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 -
Latest Slip Opinions:
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FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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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
WaPo: Authorities shot a woman during a botched raid at her home. The real suspect was already in jail.
WaPo: Authorities shot a woman during a botched raid at her home. The real suspect was already in jail. By Derek Hawkins (“Ann Rylee was curled up on her recliner, drifting back to sleep after seeing her fiance off to … Continue reading
NYTimes: Pentagon Warns Military Personnel Against At-Home DNA Tests
NYTimes: Pentagon Warns Military Personnel Against At-Home DNA Tests by Heather Murphy and Mihir Zaveri (“The tests, from companies such as 23andMe and Ancestry, have become popular holiday gifts, but the military is warning service members of risks to their … Continue reading
Bloomberg Law: States Press Ahead With Privacy Laws Even as Congress Stalls
Bloomberg Law: States Press Ahead With Privacy Laws Even as Congress Stalls (“States across the country will keep moving on privacy regulation next year as Congress struggles to come up with a broad federal law, lobbyists and privacy attorneys say. … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Alleged pretext doesn’t matter where the stop is objectively reasonable and based on PC
Alleged pretext doesn’t matter where the stop is objectively reasonable. “As the Court has determined there was probable cause to support the traffic stop, the Court does not reach the issue of whether Lt. Henry had reasonable suspicion that the … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Seeing shot man slumped against window in a motel room is quite obviously exigency
Clearly exigent circumstances for a warrantless entry into a motel room: “Based on the facts in this case, the court finds that the officers had a reasonable basis to believe that there was an immediate need to protect the safety … Continue reading
Two Franks cases
The officer’s failure to include in his affidavit for search warrant the inference that the CI might be under the influence of drugs at the time of the statement wasn’t material. “Similarly, the court concludes that Deputy Harmon’s failure to … Continue reading
OH10: Fact premises had two addresses was unknown to officers; no suppression
The trial court redacted a false statement [likely a cut and paste error] from the affidavit for the search warrant and it didn’t undermine the probable cause at all. It doesn’t matter whether it was intentional or negligent because probable … Continue reading
NYTimes: Be Paranoid About Privacy
NYTimes: Be Paranoid About Privacy by Kara Swisher (“We need to take back our privacy from tech companies — even if that means sacrificing convenience.”):
WaPo: Colleges are turning students’ phones into surveillance machines, tracking the locations of hundreds of thousands
WaPo: Colleges are turning students’ phones into surveillance machines, tracking the locations of hundreds of thousands by Drew Harwell:
Biometric Update: Federal, state court rulings on whether biometrics protected by Fifth Amendment get murky
Biometric Update: Federal, state court rulings on whether biometrics protected by Fifth Amendment get murky by Anthony Kimery (“Because courts have ruled they are, and they aren’t, U.S. Supreme Court may be final arbiter.”)
MD: Def’s burden to prove custody, but he didn’t testify
“It was [defendant]’s burden to prove custody. … Payne opted to remain silent at the suppression hearing; therefore, we have been provided no contrast to the evidence given by Detective Patterson, upon which the court reasonably relied.” The trial court’s … Continue reading
CA5: Even assuming 4A violation, ptf doesn’t show it was clearly established
“In short, we decline to opine on whether Campbell’s actions amount to a [Fourth Amendment] violation. Robles failed to meet his burden to show that such a violation was clearly established, particularly when dealing with an underlying violent crime. Accordingly, … Continue reading
AP: South Bend OKs random inspections for body camera footage
AP: South Bend OKs random inspections for body camera footage (“A new policy adopted in the wake of a black man’s fatal shooting by a white South Bend police officer calls for random inspections of officers’ body camera footage and … Continue reading
NYTimes: What You’re Unwrapping When You Get a DNA Test for Christmas
NYTimes: What You’re Unwrapping When You Get a DNA Test for Christmas by Heather Murphy (“To what extent is giving a DNA test also a present for law enforcement?”)
IN: Frisk was justified by RS, but “ball” in pocket wasn’t plain feel
The officer was observing defendant and suspected he’d be engaged in a drug transaction. Finally there was a patdown, and in defendant’s pocket was a small ball of something, which the officer reached for. It was obvious it was not … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: FIPF arrest justifies search incident
Defendant’s arrest for being a felon in possession justified his search incident. United States v. Westfall, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 217329 (E.D. Mo. Dec. 18, 2019).* Defendant’s detention was without reasonable suspicion and unreasonably extended. A probation officer was working … Continue reading
N.D.Tex.: Plea of guilty without plea agreement still waives 4A challenge
Defendant made a Fourth Amendment challenge then pled to the indictment without a plea agreement. He still waives his Fourth Amendment claim because he could have appealed. Dunbar v. United States, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 217464 (N.D. Tex. Nov. 14, … Continue reading
CA2: FISA violation or not? Case remanded for fact finding on whether def’s calls were reasonably collected
Defendant pled to attempting to provide support to a terrorist organization. After the plea, the government disclosed it’s prosecution derived from the warrantless obtaining of his phone calls under § 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. He successfully … Continue reading
MS: Def was in open fields when he encountered wildlife officers and admitted he had meth on him
On the opening day of dove hunting season, wildlife officers were out. They heard shooting from open lands and went to investigate. They encountered defendant and another, and defendant tossed a bag aside when officers approached him. They asked what … Continue reading