Archives
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Recent Posts
- D.Alaska: With a SW for a cell phone, officers should ask, not make, def to open the phone with his finger
- CA2: Statement there was CP on computer was PC to seize it for a SW
- 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
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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 $ -
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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
D.D.C.: DC USMJ can issue SW for iPhone in Texas in domestic terrorism investigation
A USMJ in the District of Columbia has authority to issue a search warrant for an iPhone in Texas in a domestic terrorism investigation tied to the January 6th attack on the Capitol. In the Matter of the Search of … Continue reading
Working on a book manuscript
Will catch up soon
techdirt: Ohio Court Says Distance Learning ‘Room Scans’ Violate The Fourth Amendment
techdirt: Ohio Court Says Distance Learning ‘Room Scans’ Violate The Fourth Amendment by Tim Cushing:
KQED: Cellphone-Tracking Tool Offers Police ‘Mass Surveillance on a Budget’
KQED: Cellphone-Tracking Tool Offers Police ‘Mass Surveillance on a Budget‘ by Garance Burke and Jason Dearen (AP):
CA9: Oral amendment to SW to add a place to be searched never incorporated violates 4A, but GFE here because no controlling authority
Officers had a search warrant for plaintiff’s hotel room searching for evidence of a drug operation. They called the issuing judge for permission to search plaintiff’s home under the same affidavit, which was orally granted, but the warrant was not … Continue reading
CA3: Unnecessarily keeping guns of innocent parents for 8 years violated 4A, 5A, and 2A
Police seized 46 firearms from a murderer’s parents that had nothing to do with his crimes and they were never used in any proceeding. Eight years later after the son’s death sentence was affirmed on direct appeal and habeas, the … Continue reading
MD: Full searches of cell phones can be a general search; there must be particularity or time limitation
Blanket full searches of cell phones without a particularity or time limitation can violate the Fourth Amendment and become a general search. It is suggested there be a search protocol if possible to limit the officers’ discretion. Despite all those … Continue reading
OH11: Driver not matching owner of car not RS
Just because the driver isn’t the owner doesn’t mean the car is stolen. See Kansas v. Glover. This was extending the stop without reasonable suspicion. State v. Dunlap, 2022-Ohio-3007, 2022 Ohio App. LEXIS 2828 (11th Dist. Aug. 29, 2022); State … Continue reading
DDC: Delay in return of seized cell phone not necessarily unreasonable; Rule 41(g) provides procedural due process
DC Metro police seized numerous cell phones from BLM protestors, and they sued to recover them. The DC police policy wasn’t followed, but only by negligence, and that doesn’t state a claim against it. Rule 41(g) applies despite lack of … Continue reading
D.D.C.: SW affidavit unsealed in part, protects identity of witnesses
The search warrant for Sen. Burr’s cell phone is unsealed in part after about a year under the common law right of access to judicial records. In re L.A. Times Communs. LLC to Unseal Court Records, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
NLJ: Will Judicial Polarization Lead to More Strategic ‘Unpublished’ Opinions?
NLJ: Will Judicial Polarization Lead to More Strategic ‘Unpublished’ Opinions? (“Because unpublished opinions aren’t precedential and don’t typically get reviewed by full courts, some court watchers worry that panels could use them to get their desired outcome in a particular case … Continue reading
NE: Changing the 4A argument between hearing and appeal is waiver
Defendant’s Fourth Amendment ineffective assistance of counsel claim is presented on appeal differently than at the hearing level, and that’s waiver. State v. Lessley, 312 Neb. 316 (2022). The affidavit for search warrant was issued with probable cause under the … Continue reading
CA11: § 1983 suit that only claimed violations of state law did not state 4A claim
Plaintiff’s § 1983 suit that only claimed violations of state law did not state a Fourth Amendment claim. Lyons v. City of Abbeville, Ala., 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 24110 (11th Cir. Aug. 26, 2022). Defendant does not get return of … Continue reading
D.D.C.: SW for documents permitted search of any place they could be, not just where def said they were
Officers executing a search warrant for evidence of animal abuse in Washington D.C. used a battering ram on the door without waiting for defendant to come to the door. They had a warrant for veterinary documents on the animals and … Continue reading
CA5: Multiple cell phones found with a quantity of drugs creates inference phones are for drug trafficking
When multiple cell phones and drugs are found together in a car, it’s a reasonable conclusion the cell phones are related to drug trafficking. The search of the phones reasonably led to child porn. United States v. Morton, 2022 U.S. … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Walmart Pay records do not require SW
A search warrant isn’t needed for investigators to access information from Walmart Pay. Carpenter doesn’t apply. United States v. Whipple, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 153126 (E.D. Tenn. Aug. 25, 2022). A claim that the officer presented false information to get … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: Burden on defense to show GFE doesn’t apply
The good faith exception is determined before probable cause. If there is objective good faith, the rest doesn’t matter. The burden is on the defense to show the good faith exception doesn’t apply. United States v. Ledesma, 2022 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
MN: When prosecution shows private search doctrine applies, defense has burden to show government action
When a defendant moves to suppress the evidence obtained from a warrantless search and the State proves that the private search doctrine applies, the burden to show that the private party was acting on behalf of the government falls on … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Work product privilege in product of a SW is burden of defense
A special master reviewed the product of the search warrant for work product materials. The defendants have the burden of proof on work product, and they didn’t meet it. United States v. Vepuri, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 151833 (E.D. Pa. … Continue reading