Archives
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- 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)
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"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
D.Md.: Even if defense counsel had pursued a motion to suppress and won, the proof was so strong there was no Strickland prejudice
Even if defendant on post-conviction could have shown that a motion to suppress would have been granted if made, he can’t show prejudice because the proof at trial showed he almost certainly would have been convicted even without that evidence. … Continue reading
CA8: Due process right to informational privacy not clearly established
Surveying SCOTUS cases, the court concludes that a due process right to informational privacy is not clearly established. Therefore, the motion to dismiss is granted. “Under Reichle, therefore, the uncertain status of the right to informational privacy means that Defendants … Continue reading
NPR: Supreme Court Will Not Reexamine Doctrine That Shields Police In Misconduct Suits
NPR: Supreme Court Will Not Reexamine Doctrine That Shields Police In Misconduct Suits by Nina Totenberg (“Amid the tumult over police brutality allegations across the country, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to reexamine the much-criticized, modern-day legal doctrine … Continue reading
Buzzfeed News: Many Police Departments Have Software That Can Identify People In Crowds
Buzzfeed News: Many Police Departments Have Software That Can Identify People In Crowds by Caroline Haskins (“BriefCam, a facial recognition and surveillance video analysis company, sells the ability to surveil protesters and enforce social distancing — without the public knowing.”)
D.Minn.: Def’s efforts to cast innocent explanation to the facts articulated by the officer don’t undermine PC
While it is certainly possible the officer likely had a subjective intent to search, “‘[s]ubjective intentions play no role in ordinary, probable-cause Fourth Amendment analysis.’ Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813 (1996). A showing that a police officer … Continue reading
NY4: Failure to complete inventory report of the search doesn’t void search
“Contrary to defendant’s contention, even assuming, arguendo, that the police officers failed to comply with the inventory provisions of CPL 690.50(5), we conclude that noncompliance with that subdivision ‘does not undermine the validity of the search warrant or the search’” … Continue reading
NY4: Fire started during police standoff was exigency
Starting a fire during a police standoff is an exigent circumstance permitting a police entry after the fire was put out. “The entry and search occurred immediately after firefighters extinguished the fire that defendant had set during a standoff with … Continue reading
AZ: Cell phones “property” subject to probation searches
“Cell phones provide access to an immense array of private information, much of which is stored in the Cloud or on sites controlled by third parties. As such, the United States Supreme Court concluded in Riley v. California that people … Continue reading
Reason: Criminal Justice Divides the ‘Conservative’ Judiciary
Reason: Criminal Justice Divides the ‘Conservative’ Judiciary by Damon Root (“Pundits often speak of the judiciary in terms of liberal or conservative judges issuing liberal or conservative opinions. The reality is far more complicated.”)
D.Ariz.: Alleged Brady material found two years after SW wouldn’t change SW outcome
Alleged Brady material found two years after the search warrant in this case would not have changed the outcome of the search issue. United States v. Vandyck, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 101842 (D. Ariz. June 10, 2020). The officer was … Continue reading
NY: CBP officer at least was conducting a citizen’s arrest when he stopped def and turned him over to local police
A CBP maritime officer is not a LEO under NYS law but that didn’t void his stopping a vehicle while on duty in Buffalo for driving erratically. Buffalo officers were called, and he left to go back to work. They … Continue reading
CA2: Even if SW was issued without PC, GFE clearly applies
“Brennerman challenges the lawfulness of the search warrant of his Las Vegas apartment. Even assuming, for the sake of argument only, that the search warrant was unlawful, we conclude that the good faith exception to the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule … Continue reading
CA2: IAC claim not proper on motion for new trial
The district court acted within its discretion to deny a motion for new trial on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim for not moving to suppress before the trial. Defendant can raise it in post-conviction. United States v. Atuana, 2020 … Continue reading
Lawfare: Did a Government Drone Flight Over a Protest Violate the Fourth Amendment?
Lawfare: Did a Government Drone Flight Over a Protest Violate the Fourth Amendment? by Nathaniel Sobel (“On May 28, protestors in Minneapolis demonstrated late into the night against the killing of George Floyd and police brutality. The next day, on … Continue reading
Rolling Stone: No-Knock Warrants: Inside Police Tactic That Killed Breonna Taylor
Rolling Stone: No-Knock Warrants: Inside Police Tactic That Killed Breonna Taylor by EJ Dickson (“In certain cases, judges may allow authorities to enter a suspect’s home without announcing themselves — but since the death of Breonna Taylor, their use is … Continue reading
Recode by Vox: Why it matters that IBM is getting out of the facial recognition business
Recode by Vox: Why it matters that IBM is getting out of the facial recognition business by Rebecca Heilweil (“Researchers have for years warned about the problems with facial recognition. Now Big Blue is ditching the tech.”)
OneZero: Google’s Geofence Warrants Face a Major Legal Challenge
OneZero: Google’s Geofence Warrants Face a Major Legal Challenge by Liz Brody (“Police requests for Google data that pinpoints anyone near the scene of a crime increased by more than 500% last year…The opposition to geofencing warrants is growing. The … Continue reading
HI: Dog sniff for drugs in traffic stop was not reasonably related to the purpose of the stop
Dog sniff for drugs in traffic stop was not reasonably related to the purpose of the stop, and it is suppressed. State v. Ikimaka, 2020 Haw. LEXIS 139 (June 9, 2020):
D.Ariz.: Whether officer should have believed CI was lying not a Franks issue
Defendant contends that the affiant officer should have known that the CI was lying because of a motive to falsify, but doesn’t say how the officer would have known or did know. That’s insufficient for Franks. Another CI was not … Continue reading