Archives
-
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
-
Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
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)
-
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
Electronic Frontier Foundation
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)
-
“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
S.D.Ill.: The delay in the stop was def’s own stalling
The stop was prolonged but it was defendant’s own stalling, so Rodriguez wasn’t violated. “The fact that Thompson and Dwyer did not issue any ticket for the window tinting or the obstructed brake lights is not relevant to the question … Continue reading
techdirt: Cops: People In Their Own Homes Are In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time Whenever A Cop Enters Unlawfully
techdirt: Cops: People In Their Own Homes Are In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time Whenever A Cop Enters Unlawfully by Tim Cushing:
CO: Vehicle inventory fails where no showing of policy enabling it
The inventory of defendant’s car was not done according to any policy, and it is not justifiable under the automobile exception or as a protective search for weapons either. People v. Allen, 2019 CO 88, 2019 Colo. LEXIS 1077 (Oct. … Continue reading
CA10: When the police destroy your house in aid of the police power because of a barricaded suspect, it’s not a taking under the 5A
When the police destroy your house in aid of the police power because of a barricaded suspect, it’s not a taking under the Fifth Amendment. [The Fourth Amendment is not cited.] Lech v. Jackson, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 32393 (10th … Continue reading
SCOTUSblog: Argument preview: Can the police stop a vehicle because its registered owner’s license has been suspended or revoked?
SCOTUSblog: Argument preview: Can the police stop a vehicle because its registered owner’s license has been suspended or revoked? by Evan Lee (“Next Monday, November 4, the Supreme Court will hear argument in a case that asks whether it is … Continue reading
ABAJ: Genealogy sites give law enforcement a new DNA sleuthing tool, but the battle over privacy looms
ABAJ: Genealogy sites give law enforcement a new DNA sleuthing tool, but the battle over privacy looms by Jason Tashea with the story of an exoneration by reverse engineering DNA from genealogy sites to find the real killer who confessed … Continue reading
MA: Obtaining and executing arrest warrant in middle of night for a rash of burglaries was reasonable
Police were investigating a rash of burglaries, and woke up a magistrate in the middle of the night to get an arrest warrant for defendant. Officers went to arrest him and others were seeking a search warrant. At his apartment, … Continue reading
CA9: Arresting ptf for objecting to police coming into her house while she got money to pay a cab driver stated 4A claim with no QI
“Can a declined credit card for a $16.70 cab fare result in a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action? One would think not. But here we are.” The cab driver called the police. Plaintiff offered to go into her apartment to … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Def’s avowed lack of connection to the borrowed car he had was a lack of REP
Defendant’s avowed lack of connection to the car he borrowed and was driving was a lack of a reasonable expectation of privacy. United States v. Villa-Guillén, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 185672 (D.P.R. Oct. 25, 2019)*:
IL: Def’s leaving house to deliver to a controlled buy was nexus for house
There was nexus for the search warrant for defendant’s house where he was alleged to have left his house and driven directly to the scene of a controlled buy where he was delivering. People v. Teague, 2019 IL App (3d) … Continue reading
CA3: Body cavity search for baggie of drugs was reasonable because of exigency of risk of overdose
Plaintiff’s body cavity search for a baggie of drugs in her vagina was reasonable by exigent circumstances because of a legitimate fear that she could be harmed and overdose if the bag leaked. Carbone v. Salem, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA4: Probation search not unreasonable because a law enforcement task force was involved
Defendant argues the state probation search agreement (“his probation officer”) rather than the statute’s provision that he was generally subject to search was not controlling. The court disagrees: The statute controls and it’s clear. The fact a law enforcement task … Continue reading
GA: Police approaching back door of apartment violated curtilage
Officers investigating stolen property found the thieves who said they traded the property to defendant for drugs. They went to his apartment in a quadplex to talk to him. Getting no answer at the front door, they walked on the … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio & S.D.Miss.: SW including “any vehicle on the premises” is still particular
A search warrant that authorized the search of “any vehicle on the premises” was not unparticular because it allowed searches of visitor’s cars too. Plenty of cases already hold that “any vehicle on the premises” is particular. Moreover, there was … Continue reading
CA2: Not clearly established for QI that a warrantless body cavity search required exigency and a particularized suspicion
A police officer was entitled to qualified immunity because the right to be free from a warrantless manual body cavity search in the absence of exigent circumstances and a particularized suspicion that evidence of a crime was secreted inside the … Continue reading
OH5: It was reasonable to run the dog around a car in a traffic stop where it happened without extending the stop during waiting time
The trial court did not err in denying the motion to suppress where the officer ran the dog around the car within the time of the normal traffic stop. Therefore, the traffic stop was not illegally extended because the purpose … Continue reading
WaPo: Feds to experiment with allowing police officers to wear body cameras on task forces
WaPo: Feds to experiment with allowing police officers to wear body cameras on task forces (“Police chiefs wanted cameras, but no federal agencies wear them. A pilot program will allow cameras during operations in some cities.”)
IN: SW obtained off of lost drone video wasn’t stale when it was only about four days
A lady found a drone in her yard, and she was already concerned about people flying drones over her house. A computer memory card was in the drone. She looked at it, and called the police and turned it over. … Continue reading
CA9: Even if there was a Miranda violation, SW still valid
“Because no Miranda violation occurred, the police permissibly relied on Terui’s incriminating statements in obtaining the search warrant for his home. Even if a Miranda violation had occurred, however, suppression of the evidence found pursuant to the warrant would not … Continue reading
CA4: The officer knew def had a gun before def’s alleged involuntary confession
The government proved inevitable discovery. “The record makes clear that before Alston made any involuntary admissions, Captain Aleem believed that Alston possessed a gun, had the probable cause necessary to search the car, and intended to find the gun. The … Continue reading