Archives
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Recent Posts
- 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)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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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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
OH5: Drone flyover found car hidden in def’s open fields
Defendant owned a vehicle police suspected was involved in an accident, and suspected it was hidden on his somewhat rural property. They used a drone to fly over the property seeing what was likely the car and then got a … Continue reading
CA2: No REP shown in porch shared with neighbor
Defendant shared a porch with his neighbor and made no effort to show a reasonable expectation of privacy in it. United States v. Lewis, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 6689 (2d Cir. Mar. 21, 2023).* The exclusionary rule doesn’t apply in … Continue reading
NYT: In Memphis, Car Seizures Are a Lucrative and Punishing Police Tactic
NYT: In Memphis, Car Seizures Are a Lucrative and Punishing Police Tactic by Jessica Jaglois and Mike Baker (“It has been used to combat street racing and other crimes, but critics said that vehicles have been kept for months from … Continue reading
OH3: Look behind refrigerator during exigent entry was inadvertent plain view
The warrantless entry into defendant’s house was justified by the exigency of a child allegedly in peril, which was not in dispute. While waiting for paperwork to be completed, one officer could see slightly behind the refrigerator and saw packaged … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Three days of warrantless real time CSLI was reasonable because of exigency
Three days of real time CSLI was obtained by the police because of a missing child, and it was reasonable as exigency. United States v. Torres, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44017 (D.N.M. Mar. 15, 2023).* No qualified immunity for Tasing … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: PC for a place can be shown by inference
Probable cause evidence can be found in a particular place can be shown by inference, and direct evidence not required. United States v. Hayes, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45203 (E.D. Wis. Jan. 17, 2023),* adopted, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44211 … Continue reading
E.D.La.: 4A and Art. III standing are distinct questions
Just because there’s no Fourth Amendment “standing” in bank records, that doesn’t mean that there’s no Article III standing to challenge interference with privacy in bank records. Hawkins v. Sanders, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45000 (E.D. La. Mar. 16, 2023):
WA: Stop to inquire of paying transit fare violated state constitution
Defendant’s freedom under the state constitution to not be interfered with in his private affairs was violated by a stop and inquiry whether he had paid a transit fare. He provided a false name that led to his prosecution for … Continue reading
CA10: Five seconds is de minimus under Rodriguez
In a short per curiam, the Tenth Circuit upholds a dog sniff under Rodriguez without explanation. The concurrence, however, tells us that the stop was extended five seconds past the “Rodriguez moment” as still reasonable. United States v. Hayes, 2023 … Continue reading
Reason: An Oregon Man Was Wrongly Imprisoned for Almost a Year Because of an Error in a DMV Database
Reason: An Oregon Man Was Wrongly Imprisoned for Almost a Year Because of an Error in a DMV Database by Emma Camp (“Nicholas Chappelle spent almost a year in an Oregon prison after he was wrongfully convicted of driving with … Continue reading
D.S.C.: Lack of nexus to def isn’t grounds for motion to suppress; that’s a trial question
Lack of nexus between drugs and the defendant is an evidentiary question for trial, not a motion to suppress. The search is legal in any event. United States v. Cunningham, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43510 (D.S.C. Mar. 14, 2023). The … Continue reading
OH5: EMT wasn’t state actor for 4A purposes in detaining def
A paramedic kept defendant from driving after an accident because defendant was too impaired to drive. That was not a government seizure, even if the paramedic was a state actor. State v. Cruz, 2023-Ohio-794, 2023 Ohio App. LEXIS 760 (5th … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: A lien on property here is not a 4A seizure
A lien on property here is not a Fourth Amendment seizure. Trident Steel Corp. v. Siffin, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43138 (E.D. Mo. Mar. 15, 2023). “Against that backdrop, a reasonable officer could certainly have interpreted Mr. Harris’s sudden lurch … Continue reading
NY1: Announcing “NYPD arrest warrant” after entry through an unlocked door violated knock-and-announce
Announcing “NYPD arrest warrant” after entry through an unlocked door violated the state statute on knock-and-announce. People v. Jones, 2023 NY Slip Op 01262, 2023 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 1248 (1st Dept. Mar. 14, 2023). A successor 2255 petition based … Continue reading
CA7: Def seen on his way to a controlled buy was PC
There was probable cause for the search of defendant’s car stopped on the way to a controlled buy. United States v. Coates, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 6108 (7th Cir. Mar. 15, 2023).* Unreasonable responses from defendant stopping at a salvage … Continue reading
CA10: Overlong stop didn’t cause independent search incident
Defendant was subjected to a search incident for false identification. His overlong stop otherwise didn’t cause that. United States v. Anderson, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 5997 (10th Cir. Mar. 14, 2023).* “Teixeira struggles to throw shade on the reliability of … Continue reading