plus def admitted what it was
“During the stop, Mr. Winston himself confirmed that the roaches were marijuana; his possession charge, however, is not based on them. There was thus no reason to test the roaches to confirm the presence of marijuana. The failure on the … Continue reading
D.N.H.: Federal case can rely on state SW
Defense counsel was not ineffective for not challenging the search warrant in his federal case that was issued by a state court judge because it wouldn’t win. Lessard v. United States, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180669 (D.N.H. Oct. 3, 2024).* … Continue reading
WaPo: Police seldom disclose use of facial recognition despite false arrests
WaPo: Police seldom disclose use of facial recognition despite false arrests By Douglas MacMillan, David Ovalle & Aaron Schaffer (“Hundreds of Americans have been arrested after being connected to a crime by facial recognition software, a Washington Post investigation has … Continue reading
NPR: 23andMe is on the brink. What happens to all its DNA data?
NPR: 23andMe is on the brink. What happens to all its DNA data? by Bobby Allyn (“As 23andMe struggles for survival, customers like Wiles have one pressing question: What is the company’s plan for all the data it has collected … Continue reading
NACDL CLE: Artificial Justice: AI, Tech and Criminal Defense (Oct. 7-8)
NACDL CLE: Artificial Justice: AI, Tech and Criminal Defense, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC, October 7-8 from NACDL’s Fourth Amendment Center and Georgetown. The materials were distributed yesterday, and it will be excellent.
SCOTUS grants cert in excessive force case
Barnes v. Felix, 23-1239 (granted Oct. 4, 2024):
OH1: “Suspicious vehicle” report didn’t justify stop when it drove off as officers were looking at it
Officers had a report of a suspicious vehicle on an apartment complex parking lot. They stopped and shined lights on it and looked. After about a minute, the vehicle drove off. The stop was without reasonable suspicion and was a … Continue reading
CA6: New evidence of possible Franks violation for successor habeas not adequate to possibly alter outcome
2255 petitioner’s successor petition claims newly discovered evidence from an FOIA response that casts doubt on the affidavit for the search warrant obtained in 2011. “So Duval has not shown that the search warrant affidavit contained a false statement. Nor … Continue reading
MO: Def fled state and abandoned murder weapon at his grandmother’s house
When defendant fled the state to avoid arrest, he left a bag with the murder weapon at his grandmother’s house. That was abandonment. The ping of his cell phone to locate him to arrest him was with exigent circumstances. State … Continue reading
Reason: A Houston Drug Cop’s Murder Conviction Highlights the Potentially Deadly Consequences of ‘Testifying’
Reason: A Houston Drug Cop’s Murder Conviction Highlights the Potentially Deadly Consequences of ‘Testifying’ by Jacob Sullum (“It is hard to say how often this sort of thing happens, since prosecutors, judges, and jurors tend to discount the protestations of … Continue reading