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Recent Posts
- LATimes: Ex-L.A. County sheriff’s deputy gets prison time for using search warrant for a private client
- Privacy Daily: Chatrie’s Clarification to Fourth Amendment a Win for Privacy, Experts Say
- D.Alaska: Def’s half hour detention was without RS
- CA9: When the PC for SW dissipates, the search must stop; no GFE
- C.D.Cal.: SW for all software in gambling case was overbroad and no GFE
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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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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)
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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
M.D.Fla.: Postal workers have no REP in their work trucks
Postal workers have no reasonable expectation of privacy in their work trucks. It’s owned by the USPS and others always have access and they well know they are subject to surveillance on the job. United States v. Ayala, 2026 U.S. … Continue reading
CA5 explaining clearly established law, again; fair notice to police
CA5 explaining clearly established law, again. Elizondo v. Hinote, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 3713 (5th Cir. Feb. 5, 2026)*:
CA6: Flock violated no duty to ptf when he was stopped based on police mistake, if there was one
Plaintiff sued Flock because he was stopped but then released because his LPN was put on a “hot list” by police, apparently mistakenly. He had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his LPN, and his stop was by the police, … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Use of confidential taxpayer information to conduct immigration arrests and entries is enjoined
The use of confidential taxpayer information by ICE for immigration raids without any statutorily required procedures is enjoined. There is also the problem of no judicial warrant from judicial officer, just an immigration judge if at all. Cmty. Econ. Dev. … Continue reading
D.Md.: Premature filing of FTCA case over a search denies jurisdiction
Because plaintiff filed his FTCA case before the six-month window was up, the court lacks jurisdiction over it. There is also a Bivens claim for execution of a search warrant which the court finds different than Bivens. Wood v. United … Continue reading
CA6: No standing in a group chat SW of another person’s account
Defendant had no standing to challenge a group chat obtained by search warrant from a social media provider of another person’s account. (Defendants discussed a kidnapping over group chat.) United States v. Blake, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 3686 (6th Cir. … Continue reading
MI: Def not in custody during execution of DNA warrant where she chose to talk
In a 25-year-old cold case of a buried infant, officers got a warrant for defendant’s DNA. She argued she was in custody for purposes of her statement given at the time, but she wasn’t. The officers were clear on that. … Continue reading
404 Media: FBI Couldn’t Get into WaPo Reporter’s iPhone Because It Had Lockdown Mode Enabled
404 Media: FBI Couldn’t Get into WaPo Reporter’s iPhone Because It Had Lockdown Mode Enabled by Joseph Cox (“Lockdown Mode is a sometimes overlooked feature of Apple devices that broadly make them harder to hack. A court record indicates the … Continue reading
CA10: Inconsistency in travel plans isn’t RS per se; officer has to see that they’re lying
Inconsistency in travel plans alone isn’t reasonable suspicion to extend a vehicle stop. The officer has to conclude that one of the occupants was lying about plans. “A trooper can reasonably suspect criminal activity when a driver and passenger lie … Continue reading
CT: Last person to contact victim alive was PC for his phone
Defendant was sexually involved with the victim, and he apparently was the last person to see her alive, and had contact with her after she disappeared. That was probable cause. State v. Johnson, 2026 Conn. LEXIS 19 (Feb. 3, 2026). … Continue reading
CA5: Cardiac arrest during police training wasn’t a 4A seizure
“Appellant Brittney Kennedy appeals the dismissal of constitutional claims she brought on behalf of her deceased husband, Marquis Kennedy, who suffered a cardiac arrest after a self-defense simulation for police-cadet training. She claims the district court erred by concluding that … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Flight after police came after def was not quite Wardlaw’s “headlong flight”
Being in a high crime area means less when defendant is doing nothing wrong. Defendant didn’t run away from officers until they came after him. It’s kind of provoked flight, not Wardlow’s “headlong flight.” On the totality, there was no … Continue reading
CA11: The general 48-hour rule for first appearances doesn’t apply to non-citizens arrested at sea
The general 48-hour rule for first appearances doesn’t apply to non-citizens arrested at sea. United States v. Dominguez, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 3529 (11th Cir. Feb. 4, 2026). “Because the 911 caller’s information did not describe conduct that was obviously … Continue reading
ID: There is no legal privilege in pharmacy records
There is no legal privilege in pharmacy records. Pharmacists are independent actors in the medical field. The trial court erred in granting a motion in limine. Just because a psychotherapist prescribed a drug isn’t privileged. State v. Borek, 2026 Ida. … Continue reading
N.Y.Co.: Installing software on a cell phone to protect its data before search wasn’t unreasonable
“The Court is further unpersuaded by the Defendant’s assertion that the installation of software, aimed at preserving evidence rather than conducting a search, on the Defendant’s cellphone was an improper or unconstitutional intrusion. The manner in which law enforcement handled … Continue reading
MT: When officers lawfully get ID, they can run it
Running defendant’s name after lawfully asking for ID led to a warrant, and it was all reasonable. State v. Fish, 2026 MT 12 (Feb. 3, 2026)*: At no point during his interaction with Fish did Deputy Kammerzell breach the Fourth … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Alleged sexual assault during citizen ride along stated 4A claim
Alleged sexual assault during a citizen ride along in a police car stated a Fourth Amendment claim. Hess v. Garcia, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22018 (N.D. Ind. Feb. 3, 2026). “Based on our precedent involving the use of pepper spray, … Continue reading
GA: Visitor has no REP in common areas of host’s home
The MV’s grandmother suspected defendant was molesting her granddaughter. She placed a video camera in the living room. It was obvious with a red light on it, and there was a sign that a camera was in use. He moved … Continue reading
CNS: House Democrats demand DHS scrap memo allowing warrantless entry of homes
CNS: House Democrats demand DHS scrap memo allowing warrantless entry of homes by Benjamin S. Weiss (“House Democrats demanded the Department of Homeland Security rescind a controversial directive allowing federal immigration agents to forcibly enter people’s homes without a signed … Continue reading
ID: Potential for destruction of evidence on cell phone was justification for its seizure
Defendant was reported for video voyeurism of his stepdaughter in the bathroom, and police got his phone, telling him they were seizing it. Then they got a warrant. The potential for destruction of evidence was sufficient justification for a warrantless … Continue reading