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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 -
Latest Slip Opinions:
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Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
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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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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)
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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
CA5: Tapping a vehicle tire was a trespass but with RS and was reasonable on the totality
The tapping of a suspicious looking tire on a truck was a trespass under Jones and other cases, but the court finds it was with reasonable suspicion and reasonable on the totality. The tapping of the tire revealed that it … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: No RS for stop for alleged street deals based on CI
The officers’ claimed reasonable suspicion of street drug deals in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District just doesn’t add up to it on the totality of circumstances. The CI wasn’t adequately corroborated. The stop and frisk fails. United States v. Castaneda, 2019 … Continue reading
CA8: Lesser intrusive measures to inventory not constitutionally required
The inventory was appropriately conducted within the policy of the department. Defendant had no constitutional right to have somebody come to pick up the car before inventory. The police could do that if convenient, but they weren’t required to do … Continue reading
CA11: § 1983 malicious prosecution claim defeated by PC even though exonerating information omitted from arrest affidavit
Plaintiff police officers’ false arrest claim fails on qualified immunity. Even though allegedly exonerating information was omitted from the arrest affidavits, and the criminal case was dropped by the state’s attorney, it wasn’t enough to undermine the probable cause that … Continue reading
KS: Inadequate findings and conclusions must be brought to trial court’s attention before appeal
Defendant should have objected to the adequacy of findings of fact and conclusions of law on his search issue in the trial court first. “Without such an objection, this court must presume the district court found all the facts needed … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Destruction of surveillance cameras before search not a “seizure” or due process violation
The government destroyed defendant’s surveillance cameras as a part of the search just before it started. He asserts a Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendment due process claim as a result. The court finds no authority that disabling the cameras was … Continue reading
Law & Crime: North Carolina Sheriffs Clash With ICE Officials After Series of Unwanted Immigration Raids
Law & Crime: North Carolina Sheriffs Clash With ICE Officials After Series of Unwanted Immigration Raids by Colin Kalmbacher:
N.D.Okla.: “firearms are tangible objects of habitual retention” and that overcomes def’s staleness argument
“Officer Campbell averred that, based on her experience and training, she knows that firearms are tangible objects of habitual retention, and once a person acquires a firearm, he or she usually keeps said weapon for a long period of time.” … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Protective order issued to keep def from seeing body camera videos in discovery
There were several body camera videos relating to this case as well as the search and seizure. The issue here is the scope of a protective order to keep defendant from seeing. The government met its burden of showing good … Continue reading
WA: State attenuation is more narrow than the 4A’s, and here it wasn’t satisfied
The attenuation doctrine applies under the Washington Constitution, but it is more narrowly applied than the Fourth Amendment’s. Here is it not satisfied, and there are no intervening circumstances. State v. Mayfield, 2019 Wash. LEXIS 70 (Feb. 7, 2019):
W.D.N.Y.: No IAC for trial strategy def had nothing to do with house, which denies him standing to contest search
Defendant disavowed any connection at trial to a particular house as a trial strategy. Thus, it was not ineffective assistance of counsel for not moving to suppress the search of a house he thus lacked standing in–defendant would not have … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y. concludes there is a somewhat limited common law right of access to the SW materials in the Michael Cohen case
On the motion of media organizations’ for access to the search warrant materials in the Michael Cohen case, the S.D.N.Y. concludes there is a limited common law right of access to the search warrant materials. Contrary to other courts, the … Continue reading
CA6: Officers who went to hospital room get QI on whether there was a REP in the shared room
Officers who visited plaintiff in his hospital room he shared with another were sued for allegedly violating his reasonable expectation of privacy. There is no clear controlling authority, and the officers get qualified immunity [and the issue goes undecided]. Bonds … Continue reading
CA7: QI barred § 1983 over forced prison blood draw
Plaintiff is an inmate in prison who was ordered to give a blood test when prison officials decided he wasn’t acting right and might be high. His suit over the prison’s forced blood draw is barred by qualified immunity. Holm … Continue reading
CA9: Ptf’s affidavit there was no announcement before battering ram broke in her door makes her civil case survive summary judgment
Plaintiff showed enough of a fact question that officers never announced they were attempting to enter on a search warrant, breaking in her door, to survive their motion for summary judgment. They said, she said. Greiner v. Wall, 2019 U.S. … Continue reading
DE: Untimely motion to suppress properly denied; def would lose on the merits anyway
Failure to file a motion to suppress before trial constituted a waiver of claims regarding the admissibility of items found at defendant’s garage. There was no plain error in the application of the inevitable discovery rule because it was clear … Continue reading
D.Utah: Heck barred § 1983 case over his search which produced only evidence in case
Essentially the only evidence supporting defendant’s conviction came from his search and seizure of evidence. Thus, his § 1983 case over the search is barred by Heck. Anderson v. Houston, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19246 (D.Utah Feb. 5, 2019).* For … Continue reading
Cal.4th: Use of cell site simulator with SW was reasonable
The use of a cell site simulator with a search warrant to locate defendant’s cell phone was reasonable. The issue on appeal was whether the trial court abused its discretion in denying a motion to continue while the defense tried … Continue reading