Archives
-
Recent Posts
- Cal.L.Rev.: Your Robotaxi Is Watching You. Does the Fourth Amendment Care?
- 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
-
Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
-
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
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
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)
-
“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.Conn.: Handcuffing a concealed carry permit holder was without RS and unreasonable
“In light of the uncontested fact that Plaintiff presented his pistol permit to Defendant before or at the time he disclosed that he was in possession of a pistol and the absence of any other indicia that Plaintiff was otherwise … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Particularity in social media SWs is still evolving, and reliance on SW here was reasonable
Here, a Facebook warrant that allegedly lacked particularity was still close enough for the good faith exception. The law of particularity in social media warrants is still evolving, and it was reasonable for the officer to rely on the issuing … Continue reading
CA1: Collective knowledge isn’t required of all officers, just those involved
Collective knowledge is not required of all the officers involved in the case, just the one with knowledge telling the one making the stop. Here there was reasonable suspicion for the stop. United States v. Cruz-Rivera, 19-1465 & 19-1509 (1st … Continue reading
CA3: Carpenter just doesn’t apply to jail call recordings
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in jail calls admitted to prove a conspiracy, and Carpenter doesn’t apply. “While we need not decide how far Carpenter extends to other technologies, it does not apply to prison phone calls. Unlike … Continue reading
CA1: Exigencies of dealing with a DUI crash and death made it reasonable to dispense with SW for BAC
Defendant was charged with DUI deaths in a national park. The exigencies of dealing with the crash and its aftermath justified the delay in BAC testing and getting it without a warrant. United States v. Manubolu, 20-1871 (1st Cir. Sept. … Continue reading
Bloomberg: Robbery Poses Legal Test for Police Use of Google Location Data
Bloomberg: Robbery Poses Legal Test for Police Use of Google Location Data by Andrea Vittorio:
CA9: Dismissal of indictment for 4A extremely rare remedy; here, district court suppressed
Dismissal of the indictment for violations of the Fourth Amendment are strongly disfavored. Here, the district court suppressed the search, and the government dismissed counts. That’s remedy enough. United States v. Cano, 19-50240 (9th Cir. Aug. 31, 2021). Where the … Continue reading
OH12: Second patdown in crotch area by male officer wasn’t unreasonable
A female officer patted this male defendant down, but she did not go around the crotch area. For officer safety, a male officer followed up and did. This was reasonable, and the contraband was found by plain feel. State v. … Continue reading
Ocala Post: Biden wants IRS to snoop into your bank account, know when you have $600 or more; some bankers say it violates the 4A (but it doesn’t)
Ocala Post: Biden wants IRS to snoop into your bank account, know when you have $600 or more (“Outraged citizens and banks alike want to know why President Joe Biden plans to allow the IRS to snoop into bank accounts, … Continue reading
CO: Warrantless three month pole camera surveillance violated 4A
Warrantless three month pole camera surveillance violated the Fourth Amendment. People v. Tafoya, 2021 CO 62, 2021 Colo. LEXIS 882 (Sept. 13, 2021):
NY Times: How the N.Y.P.D. Is Using Post-9/11 Tools on Everyday New Yorkers
NY Times: How the N.Y.P.D. Is Using Post-9/11 Tools on Everyday New Yorkers by Ali Watkins (“Two decades after the attack on New York City, the Police Department is using counterterrorism tools and tactics to combat routine street crime.”)
NY Times: If the Police Lie, Should They Be Held Liable? Often the Answer Is No.
NY Times: If the Police Lie, Should They Be Held Liable? Often the Answer Is No. by Shaila Dewan (“Federal agents and police officers who work with them are often immune from lawsuits, even for serious rights violations. The Supreme … Continue reading
NY Times: Hear That? It’s Your Voice Being Taken for Profit.
NY Times: Hear That? It’s Your Voice Being Taken for Profit. by Joseph Turow (“Based on voice signatures, patented Google circuitry infers gender and age. A parent can program the system to turn electronic devices on or off as a … Continue reading
CA11: Officer’s interpretation of obstructed LPN statute was objectively reasonable under Heien
Defendant’s argument that an Alabama statute on obstructed license plates could not apply to nonresident license plates was subject to reasonable mistake of fact or law under Heien. United States v. Braddy, 19-12823 (11th Cir. Aug. 31, 2021). The Los … Continue reading
CA11: Ga. Ct. App. case on point not “clearly established law”
“Orr argues, nevertheless, that it was clearly established that the Deputies could not search him and seize his property pursuant to the order, citing State v. Burgess, 826 S.E.2d 352 (Ga. App. 2019). We disagree. For starters, Burgess is an … Continue reading
CA8: Usually no REP in car carried by car hauler even to owner, and here there was nothing showing REP
“During a safety inspection of a semi transporting three vehicles, an officer found about 40 pounds of meth in a Ford Explorer. Sierra-Serrano wants to suppress those drugs, arguing that the search violated the Fourth Amendment. But because Sierra did … Continue reading
CA11: Two on deadly force in shooting at cars: one reasonable, one a fact dispute
Officer shooting at a car driving toward him acted reasonably. “Officer Brown reasonably perceived that his life was in danger when the Pontiac shifted into reverse. Redwine had led the police on a high-speed chase through commercial and residential areas … Continue reading
CA6: Arrest was reasonable based on reasonable mistake of law or fact
The officers here had a reasonable basis for arresting plaintiff for obstruction of an officer, whether it was based on a reasonable mistake of fact or of law. And that plays into qualified immunity. Barrera v. City of Mount Pleasant, … Continue reading
AL: Suspicious noises inside from knock-and-talk was exigency
Police knock and talk led to them hearing noises of someone rushing around inside. They could also smell marijuana from outside, and they had information of buys from inside the house. Exigency established. Hall v. State, CR-20-0394 (Ala. Crim. App. … Continue reading