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 -
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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)
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
N.D.Okla.: Cross designated tribal officer could obtain state SW then used in federal court
A Cherokee Nation officer was cross-deputized to act for the “City of Tulsa, the State of Oklahoma, the United States, and the Cherokee Nation.” “Second, the Supreme Court has found that reviewing courts should give ‘great deference’ to a magistrate’s … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: PC in the affidavit was lacking, even with its detail; no GFE either
The affidavit for the search warrant for defendant’s place lacked probable cause. “As the affidavit did not establish probable cause as to forgery or possession of stolen property, and the government conceded there was not probable cause to support the … Continue reading
CA7: Merely knocking on the door to def’s motel room and him answering isn’t a seizure
Merely knocking on the door to defendant’s motel room and him answering isn’t a seizure. Moreover, showing him an arrest warrant for 15-20 seconds was not a seizure (but he didn’t even adequately brief it). He then consented to entry … Continue reading
CA6: Arguable PC defeats false arrest claim
Plaintiff is a police officer who was apparently drunk in the Detroit airport after returning to Michigan with his children for Thanksgiving weekend. He ended up being arrested and sued. He understood he was impaired and was going to have … Continue reading
CA8: Even if airport search was unreasonable, affidavit for SW had independent PC
Defendant passed through the Little Rock airport TSA checkpoint, and an “organic mass” was seen in the x-ray and that resulted in opening his luggage finding $112,000. That led to the police being called over, too. Further investigation resulted in … Continue reading
MA: Late disclosure of product of search wasn’t exculpatory so no prejudice
Defendant sought in discovery the call log from the search of his cell phone. The state didn’t provide it timely. It was not exculpatory in trial counsel’s view because it contradicted the defense witnesses and whatever defense they had for … Continue reading
NY1: Where seized evidence wasn’t used at trial, it’s moot
Defendant’s Fourth Amendment argument on appeal is moot. The evidence he complains was wrongly seized wasn’t used at trial. People v. Gordon, 2022 NY Slip Op 00055, 2022 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 63 (1st Dept. Jan. 6, 2022). The omitted … Continue reading
CA9: It is clearly established that using “intermediate force” against a nonresisting arrestee is unreasonable
It was clearly established that using “intermediate force” against a nonresisting arrestee is unreasonable. “To be clear, we are generally loath to second-guess law enforcement officers’ actions in a dangerous situation by analyzing each act without looking at the entire … Continue reading
CA8: “Delay in searching a phone is immaterial to the reasonableness of a seizure, however, when the device has independent evidentiary value.”
Defendant went through airport security in Long Beach with a gun in a bag. A further stop and search of him found seven cell phones. They were ultimately searched with a warrant finding text messages detailing drug deals. The delay … Continue reading
The Crime Report: ‘Search Warrants Rot Law Enforcement’: Paper
The Crime Report: ‘Search Warrants Rot Law Enforcement’: Paper by Andrea Cipriano:
TX8: Purely private search of cell phone not suppressed under art. 38.23(a)
The purely private search of defendant’s cell phone finding child pornography that was reported to police was not subject to exclusion under Texas’s art. 38.23(a). If a laptop search is not subject to exclusion, neither is a cell phone. Horne … Continue reading
MT: Lawyer suspended for telling client to refuse to cooperate in execution of a SW
A lawyer telling his girlfriend-client to refuse to cooperate in DUI blood draw by search warrant is suspended for 30 days. Multiple officers were ultimately involved with a restraint chair brought in before she relented. The lawyer was also convicted … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Not IAC to not raise every suppression issue def wants
Defense counsel had the discretion not to make every argument defendant wanted on a suppression motion. “It is well within counsel’s constitutional discretion to make the decision to raise or not raise certain arguments at a suppression hearing. That counsel … Continue reading
D.Del.: The traffic stop question is only reasonableness, not whether state law was violated
One officer stopped defendant at the request of another. Defendant challenges its basis. “The question here is not whether the stop was authorized by [state law]. The question is rather whether the car stop was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” … Continue reading
CA6: Torres v. Madrid not a new constitutional rule for successor habeas
Torres v. Madrid did not announce a new constitutional rule for an ineffective assistance of counsel claim in a successor habeas. In re Foster, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 141 (6th Cir. Jan. 3, 2022). “Considering that reasonable suspicion ‘is not, … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Stopping work on the traffic ticket when the drug dog arrived resulted in lengthening the detention without RS
“Officer Allen admits that he was not printing the police department’s copy of the first citation or processing the second citation during the drug sniff. Rather, he completely stopped his traffic-related mission as soon as Officer Wiebe arrived and worked … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Garnishment of wages is not a 4A seizure
Garnishment of wages is not a Fourth Amendment seizure. Williams v. Drakaina Logistics, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 248750 (E.D.Cal. Dec. 30, 2021). Defendant’s property was seized on exigency after an apparent crime, and seizure was required to prevent destruction. United … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Officers’ versions of arrest and search show two valid versions of why it was valid
The two officers involved in defendant’s stop and search of his person and car had somewhat different versions of what happened. Under either, the search of his person and car were both reasonable. Defendant had no DL which was an … Continue reading
GA: REP in apartment hallway outside door
Applying Dunn to defendant’s apartment hallway curtilage, defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy at his apartment door. There was a locked gate to enter the area that the police somehow bypassed to get in for a dog sniff. State … Continue reading
TN: Where car was abandoned, there were no reasonable alternatives to impoundment available to the police
Tennessee recognizes that impoundment and inventory can be avoided if there are reasonable alternatives to it at the time. Here, defendant’s car was abandoned on the road and, when they arrived, it was in the process of being towed and … Continue reading