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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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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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"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
CT: No REP in jail letter to def’s mother with admission
Defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights weren’t violated by corrections officers copying a letter to his mother with an admission then turning it over to law enforcement officers. He had no privacy interest in his mail that society would recognize. The claim … Continue reading
D.Utah: Defendant in prior dismissed federal action by state consumer protection agency refiled in state court won’t prevent state from using evidence obtained for that action
The state sued in federal court for relief, and it got a TRO, but the claim was later dismissed. Copies of records were made and originals returned. After the state sued in state court, the defendants sought application of the … Continue reading
WTOP: DC police officers say raising serious concerns led to retaliation
WTOP: DC police officers say raising serious concerns led to retaliation by Mike Murillo:
Miami Herald: From above, Miami-Dade police drone recorded crack cocaine sale live. It’s a first, cops say
Miami Herald: From above, Miami-Dade police drone recorded crack cocaine sale live. It’s a first, cops say by David Ovalle:
NPR: Decrypting The Decryption Dilemma
NPR: Decrypting The Decryption Dilemma (1A, one hour, “Should the government be able to access the locked phones of convicted or accused criminals? That issue has cropped up again after the FBI asked Apple to provide data on two iPhones … Continue reading
WaPo: The DEA seized her father’s life savings at an airport without alleging any crime occurred, lawsuit says
WaPo: The DEA seized her father’s life savings at an airport without alleging any crime occurred, lawsuit says by Justin Jouvenal (“Brown said she was never told she or her father were under suspicion of committing any crime and neither … Continue reading
CNN: Two former Houston police officers indicted after botched raid that killed two people [they lied to get no-knock]
CNN: Two former Houston police officers indicted after botched raid that killed two people by Konstantin Toropin:
Reason: Does Letting Police Enter Your House Give Them Permission To Wreck It?
Reason: Does Letting Police Enter Your House Give Them Permission To Wreck It? by Jacob Sullum The Institute for Justice asks the Supreme Court to clarify a doctrine that shields cops from responsibility for outrageous conduct.
W.D.Ky.: Multiple cell phones in car in a cross-country drug run was PC to search the phones
Multiple cell phones in the car in a cross-country drug transportation enterprise was probable cause for searching the phones with a search warrant. “The Court finds that these facts, considered in the totality of the circumstances, provided the issuing magistrate … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Example of distancing the client from drugs but maintaining standing
Like walking a tightrope: United States v. Thorne, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4291 (D.D.C. Jan. 10, 2020):
Reason: Contempt for Renters Leads to Second-Class Search and Seizure Protections
Reason: Contempt for Renters Leads to Second-Class Search and Seizure Protections by J.D. Tuccille (“Signing a lease instead of a deed shouldn’t erase your right to be free of government home invasions.”):
The Daily Report/Law.com: Commentary: What If a Border Agent Seeks Your Smartphone That Includes Client Secrets?
The Daily Report/Law.com: Commentary: What If a Border Agent Seeks Your Smartphone That Includes Client Secrets? (“Consider these issues to maintain privilege and confidentiality during international travel.”)
NY Times: He Says He Stabbed a Student to Defend His Home. His Home Is a Box.
NY Times: He Says He Stabbed a Student to Defend His Home. His Home Is a Box. By Nikita Stewart and Jan Ransom (“A homeless man is fighting his case by invoking New York’s “castle doctrine,” which gives people the … Continue reading
injusticewatch.org: Illinois Supreme Court to decide whether smell of pot is grounds to search a car
injusticewatch.org: Illinois Supreme Court to decide whether smell of pot is grounds to search a car by John Seasly (“With marijuana now legal in Illinois, the state high court heard arguments Tuesday on whether the smell of marijuana grants police … Continue reading
NYTimes: Apple Takes a (Cautious) Stand Against Opening a Killer’s iPhones
NYTimes: Apple Takes a (Cautious) Stand Against Opening a Killer’s iPhones By Jack Nicas and Katie Benner (“The Silicon Valley giant is preparing for a legal fight over encryption, even as it works to reduce tensions with the Justice Department.”)
techdirt: DHS Move Ahead With Plan To Harvest DNA Samples From Nearly Everyone Detained By ICE And CBP Privacy
techdirt: DHS Move Ahead With Plan To Harvest DNA Samples From Nearly Everyone Detained By ICE And CBPPrivacy by Tim Cushing:
W.D.Ky.: Asking questions while writing out a warning ticket do not measurably extend a stop
Asking questions while writing out a warning ticket do not measurably extend a stop. United States v. Green, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4421 (W.D. Ky. Jan. 10, 2020). Defendant’s arrest was valid, so his statement wasn’t fruit of the poisonous … Continue reading
CA3: Nondisclosure order of GJ subpoena and later SW under SCA was reasonable based on GJ secrecy
A court order to not disclose the existence of a grand jury subpoena for records under the Stored Communications Act led to a search warrant for additional data. The order to not disclose is based on grand jury secrecy, and … Continue reading
DE: Question about “Anything illegal in the car: Human beings, guns, drugs, dead bodies in the trunk” wasn’t unreasonable and didn’t measurably extend the stop.
Officer’s routine question about “Anything illegal in the car: Human beings, guns, drugs, dead bodies in the trunk” wasn’t unreasonable and didn’t measurably extend the stop. State v. Medina, 2020 Del. Super. LEXIS 18 (Jan. 7, 2020):
NYTimes: How the Police Use Facial Recognition, and Where It Falls Short
NYTimes: How the Police Use Facial Recognition, and Where It Falls Short by Jennifer Valentino-DeVries (“Records from Florida, where law enforcement has long used the controversial technology, offer an inside look at its risks and rewards.”)