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- 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
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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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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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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
S.D.Miss.: Evanescent nature of evidence of sex crime justified warrantless entry to hotel room
A rape report and the potential evanescent nature of the evidence justified a warrantless entry into defendant’s hotel room. He also was on probation. United States v. Jones, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 43102 (S.D. Miss. Mar. 3, 2026):
404 Media: CBP Tapped Into the Online Advertising Ecosystem To Track Peoples’ Movements
404 Media: CBP Tapped Into the Online Advertising Ecosystem To Track Peoples’ Movements by Joseph Cox (“An internal DHS document obtained by 404 Media shows for the first time CBP used location data sourced from the online advertising industry to … Continue reading
TN: Failure to allege what should have been suppressed defeats IAC claim
Failure to allege what should have been suppressed if a motion to suppress had been filed is fatal to an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Coyne v. State, 2026 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 104 (Mar. 3, 2026). Qualified immunity denied: … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Younger doctrine didn’t apply when plaintiff’s criminal case was over
Younger doctrine didn’t apply when plaintiff’s criminal case was over. Harris v. Trent, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42416 (W.D. Pa. Mar. 2, 2026). “Here, assuming the factual disputes in Franke’s favor, the relevant question is whether it was clearly established … Continue reading
W.D.Ark.: Exclusionary rule doesn’t apply to sentencing
The exclusionary rule doesn’t apply to sentencing. Owen v. United States, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42184 (W.D. Ark. Jan. 20, 2026) (recognizing rule). The officer here blocked defendant’s parked car while he was in it, so that was a stop. … Continue reading
Va.L.Rev.: Fourth Amendment Trespass and Internet Search History
Alec J.H. Block & Joseph W. Paul, Fourth Amendment Trespass and Internet Search History,111 Va. L. Rev. Online 188 (2025). Abstract:
The automobile exception is 101 today
See the 100th Anniversary post.
CNS: California drivers accuse Flock Safety of sharing data with federal and out-of-state agencies
CNS: California drivers accuse Flock Safety of sharing data with federal and out-of-state agencies by Edvard Pettersson (“Even after Flock removed California law enforcement agencies from its National Lookup service last year, unauthorized access to the agencies’ databases has continued, … Continue reading
CA10: RS didn’t dissipate during wait for drug dog
Reasonable suspicion here once developed didn’t dissipate before the 20-30 minute wait for the drug dog. United States v. Labs, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 5789 (10th Cir. Feb. 27, 2026). By statute, “[t]he evidence admissible for meeting the State’s burden … Continue reading
W.D.Wash.: Habeas not remedy for immigration arrest without PC
Even if an immigration arrest lacked probable cause, habeas isn’t the remedy. Reyes v. Hermosilla, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41279 (W.D. Wash. Jan. 15, 2026)*:
E.D.Cal.: Excessive damage in executing writ of possession can state claim
Excessive damage in executing a writ of possession can state a Fourth Amendment claim. Dayton v. Fairfield Mobile Home, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41228 (E.D. Cal. Feb. 26, 2026). Vehicle finance company’s Fourth Amendment claim against the village’s retention of … Continue reading
IL: Searching wallet in Terry frisk for weapons was unreasonable
Even assuming the frisk was for weapons, as the officer stated on the bodycam video, the search of defendant’s wallet exceeded the scope of a Terry frisk. People v. Molitor, 2026 IL App (2d) 240644, 2026 Ill. App. LEXIS 65 … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Preliminary injunction granted against immigration arrests under 8 U.S.C. § 1159(a) because they violate 4A
Preliminary injunction granted against immigration arrests under 8 U.S.C. § 1159(a) because they violate the Fourth Amendment. U.H.A. v. Bondi, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40545 (D. Minn. Feb. 27, 2026)*:
TN: Three controlled buys in three days is PC
Three controlled buys three days in a row was probable cause for a warrant for defendant’s house. State v. White, 2026 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 95 (Feb. 27, 2026).* “Here, a review of the affidavit demonstrates that it does contain … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Suit over search in pending criminal case barred by Heck
Plaintiff’s first Fourth Amendment claim failed under Heck. He amended the complaint and still doesn’t overcome it. His claim of failure to train in serving search warrants is conclusory and doesn’t state a claim either. Flores v. Wood, 2026 U.S. … Continue reading
CA11: 4A doesn’t require “in the presence of the officer” for misdemeanor arrest
While Georgia law requires a misdemeanor offense be in the presence of the officer, the Fourth Amendment does not. The arrest was constitutionally valid. Middlebrooks v. Kasmar, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 5855 (11th Cir. Feb. 27, 2026). There was information … Continue reading
NH: Trial court didn’t err in allowing officer to testify to what geolocation information meant here: def was in victim’s house
The victim found an intruder in his home, and called the police. The intruder got away. The police sought geolocation information from Google on all phones at the house, and defendant’s phone came up. The officer called defendant. This was … Continue reading
TX14: No REP in electronic monitoring while on pretrial release
Defendant on electronic monitoring as a bond condition has no reasonable expectation of privacy in the GPS information. Hawkins v. State, 2026 Tex. App. LEXIS 1874 (Tex. App. – Houston (14th Dist.) Feb. 26, 2026) (substituted opinion on rehearing), UPDATE: … Continue reading