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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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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)
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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
Privacy Foundation
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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)
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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.Mont.: With court ordered pinging of cell phone, govt violated no REP in following the pings
Once officers had a warrant authorizing capturing defendant’s cell phone pings back even in 2015, he had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements in public when they were following him based on the result of the pings. Therefore, … Continue reading
D.N.J.: Habeas pet’r doesn’t show case outcome would be different if motion to suppress had been litigated
To prevail on a Fourth Amendment IAC claim, there are essentially three things to prove, not just two: (a) defense counsel failed to litigate a search issue (b) that not only would have prevailed on the search issue, (c) but … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Consent to protective sweep led to plain view of money under a bed
Defendant consented to a protective sweep, and, looking under a bed, the officer saw a duffle bag with money showing. That was a reasonable search. United States v. Stanton, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 778 (E.D. Tenn. Jan. 3, 2020).* “To … Continue reading
LA Times: Black drivers face more police stops in California, state analysis shows
LA Times: Black drivers face more police stops in California, state analysis shows by Anita Chabria (“Black drivers in some of California’s largest cities are stopped and searched by police at higher rates than white and Latino motorists, according to … Continue reading
The Recorder/Law.com: Ring Slapped With Lawsuit Following Reports of Camera Security Breaches
The Recorder/Law.com: Ring Slapped With Lawsuit Following Reports of Camera Security Breaches by Alaina Lancaster (“Despite Amazon-owned Ring’s suite of security offerings, the federal complaint contends that the company has failed to set up ‘even basic cybersecurity protections.’”)
NM: Officer’s inferences for RS don’t require certainty
Reasonable suspicion was found here on the totality from experience, logical inferences, and the high-crime nature of the area where it was going on. “[W]hile it was possible Martinez’s conduct was innocuous, Officer Garrison was not required to wait until … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Handcuffing on RS to assure safety and maintain the status quo reasonable and not a de facto arrest
Handcuffing a person on reasonable suspicion just to protect the officer’s safety and maintain the status quo is not unreasonable. United States v. Mayfield, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 520 (D. Neb. Jan. 3, 2020). While the exclusionary rule can apply … Continue reading
CA11: Exclusionary rule doesn’t apply to revocation of supervised release; SCOTUS would so hold
The exclusionary rule does not apply to revocation of supervised release conditions. While SCOTUS hasn’t ruled on that precise question, its parole and probation search cases are a clear sign it will follow them there. United States v. Hill, 2020 … Continue reading
CA6: 15 dogs abandoned in a house living in squalor was exigency for warrantless entry
Plaintiff kept 15 dogs in her house in squalor. She went out of town and didn’t provide for them. Her “associates” reported the situation to animal control and they entered the house and seized the animals. The entry and seizure … Continue reading
CA7: Police shooting at a car shooting at others was a reasonable use of deadly force
Police shooting at a car that just fired at others was not an unreasonable use of deadly force against the occupants. Ybarra v. City of Chicago, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 62 (7th Cir. Jan. 3, 2020):
W.D.N.Y.: No PC for arrest or SW; GFE hearing wasn’t concluded, and it shall now
The defendant’s arrest on this thin claim from an unproven and unreliable CI was without probable cause, and the search of his person is suppressed. The search warrant was also issued without probable cause, but the part of the hearing … Continue reading
OH8: Malpractice ptf already lost on the merits of Franks claim in direct criminal appeal, defense counsel didn’t commit malpractice handling it
Plaintiff is an inmate pro se pursuing a legal malpractice claim against his criminal defense counsel. The defendant lawyer gets judgment on the pleadings based on the fact the conviction was affirmed on the ground that the defense counsel’s challenge … Continue reading
USA Today: Racial bias in facial recognition software: What travelers should know as TSA, CBP expand programs
USA Today: Racial bias in facial recognition software: What travelers should know as TSA, CBP expand programs by Curtis Tate (“The Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have been testing facial recognition technology at airports across the … Continue reading
WA: Was a courthouse security search that turned up drugs properly limited? Remanded for more fact finding
An issue that hasn’t appeared in appellate decisions for a while: May a jacket be searched for drugs at courthouse security? Not here, but more fact finding required. The CSO felt a cell phone to remove it from a pocket, … Continue reading
SC: Automobile exception search doesn’t have to happen right away
Defendant’s car was well enough connected to him and the crime that the police had probable cause for a search under the automobile exception. Moreover, there is no constitutional requirement that the vehicle be searched immediately under the automobile exception. … Continue reading
IL: High crime area plus quick furtive movements to floor was RS and suggested a weapon to officer
High drug crime area plus quick furtive movements to floor that suggested to the officer that defendant was concealing a weapon was reasonable suspicion. People v. Hood, 2019 IL App (1st) 162194, 2019 Ill. App. LEXIS 1012 (Dec. 31, 2019). … Continue reading
Fox SLC: Police could be banned from accessing home DNA test data under a bill in the Utah legislature
Fox SLC: Police could be banned from accessing home DNA test data under a bill in the Utah legislature by Ben Winslow
CA6: Without RS, two officers get no QI, but another acting at their request does
Three officers were involved in defendant’s stop. Two were involved in the decision to stop, but, based on the factual dispute in the record, they do not get qualified immunity on the decision to make the stop. The third officer, … Continue reading
WaPo: ‘I killed Jennifer’: Doorbell camera captures a man confessing to his sister’s stabbing, police say
WaPo: ‘I killed Jennifer’: Doorbell camera captures a man confessing to his sister’s stabbing, police say by Brittany Shammas (“Michael Egwuagu was arrested on a murder charge — a stunning turn for the once-standout college football player.”)
CA9: Immigration arrest valid on “reason to believe” this person was an alien illegally in the U.S.
BIA petitioner’s rights were not violated because she can’t show her arrest was an egregious violation of the Fourth Amendment. “The fact that agents detained and arrested Echeverria without first establishing her identity and alienage is of no moment. All … Continue reading