Archives
-
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
-
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
CA9: Bulge in clothing from a firearm justifies a stop-and-frisk in California
A bulge that appears to be a firearm justifies a stop-and-frisk in jurisdictions where concealing a weapon is presumptively a crime, here, California. United States v. Bontemps, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 32227 (9th Cir. Oct. 13, 2020):
MT: Private actor recording conversation on own didn’t violate state constitution
The Montana Constitution’s more “robust protection from government intrusions” still only protects against state action. A private actor recording a conversation without impetus from the state was not unreasonable. State v. Wolfe, 2020 MT 260, 2020 Mont. LEXIS 2436 (Oct. … Continue reading
VA: Knock-and-talk is still a valid exception for entry onto the curtilage
While entry into the curtilage is presumptively unreasonable without a warrant, Collins v. Virginia, 138 S. Ct. 1663, 1670 (2018), there is still implied license for police to enter for a knock-and-talk. Saal v. Commonwealth, 2020 Va. App. LEXIS 241 … Continue reading
CA2: CIs don’t need “a track record of reliability” when shown otherwise reliable
The CI was described in the affidavit for the warrant as “reliable,” but didn’t elaborate. “Circuit precedent does not require informants to have a track record of reliability. … Here, where the informant testified under oath before the issuing judge … Continue reading
D.C.Cir.: Alleged seizure of open fields not a 4A claim, but it is a 5A claim
The North American Butterfly Association sued the federal government over a part of the Mexican border wall on their butterfly preserve being Fourth and Fifth Amendment claims. Their Fourth Amendment claim is dismissed because it involves alleged seizure of open … Continue reading
SCOTUS: Torres v. Madrid argued today
Torres v. Madrid, 19-292: Issue: Whether an unsuccessful attempt to detain a suspect by use of physical force is a “seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 8th, 9th and 11th … Continue reading
The Intercept: Stop-and-frisk Never Really Ended. Now It’s Gone Digital.
The Intercept: Stop-and-frisk Never Really Ended. Now It’s Gone Digital. by Alice Speri (“A federal class-action lawsuit accuses New York police of unconstitutionally detaining people in order to run their IDs.”) If the stop has to be based on reasonable … Continue reading
AF: Franks violation led to exclusion
Defendant showed a Franks violation for a reckless statement for a search authorization of his room for marijuana. Balancing the interests, the exclusionary rule would be applied. United States v. Hernandez, 2020 CCA LEXIS 362 (A.F. Ct. Crim. App. Oct. … Continue reading
FL4: SW of def’s cell phone authenticated text messages
After a search warrant produced defendant’s text messages, the state was able to authenticate them by the phone. State v. Torres, 2020 Fla. App. LEXIS 14356 (Fla. 4th DCA Oct. 7, 2020). “In addition, ‘[d]uring a valid traffic stop, officers … Continue reading
CA9: No standing to sue to enjoin future border searches of cell phones
Plaintiff cannot obtain prospective injunctive relief against future border cell phone searches because he lacks standing for future searches. As to past searches, he cannot obtain injunctive relief after suing under the FTCA. “Under FTCA’s judgment bar, ‘once a plaintiff … Continue reading
KS: Legality of a stop may be pursued before DMV in a DL suspension
The legality of a stop may be pursued before DMV in a DL suspension. Jarvis v. Kan. Dep’t of Revenue, 2020 Kan. LEXIS 97 (Oct. 9, 2020). The trial court barred relitigating defendant’s Fourth Amendment claim on collateral estoppel grounds. … Continue reading
KY: Affidavit for the SW limited the breadth of cell phone warrant
While the search warrant for defendant’s cell phone was arguably overbroad and not well drafted, it was limited by the affidavit in support as to the specific things to be sought. Tucker v. Commonwealth, 2020 Ky. App. LEXIS 112 (Oct. … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Def had no REP in his employer’s information he was accused of taking
Defendant is charged with accessing and taking his employer’s information for the purpose of setting up a rival company doing the same thing. His motion to suppress the information is denied because he has no reasonable expectation of privacy in … Continue reading
OH2: Officer’s claim he didn’t know whether def’s bag had a gun was unparticularized and applied to everybody
DTF officers entered a Greyhound bus heading to Detroit to question passengers. Defendant’s stop on the bus and then the frisk of his bag lacked reasonable suspicion. The fact there had been drug couriers on the bus before didn’t mean … Continue reading
CA10: Def’s flight into house to avoid arrest justified police entry because of exigency and hot pursuit
Police initiated arresting defendant outside his home, and he fled into his house to avoid it. The warrantless entry into his home was justified by probable cause for the arrest and exigent circumstances of both destruction of evidence and hot … Continue reading
CA11: Carpenter doesn’t require SW for prescription drug monitoring program records
In this pill mill case, Carpenter provides no protection for third party records and information in the Florida Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP). United States v. Gayden, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 32030 (11th Cir. Oct. 9, 2020):
E.D.Wis.: RS of carrying drugs described
“In the context of this case [and the totality of circumstances], the question before the court is whether Trooper Callister unreasonably prolonged his stop of Martinez. I conclude he did not. That the initial stop was justified is without dispute. … Continue reading
CA5: Failure to plead facts in motion to suppress that would justify relief doesn’t require a hearing
The district court didn’t abuse its discretion in denying the motion to suppress without a hearing for failure to plead “facts that would justify relief.” United States v. Smith, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 32024 (5th Cir. Oct. 8, 2020):
OH8: Stop justified by running LPN and seeing it was suspended; RS not required to check it
“Here, while Officer Mackensen had no reasonable suspicion that Long was involved in criminal activity before he checked Long’s vehicle’s license plate, he was permitted to do so pursuant to the case law authority. And, once he learned the license … Continue reading