Archives
-
Recent Posts
- CA10: Investigative detention that went on for hours did not become an arrest
- OH8: Inventory saved search that lacked PC or RS
- WV: Whether picking up firearm to note SN was search under Hicks is moot here
- CA2: Collective knowledge doctrine doesn’t require stopping officer to know the reason if the one requesting it had it
- E.D.Mich.: Firearm seen during traffic stop justified extending detention
-
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
CA6: PO’s information that def was probably at a house was enough to arrest him there on a warrant
Information from his PO justified defendant’s arrest on a warrant at his brother’s place. He’d been arrested there before, and he was seen there. Officers did not need to exclude other possible places he should have been first. United States … Continue reading
NYCo.: Arrests can’t be suppressed
“Defendant was charged with committing specific acts of violence against an identifiable person, who reported the incident. An arrest itself cannot be suppressed as fruit of the poisonous tree, and defendant himself was not a suppressible fruit. Nor was he … Continue reading
CA8: Police with arrest warrant could enter third-party premises to arrest defendant
Police with a warrant for defendant could enter a third party’s premises to arrest him on probable cause that he was present. Under Steagald, defendant had no more reasonable expectation of privacy in the third party’s premises than the owner … Continue reading
What happens when Flock ALPRs misread an LPN?
Arkansas police drew guns on a family, then blamed a license plate frame.
D.Neb.: Just because the state seizes a cell phone doesn’t mean they know the Brady implications of the contents
Just because the state seizes a cell phone doesn’t mean they know the Brady implications of the contents. Moss v. Jeffreys, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45716 (D. Neb. Mar. 4, 2026) (§ 60.58 n.2) 2255 petitioner’s claim that defense counsel … Continue reading
Two on qualified immunity
“The Anders point to no case holding that officers violated the Fourth Amendment in the process of levying property pursuant to a valid writ of execution. ‘For search and seizure claims, the Supreme Court has cautioned that “courts should define … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: RS and PC for stop and then search, so justification for drug dog is irrelevant
Based on two bases of collective knowledge, the officer had justification for a stop and a search, so the justification for the drug dog isn’t even relevant. United States v. Carter, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45275 (N.D. Iowa Mar. 5, … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: Alleged perjury at state suppression hearing doesn’t overcome Stone bar
2254 petitioner’s claim the officer perjured himself during his suppression hearing doesn’t overcome the Stone bar. Soliven v. Thornell, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45209 (D. Ariz. Mar. 5, 2026). 2254 petitioner’s effort to include an “inadvertently omitted” Fourth Amendment claim … Continue reading
D.Md.: Claim for “constructive seizure” fails
Plaintiff doesn’t state a claim for a “constructive seizure” by telling someone else of a warrant being out. Gladden v. Bd. of Educ. of Harford Cty., 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45075 (D. Md. Mar. 5, 2026).* Defendant’s ineffective assistance of … Continue reading
Reason: Controversial Geofence Warrants Face Supreme Court Challenge
Reason: Controversial Geofence Warrants Face Supreme Court Challenge by J.D. Tuccille (“It sometimes seems technology provides a moving target for the Fourth Amendment, evolving new means of snooping on people while courts struggle to keep up. That’s the case with … Continue reading
NJ: Alleged mistaken year in SW affidavit not a mere typo that can be overlooked
The mistaken year here was no mere typo that can be overlooked. It was repeated three times, and it made the probable cause showing stale. State v. Harris, 2026 N.J. Super. LEXIS 35 (Mar. 5, 2026):
CA10: Def’s mid-trial motion to suppress can’t be justified and was waiver
Defendant’s mid-trial motion to suppress can’t be justified and was waiver. United States v. Cooks, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 6547 (10th Cir. Mar. 5, 2026). Defendant’s post-verdict motion for judgment of acquittal alleging conclusory violations of the Fourth and Fifth … Continue reading
CA8: Crowd dispersal was not a seizure
Police actions in dispersing a crowd were not a seizure, even using less than lethal force. Perkins v. City of Des Moines, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 6528 (8th Cir. Mar. 5, 2026).* CBP officer’s conviction for excessive force on a … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Def arrested away from his motorcycle couldn’t have his attached backpack inventoried
Defendant was on the patio of a bar drinking a beer, and his motorcycle was 50-100′ away with his backpack on it. He was arrested, and he’d arranged for others to take his motorcycle. The backpack was seized and searched. … Continue reading
ABAJ: Surveillance footage enters slapstick comedy TV genre, and that could be dangerous, lawyer says
ABAJ: Surveillance footage enters slapstick comedy TV genre, and that could be dangerous, lawyer says by Adam Banner. About halfway in:
S.D.Ohio: Two on Stone
“Because Stone v. Powell prohibits this Court’s consideration of Petitioner’s Fourth Amendment claim, the Magistrate Judge’s denial of expansion of the record to include the dash cam footage is affirmed because consideration of that footage is prohibited by Stone. The … Continue reading
AR overrules state constitution’s pretextual arrest case from 2002; reasonableness is the key
Arkansas overrules State v. Sullivan, 348 Ark. 647, 74 S.W.3d 215 (2002), which held that a pretextual arrest violated the state constitution, holding this time that Fourth Amendment reasonableness should control. Gamble v. State, 2026 Ark. 44 (Mar. 5, 2026) … Continue reading
CA5: Driver’s lie about having a gun on him justified a frisk of the passenger, too
Driver’s lie about having a gun on him justified a frisk of the passenger, too; Ybarra distinguished. United States v. Ducksworth, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 6255 (5th Cir. Mar. 3, 2026):
M.D.Ala: Man with gun and body armor created exigency for warrantless entry
The suspect here was armed and wearing body armor, and there was clear exigency fully coalescing in the last 25 minutes. That justified an exigency based entry. The fact it turned out to be wrong doesn’t matter. United States v. … Continue reading