Archives
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Recent Posts
- C.D.Cal.: A Gerstein/McLaughlin violation for delayed first appearance requires a showing of prejudice
- CA11: Franks motion properly denied for lack of an offer of proof
- 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
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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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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)
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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
DE: Wiretap info in affidavit for SW showed nexus to cell phone
The affidavit showed probable cause for the search warrant, and nexus to his cell phone and the crime under investigation is shown in a wiretap. Anderson v. State, 2021 Del. LEXIS 121 (Mar. 30, 2021).* Defendant did not show a … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Summons to appear is not a 4A seizure
A summons to appear is not a seizure. Jianjun Li v. Village of Saddle Rock, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60705 (E.D. N.Y. Mar. 30, 2021). New York statute that special prosecutors have to give notice to elected DAs about, inter … Continue reading
OH10: Citizen informant’s complaint of def flashing gun from car justifies frisk of person and car
A citizen informant’s complaint defendant flashed a gun was justification for both a patdown and a protective weapons search of his car. State v. Shalash, 2021-Ohio-1034, 2021 Ohio App. LEXIS 1043 (10th Dist. Mar. 30, 2021). Calling for a drug … Continue reading
ID: Hot pursuit to execute an arrest warrant with entry is reasonable
Hot or “fresh pursuit” to execute an arrest warrant with entry is reasonable. State v. Clark, 2021 Ida. LEXIS 55 (Mar. 30, 2021):
D.D.C.: Requirement of a medical exam to determine if a firefighter can return to duty isn’t 4A violation
“McCrea claims that Defendants violated her Fourth Amendment right to privacy by ordering her to undergo psychological assessments that went beyond the essential functions of her job as a firefighter. … The Fourth Amendment protects an individual’s ‘reasonable expectation of … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: No REP in medical questioning in jail
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy against medical questioning in a jail. Jones v. Quinones, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 59654 (S.D. N.Y. Mar. 26, 2021). The search warrants for a business that was searched by ICE remain under seal. … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Calling def to scene of SW execution does not permit search of def’s phone in SW for house
Defendant came to meet the police at their request after talking to them on his cell phone. They had probable cause to believe that the phone had evidence on it. Since he came in without the phone on him, it … Continue reading
NPR: When It Comes To Email, Some Prisoners Say Attorney-Client Privilege Has Been Erased
NPR: When It Comes To Email, Some Prisoners Say Attorney-Client Privilege Has Been Erased by Carrie Johnson:
W.D.Va.: Def’s supervised release terms informed his lack of standing in someone else’s place
Defendant’s supervised release terms helped determine his lack of standing in the place searched. “Under the totality of these circumstances, the court finds that Howard does not have standing to contest the search of Morris’s home and the subsequent seizure … Continue reading
N.-M.: Cell phone can’t be searched when it was directed to be brought to the place of SW execution
Having one’s cell phone on his person and being directed to come to the scene of the search under a military search authorization [equivalent to a search warrant] does not permit search and seizure of the phone under Summers and … Continue reading
NYT: If You Care About Privacy, It’s Time to Try a New Web Browser
NYT: If You Care About Privacy, It’s Time to Try a New Web Browser by Brian X. Chen (“A new crop of internet browsers from Brave, DuckDuckGo and others offer stronger privacy protections than what you might be used to.”) … Continue reading
CA5: Ptf’s § 1983 case over his search implies invalidity of the conviction, and it’s barred by Heck
Plaintiff’s § 1983 case against his search and seizure implies invalidity of the conviction, and it’s barred by Heck. VanBuren v. Walker, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 9115 (5th Cir. Mar. 29, 2021). “As to Hoffert’s remaining claim for violation of … Continue reading
CA2: Slamming head of nonresisting arrestee excessive
The district court erred in entering summary judgment for officers in an excessive force claim. It was clearly established that slamming an unresisting detainee’s head into a car doorframe was excessive. Ketcham v. City of Mt. Vernon, 2021 U.S. App. … Continue reading
DE: Defense counsel’s letter to client why 4A claim would fail shows def would never prevail
“Turning to Stokes’ claim that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to investigate his case and make various arguments on his behalf, the record refutes this claim. First, it is clear that trial counsel carefully considered filing a motion to … Continue reading
TX5: Lack of a timely return doesn’t warrant suppression despite mandatory language of statute
A lack of return isn’t a basis for suppression. “Although the requirements set forth in this provision of the code of criminal procedure appears to be mandatory, courts have consistently held that ministerial violations of the search warrant statutes do … Continue reading
DE: Trash container at street was not on curtilage
Defendant’s trash container at the foot of his driveway awaiting pickup was not on the curtilage. Moreover, he had no reasonable expectation of privacy in it sitting there. State v. Peart, 2021 Del. Super. LEXIS 243 (Mar. 25, 2021). Rooker-Feldman … Continue reading
KY: State failed to call witnesses to show RS for extending stop for drug dog
The state failed to prove its reasonable suspicion for extending the stop. The officer alone detaining at the scene for the drug dog didn’t have the evidence. Giles v. Commonwealth, 2021 Ky. App. LEXIS 45 (Mar. 26, 2021):
VICE: How Musicians and Sex Workers Beat Facial Recognition in New Orleans
VICE: How Musicians and Sex Workers Beat Facial Recognition in New Orleans by Carolina Sinders (“A grassroots coalition of Black youth, sex workers, and community advocates stood against the surveillance state—and won.”)
ScotusBlog: “Possible cause”: Court seems poised to allow warrantless community caretaking entries into the home
ScotusBlog: “Possible cause”: Court seems poised to allow warrantless community caretaking entries into the home by Lenese Herbert:
CT: Both halves of a duplex can’t be searched under a warrant for one
A search of both halves of a duplex under a search warrant for one was unreasonable and had to be suppressed. State v. Lyons, 2021 Conn. App. LEXIS 100 (Mar. 30, 2021). Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not challenging the … Continue reading