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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 $ -
Research Links:
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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)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
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
Privacy Foundation
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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)
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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
Wired: A Murder Trial Will Allow DNA Evidence from a Genealogy Site
Wired: A Murder Trial Will Allow DNA Evidence from a Genealogy Site by Megan Molten:
CA6: No QI immunity in an alleged unreasonable opposite sex strip search at jail with alleged unreasonable touching
Plaintiff overcame qualified immunity in her suit against five male jailers who stripped searched her and allegedly touched her genitalia and breasts when she was nude in wrestling her on the floor at book-in. Because of a spit mask they … Continue reading
CA6: State sanctioned blood draws of newborns and keeping the samples stated 4A claim
Plaintiffs stated a Fourth Amendment claim that the state took blood samples from children to check for diseases and then retained them in the Michigan Neonatal Biorepository. Remanded for further consideration. Kanuszewski v. Michigan Dept. of Health and Human Services, … Continue reading
NYTimes: Opinion: How Facial Recognition Makes You Safer
NYTimes: Opinion: How Facial Recognition Makes You Safer by James O’Neill, New York police commissioner: Used properly, the software effectively identifies crime suspects without violating rights.
D.Me.: False name justified extending traffic stop for dog sniff
“The dog sniff began roughly 12 minutes and 45 seconds into the traffic stop. At that point, Martin had provided two driver’s licenses that spelled his name differently and had verbally provided a separate birth date that did not match … Continue reading
CA9: Overbreadth as to one category in SW moot by fact documents were included in another
In a complex tax avoidance scheme, the IRS obtained search warrant was overbroad as to one category of things to be seized in ¶ u but it was mooted by the fact that items arguably seized under that category were … Continue reading
IL: Delaying stop to call car rental company wasn’t reasonable
Defendant was driving a Hertz rental car, and the delay of the stop to call Hertz was not within the mission of a traffic stop for speeding. “Similarly, we reject the State’s argument that the call to Hertz can be … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: SW for “firearms” is particular when target is a felon
When the target of a search is a convicted felon, a search warrant for stolen firearms doesn’t need to be specific as to their description because mere possession is a crime. United States v. Prigmore, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96217 … Continue reading
AK: Can’t argue one 4A theory to trial court and another to appellate court
In the trial court, defendant argued that the seizure of his clothing in a hospital room was not a valid plain view. On appeal, however, he argues that entry into the hospital room itself was unreasonable. One can’t change the … Continue reading
Boston Globe: Top court in Mass. to review controversial technology police use to track cars
Boston Globe: Top court in Mass. to review controversial technology police use to track cars by Matt Rocheleau: Massachusetts’ highest court will soon review the legality of controversial surveillance technology that state and local law enforcement use to track vehicles … Continue reading
Engadget: Microsoft discreetly wiped its massive facial recognition database
Engadget: Microsoft discreetly wiped its massive facial recognition database by Rachel England: The database was originally published in 2016, described by Microsoft as the largest publicly available facial recognition data set in the world, and used to train facial recognition … Continue reading
WaPo: Opinion: D.C. police must stop hiding body camera footage
WaPo: Opinion: D.C. police must stop hiding body camera footage: The city should promote transparency by giving families immediate access to videos of their loved ones’ killings.
IA: Def’s prior stashing of burglary proceeds at home was nexus in this SW application
Nexus was shown to the house searched because defendant was known to have stashed burglary proceeds there before. [A good lack of standing argument could have been made and was unnecessary.] State v. Adams, 2019 Iowa App. LEXIS 574 (June … Continue reading
TX3: Def retained a REP in a hotel room he was evicted from because he wasn’t aware of consequences
Defendant still had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his hotel room when he was evicted by police for violating policy, but there was no showing that he knew the consequences of violating policy. Smoking marijuana in a hotel room … Continue reading
TX3: Dashcam audio of ptf on her porch over her objection cannot be public record
Plaintiffs were the subject of police recordings on her porch during a welfare check. Others sought a public records request for her dashcam recordings and audio of the conversation. Mrs. King was a former member of the Texas legislature and … Continue reading
NYTimes: Opinion: Americans Deserve Strong Privacy Laws
NYTimes: Opinion: Americans Deserve Strong Privacy Laws Legislators should seize the moment to pass meaningful protections for the digital age.
W.D.La.: Shipping a FedEx package under an assumed name to an assumed name did not deprive either of standing
The court finds standing in a FedEx package that had a fictitious name of both sender and recipient. A dog sniff of the package gave probable cause. United States v. Goodin, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 95071 (W.D. La. May 20, … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Not putting in affidavit after controlled buy that CI was searched doesn’t void the SW
The officer’s failure to include in the affidavit that the CI was searched before going in is a matter for the issuing judge to consider. “Here, the lack of information regarding the credibility of the purchasers as well as the … Continue reading