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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)
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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
N.D.Ill.: Compelled use of biometrics to open a cell phone doesn’t violate 4A or 5A
“[T]his Court holds that compelling an individual to scan their biometrics, and in particular their fingerprints, to unlock a smartphone device neither violates the Fourth nor Fifth Amendment. Accordingly, the Court has signed and authorized the government’s warrant, including the … Continue reading
MI: 4A not violated by taking of fingerprints and photographs during a Terry stop
Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights were not violated by police officers taking their photographs and fingerprints based on reasonable suspicion during valid Terry stops, because plaintiffs had no reasonable expectation of privacy in physical characteristics that were constantly exposed to the … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Putting def in the back seat of a police car wasn’t unreasonable during a basic traffic stop
“Ward also argues that the traffic stop was extended by placing him in the back of the police cruiser. … However, the officer(s) needed to walk back to the police cruiser in order to complete the mission of issuing a … Continue reading
The Appeal: In a Private Facebook Group, California Police Brag about Breaking State Law to Help ICE
The Appeal: In a Private Facebook Group, California Police Brag about Breaking State Law to Help ICE by Darwin BondGraham (“Some officers have recently boasted about breaking state law and collaborating with ICE, according to messages posted in a private … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: That some NYPD cops are known to lie doesn’t mean these two are because the bodycams and physical evidence make them credible
“The circumstances of the stop, search, and seizure of Defendant demonstrate that there was a strong reasonable suspicion to support a stop and search of Defendant, and then probable cause to arrest him. [¶] Defendant’s main argument is that the … Continue reading
4A claims not permitted on habeas
Habeas doesn’t recognize Fourth Amendment claims. In re Lopez, 2019 Cal. LEXIS 8819 (Nov. 20, 2019); In re Wood, Wood, 2020 Cal. LEXIS 605 (Jan. 29, 2020). This habeas petitioner doesn’t show any likelihood of success to get appointment of … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: NC law requires RS for a supervision search, and here it’s lacking
North Carolina law requires reasonable suspicion for a supervision search, and here it was completely lacking. The motion to suppress is granted. United States v. Fuller, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 202240 (E.D. N.C. Oct. 1, 2019).* State statute discusses concealed … Continue reading
CA2: BIA erred in not suppressing; a prima facie case of an egregious violation of the 4A was shown because it was apparently race based stop and there was virtually no PC
BIA erred by denying petitioner’s motion to suppress evidence of his alleged alienage. He made out a prima facie case of an egregious violation of his constitutional rights where the evidence tended to show a racial animus in the planning … Continue reading
Four 2255s
2255 claim that officer perjured himself during suppression hearing was already raised there and on appeal and barred here. United States v. Brown, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 201044 (D. Nev. Nov. 19, 2019).* Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not pursuing … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Even if the one challenged sentence in the SW affidavit was stricken under Franks, PC would still exist
Defendant challenged one sentence in the affidavit as a Franks violation, but it doesn’t even appear to be false. Moreover, even if that sentence were stricken, there still would be probable cause, and he fails in his burden of proof. … Continue reading
CA4: Individualized suspicion is now required for border searches of electronic devices but it wasn’t in May 2015, so the GFE applies
Warrantless forensic searches of defendant’s devices in May of 2015 lacked the required nexus to the recognized historic rationales justifying the border search exception to the warrant requirement. Officers had probable cause to suspect that defendant had previously committed grave … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: To make an effective attack on a SW affidavit, explain yourself and don’t leave it to the court to try to do it for you
Yes, there were inconsistencies in the informant hearsay, but the defendant doesn’t help the court in what that means. “Thus, Defendant’s hearsay attacks fail to draw the court’s attention to any problem in the magistrate judges’ analysis.” There was double … Continue reading
CA9: PC for arrest of ptf for interfering with a LEO arresting another
There was probable cause to arrest plaintiff, a member of Bikers for Christ, for interfering with a law enforcement officer when the officer was attempting to write a ticket for another biker. Thus, there was no Fourth Amendment violation. Stubbs … Continue reading
NYTimes: Imagine Being on Trial. With Exonerating Evidence Trapped on Your Phone.
NYTimes: Imagine Being on Trial. With Exonerating Evidence Trapped on Your Phone. by Kashmir Hill (“Public defenders lack access to gadgets and software that could keep their clients out of jail.”)
WA: Washington Privacy Act prohibiting unwarned recordings does not apply to law enforcement bodycams and dash cams
The Washington Privacy Act prohibiting unwarned recordings does not apply to law enforcement bodycams and dash cams. “Conversations with uniformed, on-duty law enforcement officers are typically not private conversations.” State v. Clayton, 2019 Wash. App. LEXIS 2930 (Nov. 19, 2019):
WaPo: Police hid a tracking device on a suspect’s car — then charged him with theft for removing it
WaPo: Police hid a tracking device on a suspect’s car — then charged him with theft for removing it by Brittany Shammas (“For about a week in summer 2018, Indiana authorities monitored a suspected drug dealer’s movements using a GPS … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Def’s car’s impoundment wasn’t justified by community caretaking function or need for inventory
The impoundment of defendant’s car wasn’t justified by either the community caretaking function or need for inventory. Whether the vehicle was even involved in a crime was inconclusive at best. United States v. Trujillo, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 201024 (D. … Continue reading
MO: Exigency was shown at the motion to suppress, and more was shown at trial
The trial court denied the motion to suppress because the entry was by exigent circumstances. The trial testimony confirms it. State v. Bolden, 2019 Mo. App. LEXIS 1823 (Nov. 19, 2019).* The traffic stop was justified under state law, and, … Continue reading
PA: State’s seeking the passcode to unencrypt a computer hard drive violates the 5A
The state’s seeking the passcode to unencrypt a computer hard drive violates the Fifth Amendment. Commonwealth v. Davis, 2019 Pa. LEXIS 6463 (Nov. 20, 2019):