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- NY3: No REP in parole GPS monitoring as to police
- TX: An entry into a person’s homestead for civil discovery has limits
- S.D.W.Va.: Subpoenas for records on advocacy positions violated 1A
- CA10: Investigative detention that went on for hours did not become an arrest
- OH8: Inventory saved search that lacked PC or RS
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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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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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
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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
CA9: Taking too long to get SW for phone violated clearly established law
The officer here violated clearly established law by taking too long to apply for a warrant to search plaintiff’s cell phone. Plaintiff promptly sought its return, but that was denied because the officer hadn’t got a warrant yet. Langham v. … Continue reading
PA: Officer can’t impound a car just to avoid state automobile exception
Pennsylvania’s automobile exception is more stringent than the Fourth Amendment requiring exigency. The state can’t end run a refusal to consent by impounding a car to get into it. Commonwealth v. Rosario, 2025 PA Super 286 (Dec. 23, 2025). “First, … Continue reading
MN: GFE does not apply to after search changes in law that were obviously coming
“The good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule does not apply to a warrantless vehicle search based solely on the smell of marijuana that occurred before we issued our opinion in State v. Torgerson, 995 N.W.2d 164 (Minn. 2023), which held … Continue reading
SCOTUS: Kavanaugh says immigration stops still require RS
Trump v. Illinois, 2025 U.S. LEXIS 4766 (U.S. Dec. 23, 2025), involving the President calling up the National Guard in Illinois, the government failed to prove an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act. [At first, I elected to omit this, … Continue reading
IN: Failure to execute social media warrant in 10 days per statute did not require suppression where PC still existed
The search warrant on defendant’s social media accounts took longer to be executed than the ten days state statute provided for, but that wasn’t reason to exclude the product of the search. Despite the statutory violation, the real question is … Continue reading
D.Minn.: No duty for officer to resolve traffic stop questions before safety concerns resolved
“All of these questions lasted fewer than thirty seconds–they did not ‘measurably extend’ the stop. Johnson, 555 U.S. at 333. Ali cites no law that suggests that officers must address the traffic infraction before they may ask questions related to … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Comey attorney-computer search redux
In the Comey attorney-client privileged search, the government was ordered to return the evidence, not destroy it. Another alternative is to deposit it with the court subject to another search warrant, if the government can get one. Richman v. United … Continue reading
TX2: Taking car keys doesn’t make an investigative detention a custodial arrest
“[A]n officer’s confiscation of a suspect’s keys during an investigative detention does not automatically escalate the stop into a custodial arrest.” Here, it was a DUI stop and taking the keys was for safety reasons. Bwondara v. State, 2025 Tex. … Continue reading
NY Kings Co.: Def had a REP in his space in a homeless shelter
Defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his space in a homeless shelter against a warrantless entry. People v. Maquila, 2025 NY Slip Op 25270, 2025 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 9887 (Kings Co. Dec. 17, 2025):
CA6: Offer of proof required on missing suppression hearing witness for IAC claim
When claiming a witness wasn’t called at a suppression hearing as an ineffective assistance claim, there has to be an offer of proof as to what the witness would have testified to with a showing of how it would affect … Continue reading
CA6: Reference to water emoji 💦with dual meaning not a Franks violation
“Swanagan did not make an adequate preliminary showing that Budde’s interpretation of the water emoji was intentionally or recklessly false, so the district court did not clearly err in finding the affidavit truthful. Swanagan asserts that he ‘provided dictionary support … Continue reading
WaPo: Your chatbot keeps a file on you. Here’s how to delete it.
WaPo: Your chatbot keeps a file on you. Here’s how to delete it. by Geoffrey A. Fowler (“A clickable guide to fixing the complicated privacy settings from ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini and Meta AI. … Try this: Log in to … Continue reading
The Sixth Edition is now on Lexis
Books to ship soon, if not already. I just noticed today.
Rolling Stone: Trump’s DNA Dragnet: The Law That Turns Us All Into Suspects
Rolling Stone: Trump’s DNA Dragnet: The Law That Turns Us All Into Suspects by Alex Ashley (“A little-used federal law is being activated in ways that could turn immigration screening into the backbone of a far-reaching DNA surveillance system.”)
CA6: Student not entitled to warning before school search
The search of this student was reasonable, and the student had no right to be warned before it was going to happen. Halasz v. Cass City Pub. Sch., 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 33093 (6th Cir. Dec. 18, 2025). There was … Continue reading
OH2: Failure to call first officer in collective knowledge not error where second officer’s own observations sufficient
The state failed to call the first officer reporting defendant to the second under the collective knowledge doctrine, but that didn’t result in a reversible denial of confrontation. The second officer’s own observations supported it. State v. Simon, 2025-Ohio-5660 (2d … Continue reading
MA: Overly long GPS monitoring as a condition of probation can be 4A unreasonable
“Whether GPS monitoring as a condition of probation is a reasonable search turns in part on its duration, and the Commonwealth bears the burden of demonstrating that GPS monitoring is reasonable for the entire ordered duration. Notwithstanding the requirement in … Continue reading
N.-M.Ct.Crim.App.: Joint investigation by Belgium and Navy in NATO forces of murder of service member’s spouse by the service member was not improper
Defendant was in the Navy with NATO forces and questioned by Belgian authorities under their law for murder of his wife. This was not an improper joint investigation because both Belgium and the United States had jurisdiction over his crime. … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Taking 10 minutes to review a SW affidavit doesn’t show magistrate not neutral and detached
The issuing judge taking ten minutes to review an affidavit for warrant does not show that he or she abandoned the role of a neutral and detached magistrate. [I can usually see probable cause in an affidavit in 30-45 seconds. … Continue reading
NC: No standing in someone else’s cell phone pinged to find defendant
Defendant used someone else’s cell phone and officers pinged it to find him. He had no standing for the borrowed phone. After arrest, he admitted the shooting in a jail call. “Defendant’s temporary use of the phone does not automatically … Continue reading