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- 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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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
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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"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
PA applies Carpenter to 2015 CSLI search because no state case dealt with issue until after; applies to realtime CSLI, too
Defendant filed a motion to suppress CSLI from 2015 before Carpenter was even decided. Because no state case held that CSLI was not a search or the good faith exception applied and there were, in fact, cases holding that CSLI … Continue reading
TX: Art. 38.23 does not extend 4A to private searches
“We disavow the idea that Article 38.23 extends the Fourth Amendment to private citizens acting in a private capacity. We reaffirm that the Fourth Amendment is a restraint on government and that it does not apply to private individuals who … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Govt bears burden of showing attachment limiting search was actually attached, and it failed
For the government to rely on the good faith exception by claiming the attachment limiting the warrant was attached to the search warrant, it bears the burden of showing that, and it didn’t. United States v. Chang, 2019 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
CA5: Medical Board violated 4A by demanding immediate compliance with SDT; but they get qualified immunity
The Texas Medical Board violated the Fourth Amendment when conducting an administrative search of a physician’s office because it demanded immediate compliance with its subpoena. The medical industry as a whole was not a closely regulated industry, and the statutory … Continue reading
Leon and the good faith exception is 35 today
Today is the 35th anniversary of United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984), fittingly decided in 1984. As I related many years ago here, I did a CLE for Memphis prosecutors about a year later on how to litigate … Continue reading
IA: State const. search and seizure provision to be interpreted as the 4A; that’s what the state framers wanted
The state constitution does not require a different outcome for pretextual stops than under the Fourth Amendment. It isn’t prudential to do so, and the state’s 1857 constitutional convention wanted the state to follow the Fourth Amendment. State v. Brown, … Continue reading
OH7: No REP in police interrogation room; conversation with wife after statement to police recorded
Defendant gave a statement to the police and then he was left alone in the interrogation room to talk to his wife for 40 minutes. Police recorded the conversation. There was no reasonable expectation of privacy in the room, and, … Continue reading
Reason: Police Agree To Pay Woman $750,000 After Raiding Her House and Killing Her Dog Over an Unpaid Gas Bill
Reason: Police Agree To Pay Woman $750,000 After Raiding Her House and Killing Her Dog Over an Unpaid Gas Bill by Christian Britschgi: The case highlights the dangers of using SWAT teams for anything and everything.
VOA: Customs Agency Cash Seizures at Airports Cost Travelers Millions
VOA: Customs Agency Cash Seizures at Airports Cost Travelers Millions by Masood Farivar: A little-known U.S. anti-money laundering law is costing international travelers millions of dollars a year, raising concerns of civil liberties’ advocates that many innocent people are unwittingly … Continue reading
The Intercept: As Trump Announces Mass Immigration Raid, Documents Show How ICE Uses Arrest Quotas
The Intercept: As Trump Announces Mass Immigration Raid, Documents Show How ICE Uses Arrest Quotas by Maryam Saleh:
Cal.3: Broad electronic parole search condition was reasonable and related to the crime
Defendant was convicted of identity theft and he had an electronic search condition for his release. The computer search release condition was reasonable and not overbroad, and it was related to the underlying crime and how it was committed. People … Continue reading
CA10: Taking ptf nude through a hospital for treatment when in custody stated a claim
Plaintiff’s being paraded nude into a hospital for treatment when in custody stated a claim, and the officers get no qualified immunity. “Plaintiff’s claim … that he was mistreated while in state custody … may be challenged under the Fourth … Continue reading
WA: Evidence lawfully obtained in another jurisdiction is admissible even if state law would have been violated
Washington’s “silver platter doctrine” that evidence lawfully obtained in another jurisdiction will be admitted into evidence there, even if Washington law would have been violated by the search in Washington, is retained and followed. The search warrant for child pornography … Continue reading
CA10: SW not needed to obtain GPS location information from parolee’s GPS monitor
Defendant was on community supervision with GPS monitoring. He does not contest that, just the fact the location information was obtained without a search warrant. The probation-parole search exception doesn’t require a search warrant to obtain that information. United States … Continue reading
W.D.Ark.: Speaking Spanish isn’t even a factor in RS or PC for a vehicle search
The fact the driver of a car spoke Spanish was not reasonable suspicion or probable cause because at least 10% of the U.S. population speaks Spanish. The search of the car was without probable cause, and the exclusionary would be … Continue reading
CO: Officer’s statement there was PC for a SW was irrelevant at trial
Whether there was probable cause for a search warrant is irrelevant at trial and should not be admitted. This was a part of defendant’s cumulative error argument. Howard-Walker v. People, 2019 CO 69, 2019 Colo. LEXIS 573 (July 1, 2019). … Continue reading
GA: No IAC to not object to reference to SW as somehow lowering burden of proof at trial
It was not ineffective assistance of counsel to not object to a police reference to having obtained a search warrant as somehow lowering the state’s burden of proof on guilt in the trial. Franklin v. State, 2019 Ga. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
VT: SW target gets a hearing on whether he gets access to his own SW materials
“In this matter, Jacob Oblak petitioned the superior court for access to an affidavit of probable cause filed in a criminal case and was denied.” The public access to records rule has another rule for exceptions was not properly applied. … Continue reading
Reason: The FBI Hopes These Cute Puppies Will Distract You From Unconstitutional Civil Asset Forfeitures
Reason: The FBI Hopes These Cute Puppies Will Distract You From Unconstitutional Civil Asset Forfeitures by Scott Shackford: Surrender the Fifth Amendment or the dog dies.