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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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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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
OH8: Traffic offense overcomes pretext claim
An actual traffic offense overcomes defense claims the stop was actually a motive for searching for drugs. Defendant didn’t produce current proof of insurance, and that led to extension of the stop. The officer wasn’t just obliged to have noted … Continue reading
MD: RS on totality is way less than preponderance or prima facie case
Proof of the totality of circumstances of reasonable suspicion is less than a preponderance of the evidence or even a prima facie case. It depends a lot on “those who can read between the lines,” the investigating officers. Freeman v. … Continue reading
CA9: ICE warrant authorized knocking at appellant’s door, and co-occupant consented to entry
ICE officers could approach appellant’s door under Jardines with an immigration arrest warrant even though it is not a judicial warrant. “The immigration warrant licensed the officers to solicit consent to entry for the limited purpose of enforcing the civil … Continue reading
CA6: Search issue not decided because it’s harmless in light of other proof
While the suppression motion as to admissibility of seized cash probably should have been granted, it was harmless error in light of the proof of possession of heroin. United States v. Morton, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 2404 (6th Cir. Jan. … Continue reading
WA: Raiding wrong house stated claim under state tort of negligent law enforcement
Police raided the wrong house based on an uncorroborated CI. Under Washington’s tort of negligent law enforcement, plaintiff was awared $250,000 by the jury. Affirmed: “we hold that police executing a search warrant owe the same duty of reasonable care … Continue reading
CO: Officer executing SW on Dropbox can authenticate the production at trial
When a search warrant is executed on a Dropbox account, the seizing officer’s knowledge of the seizure can authenticate the production. People v. Abad, 2021 COA 6, 2021 Colo. App. LEXIS 89 (Jan. 28, 2021). Franks offer fails: “The facts … Continue reading
CA9: Passenger also shot in effort to stop vehicle was seized under 4A; SJ denied on reasonableness of force
A vehicle passenger who was not intentionally targeted by the officers had a cognizable Fourth Amendment interest under Brower v. County of Inyo and Brendlin v. California. His freedom of movement was terminated when the officers intentionally shot at the … Continue reading
The Intercept: How The LAPD And Palantir Use Data To Justify Racist Policing
The Intercept: How The LAPD And Palantir Use Data To Justify Racist Policing by Mara Hvistendahl (“In a new book, a sociologist who spent months embedded with the LAPD details how data-driven policing techwashes bias.”)
CA8: Officer wins two § 1983 cases in same day from E.D. Mo., Cape Girardeau
The officer had cause for defendant’s stop for a broken taillight and then found a warrant for his arrest. “Wood also alleges that after the fact, Wooten fabricated evidence about the arrest (and then invoked his Fifth Amendment right about … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: PC a close call, so GFE applies
“Ultimately, the Court need not decide which side of the Ramirez-Merriweather line [of probable cause] this case falls. It suffices to say that, especially because the search warrant affidavit makes no mention of any communications involving Jackson’s cell phone, it … Continue reading
M.D.La.: Driveway here was not Curtilage “intimately tied to the home”
Defendant’s driveway was not Curtilage “intimately tied to the home.” United States v. Martinez-Velazquez, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15723 (M.D. La. Jan. 28, 2021):
M.D.Tenn.: SW affiants should err on side of more information, not less
“[T]he warrant affidavit established probable cause to search the Residence, based on a combination of the smell of marijuana emanating from the Residence and the marijuana stem recovered in the trash pull. The affidavit reveals that three different MNPD officers … Continue reading
CA1: Defense must argue cost v. benefits of exclusionary rule or issue is likely waived
When invoking the exclusionary rule, the defendant necessarily has to show that the deterrence value of exclusion outweighs the costs of exclusion. United States v. Cruz-Ramos, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 2284 (1st Cir. Jan. 27, 2021), n. 9:
E.D.Wis.: No REP as to pole camera surveillance, one in an apt building hallway
Two surveillance cameras were installed; one on a pole, one in a hallway of an apartment building. Defendant, a visitor, had no reasonable expectation of privacy. A codefendant already litigated this motion and lost, and he should have acknowledged the … Continue reading
Pre-Carpenter CSLI was in good faith
The CSLI order here pre-dated Carpenter, and it was based on probable cause. Since Carpenter wasn’t retroactive, the motion to suppress is denied. United States v. Stamat, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14268 (D.Minn. Jan. 26, 2021).* Defendant’s CSLI was obtained … Continue reading
AR: Adding to PC argument on appeal wasn’t preserved
Defendant’s specific argument on appeal about the lack of probable cause was not presented to the trial court, so it’s not preserved for appeal. In a Franks part of the motion, the affidavit has to be read as a whole, … Continue reading
CA4: Not every fact an affiant knows needs to go in a SW affidavit for Franks
The omission of some facts didn’t make out a Franks violation. Affiants for search warrants are not required to itemize every fact they know and omission of some, the nonmaterial, doesn’t make out a Franks violation nor undermine the probable … Continue reading
ABAJ: Immigration lawyer sues over seizure of his cellphone at airport
ABAJ: Immigration lawyer sues over seizure of his cellphone at airport by Debra Cassens Weiss (“Texas immigration lawyer Adam A. Malik has sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for seizing and retaining his iPhone when he returned to the … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Seeking “four corners review” of affidavit for SW isn’t a proper motion to suppress
A generalized motion to suppress merely seeking “four corners review” of probable cause is insufficient. “Defendant’s failure to specify the basis for his suppression motion and provide any argument in support thereof warrants denial alone.” “Defendant’s motion also fails because … Continue reading