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- S.D.Iowa: Cell phone search for info on drugs and guns didn’t need second warrant when sex offenses stumbled upon
- 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
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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 -
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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)
ACLU on privacy
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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. 
Author Archives: Hall
NM: Suppression issues should not be decided at preliminary hearings
A preliminary hearing isn’t a proper place to resolve potential suppression issues. They happen on a “brisk time line” and the rules of evidence don’t apply to them. This is committed to the pretrial process in the trial courts. State … Continue reading
MN: CI’s successful track record supports reliability
The court reiterates that a CI’s successful track record supports his reliability. State v. Mosley, 2023 Minn. LEXIS 451 (Sep. 6, 2023). The exclusionary rule does not apply to supervised release violations. Defendant’s panicking to a felony arrest was “not … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Court declines to unseal warrant papers yet; redaction not feasible
The search warrant papers involving search of property of a U.S. Representative are not unsealed yet. The redactions were nearly everywhere and it would not make sense. The interests in temporary nondisclosure are more important here; the government has made … Continue reading
CA9: Mixed motive for admin search doesn’t make it unreasonable
“The presence of an impermissible motive does not, by itself, establish that the administrative search was pretextual, Orozco, 858 F.3d at 1213, and here, the record shows the presence of a valid motive: the city inspector obtained the administrative search … Continue reading
OH12: Gerstein violation doesn’t warrant new trial
“Assuming for the sake of argument that Akladyous was in fact improperly detained for more than 48 hours before a probable cause finding was made, such argument would not invalidate his subsequent conviction pursuant to Gerstein.” State v. Akladyous, 2023-Ohio-3105, … Continue reading
ME: State constitutional arguments must be developed; citing it not enough
(1) The tracking device placed on defendant’s vehicle by court order was with probable cause. (2) “For a claim under the Maine Constitution to be deemed preserved for our review, however, the party advancing the claim cannot merely allude to … Continue reading
CA6: No PC or GFE in conclusory child porn warrant based largely on boilerplate
A rarity: A child pornography search warrant that was based on boilerplate and little facts that also failed the good faith exception. United States v. Lewis, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 23316 (6th Cir. Sep. 1, 2023):
S.D.N.Y.: Employee has no standing in office common area
Under Mancusi v. Deforte, an employee has no standing in the open area of the office where he or she works, as opposed to one’s private office. United States v. Johnson, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 154559 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 31, 2023). … Continue reading
TX2: Merely stating there is a REP in a cell phone doesn’t make it a 4A argument
“In one sentence in this section of his brief, Nash also argues that courts have found that a cell phone user has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the user’s phone’s contents. Nash does not challenge the evidence that the … Continue reading
D.Mass.: SW affidavit based on CI’s tale gets a Franks hearing
Defendant made his “substantial preliminary showing” for a possible Franks violation on the credibility of a CI to at least get a hearing. (And it sounds like he’d prevail at the hearing because the affidavit depended entirely on the CI’s … Continue reading
CA6: Unreasonable delay for vehicle forfeiture decision violates due process
“We … hold that Wayne County violated that Constitution when it seized plaintiffs’ personal vehicles—which were vital to their transportation and livelihoods—with no timely process to contest the seizure. We further hold that Wayne County was required to provide an … Continue reading
TX1: SW for cell phone in jail property room was not stale
The search warrant for defendant’s cell phone in a burglary case was not based on stale information. She was in custody and her phone was in her property. Cell phone information is enduring. Veal v. State, 2023 Tex. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
Anyuak Media: The Kansas Bureau of Investigation Launches Criminal Probe of Newspaper Raid
Anyuak Media: The Kansas Bureau of Investigation Launches Criminal Probe of Newspaper Raid by Martin Edwards:
S.D.W.Va.: Failure to update a prior SW affidavit was careless but not intentionally misleading
The failure to update the original search warrant affidavit with information from an intervening search showed “multiple careless errors, [and the court] could not say that these errors establish recklessness or materiality. There is simply no evidence upon which the … Continue reading
MD: IAC Brady claim fails over search claim
Defense counsel’s failure to seek the IAD file on the officers at a suppression hearing wasn’t ineffective assistance of counsel. The searching officer had an alleged propensity to exaggerate and excessively strip search. Here, however, another officer was there to … Continue reading
Radley Balko today
From Radley Balko today: • The New York Civil Liberties Union released data to the Gothamist that shows staggering racial disparities among interactions by the New York Police Department under the leadership of former cop turned mayor Eric Adams. Just … Continue reading
OH1: Automobile exception does not apply to a purse removed from vehicle before PC developed
“In this appeal, we are asked to consider the narrow application of the automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement: whether officers may, in the course of a car search, search a container held roughly 25 feet away from … Continue reading
NBC New York: NYPD using drones to monitor NYC backyard Labor Day parties, spurring privacy concerns
NBC New York: NYPD using drones to monitor NYC backyard Labor Day parties, spurring privacy concerns by Jake Offenhartz (“The New York City police department plans to pilot the unmanned aircrafts over large gatherings in an effort to enhance security … Continue reading