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Recent Posts
- Reason: Miami Sheriff Hired a Private Law Firm To Pursue—and Profit From—Asset Forfeiture Cases
- D.Conn.: Pole camera on def’s house and curtilage didn’t show inside house, so it’s reasonable
- OH12: Officer’s violation of knock-and-announce statute justifies suppression
- Reason: Documents Reveal the Postal Service’s Broad Surveillance of Political Activists
- CA4: Not having child in a booster seat justified stop
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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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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)
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"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
FL4: Gratuitious references to SWs before jury became prejudicial character evidence; reversed
Two references to search warrants at defendant’s premises became prejudicial character evidence by seeking to link him to other drugs. Conviction reversed. Dawson v. State, 2019 Fla. App. LEXIS 10847 (Fla. 4th DCA July 10, 2019):
ID: State didn’t preserve independent source issue below so it can’t argue it on appeal
A motion to suppress cell phone contents was granted, and the state appealed. At trial, it cited a case without stating the holding that was an independent source case, and that’s not enough. In addition, the state didn’t litigate independent … Continue reading
CT: Def didn’t abandon his apt when he was in jail and rent came due
Defendant did not abandon his crime victim’s cell phone hidden in a wall when he’d been incarcerated and was evicted from his house for nonpayment of rent. The police waited until the lease had expired for nonpayment and came to … Continue reading
NYTimes: Opinion: The Racist History Behind Facial Recognition
NYTimes: Opinion: The Racist History Behind Facial Recognition When will we finally learn we cannot predict people’s character from their appearance?
WaPo Podcast: The FBI and ICE are scanning millions of Americans’ faces — without their knowledge or consent
WaPo Podcast: The FBI and ICE are scanning millions of Americans’ faces — without their knowledge or consent
USA Today: Customs officers barred from randomly checking papers on domestic flights
USA Today: Customs officers barred from randomly checking papers on domestic flights by Alan Gomez:
S.D.N.Y.: IP information does not provide anywhere near the “granular” detail that CSLI or GPS information does, so SW not required
IP information does not provide anywhere near the “granular” detail that CSLI or GPS information does, so a search warrant is not required. United States v. Kidd, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 114627 (S.D. N.Y. July 11, 2019) (citing United States … Continue reading
CA11: Officer’s second gunshot at a dog not clearly established as excessive force; QI granted, ptf not even a target
Excessive force qualified immunity case: A second gunshot at a dog wasn’t clearly established to be excessive force, and plaintiff wasn’t even a target. Therefore, the officer gets qualified immunity. Corbitt v. Vickers, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 20447 (11th Cir. … Continue reading
MN: Limited right to counsel before blood test doesn’t apply to SW blood draws
“The limited right to counsel established in Friedman v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 473 N.W.2d 828 (Minn. 1991), does not apply when an individual is asked to submit to a blood test pursuant to a warrant.” (Syllabus) State v. Rosenbush, … Continue reading
CA5: Sounds inside at a knock-and-talk created exigency
Police did a knock-and-talk on a motel room door, and the sound of scrambling inside and a toilet flush was exigency. Also, defendant was a casual visitor almost certainly without standing. United States v. Daniels, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 20449 … Continue reading
CA2: Second inventory search on the street was reasonable
Defendant’s car was inventoried by NYPD. After the first search, officers overheard defendant’s phone call that somebody needed to come and get the car “now,” and they surmised they overlooked something important. A second inventory was conducted, and the NYPD … Continue reading
WaPo: A Florida cop planted meth on random drivers, police say. One lost custody of his daughter.
WaPo: A Florida cop planted meth on random drivers, police say. One lost custody of his daughter. By Meagan Flynn:
CA11: Carpenter not retroactive for a successor habeas
Carpenter not retroactive for a successor habeas. In re Symonette, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 20428 (11th Cir. July 9, 2019):
Reason: Volokh Conspiracy: The Property-in-Property Problem in Fourth Amendment Law
Reason: Volokh Conspiracy: The Property-in-Property Problem in Fourth Amendment Law by Orin Kerr: A tale of two new cases on your constitutional rights when you leave your backpack with your drugs in someone else’s car.
OH12: Def’s denial of ownership of her purse twice was abandonment
Defendant’s disclaiming ownership of her purse twice when asked about it was abandonment and a waiver of any reasonable expectation of privacy. State v. Martin, 2019-Ohio-2792, 2019 Ohio App. LEXIS 2898 (12th Dist. July 8, 2019).* The search warrant for … Continue reading
N.D.Okla.: A felon threatening somebody with a gun is nexus to believe the gun at his home
Defendant being a felon and allegedly threatening his alleged victim with a gun was nexus that he’d likely have it at home. United States v. Edwards, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 112265 (N.D. Okla. July 8, 2019). Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective … Continue reading
CA7: Burglar had no REP in his own backpack carried in
Defendant was stopped and searched as a suspected burglar in a house he had no business being in. Because his presence was “wrongful,” he had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the backpack he carried in. United States v. Sawyer, … Continue reading
Slate: Facebook’s Face-ID Database Could Be the Biggest in the World. Yes, It Should Worry Us.
Slate: Facebook’s Face-ID Database Could Be the Biggest in the World. Yes, It Should Worry Us. by April Glaser: Every day, Facebook users upload hundreds of millions of photos to the social network. If they haven’t opted out, the software … Continue reading
D.N.H.: Directing def to get out of his car after completion of all the tasks with the stop was to prolong it, not for safety reasons
At the point the stop should have been over because nothing was awry, directing defendant to get out of the car for a patdown that led to a finding of a wad of cash prolonged the stop under Rodriguez. “Rather, … Continue reading