Archives
-
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
-
Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
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)
-
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
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
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)
-
“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
N.D.Ill.: Def’s alleged torture during arrest in Mexico with DEA there and allegedly watching didn’t justify dismissal under CA7 precedent
Defendant claimed that he was arrested in Mexico by their military with the DEA on the scene, and that he was allegedly tortured by the Mexican military. His outrageous conduct for dismissal claim is foreclosed by Seventh Circuit case law. … Continue reading
OH9: Probable hand-to-hand drug deal from car was RS for stop
Potential hand-to-hand drug deal in a car was reasonable suspicion for a stop. It’s what these officers were always looking for. [It may have ultimately had an innocent explanation, but it looked like it to them.] State v. Dunlap, 2018-Ohio-3658, … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: FISA warrant that caught defs’ phone calls was valid
Defendants’ calls were caught up in a FISA warrant and they were indicted for providing material support to terrorists. The collection under the FISA warrant was valid because the government showed “the purpose” of the surveillance was bona fide national … Continue reading
TN: Homeless urban camper trespassing in taking over another homeless camp tent had no standing
Defendant found an abandoned tent in a homeless campsite. The owner of the property was complaining to the police about homeless living there. “The record reflects that the Defendant and the others happened upon the tent and began using it … Continue reading
PA: Private university public safety conducted dorm searches for drugs after drug induced fight; it was a private search
Defendant was a student at Villanova University. There was a violent confrontation in a dorm between students who had admitted ingesting likely too much LSD. The University’s Public Safety Department and University officials conducted dorm searches. They had no arrest … Continue reading
Draft article: Orin S. Kerr, Compelled Decryption and the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination
Orin S. Kerr, Compelled Decryption and the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination, forthcoming in the Texas Law Review, available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3248286 Abstract:
W.D.Tenn.: Reasonable to block and stop a car that an officer thought had the subject of an arrest warrant in it
It was reasonable for the officer to block a car because he reasonably suspected that the person he wanted on an arrest warrant was in it and the honking of the car horn might have been a warning to others … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: No REP in a wiretapped contraband cell phone in a jail
Defendant was on a contraband cell phone in jail that was wiretapped. He had no reasonable expectation of privacy in that phone. United States v. Nava, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155590 (N.D. Ga. Sep. 12, 2018):
D.S.D.: Reasonable to stop car driving off rural property as police arrive to execute a SW
Officers arrived with a search warrant for a house on rural property, and a vehicle was leaving. It was reasonable to stop the vehicle to determine whether it or an occupant belonged at the house and was covered by the … Continue reading
CA4: Pre-Carpenter gathering of CSLI subject to GFE
Pre-Carpenter gathering of CSLI subject to good faith exception. United States v. Christian, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 25580 (4th Cir. Sep. 10, 2018). Defendant didn’t object to the R&R recommending denial of his search claim, and the R&R is adopted. … Continue reading
GA: Search of a backpack six days after seizure required a SW
Defendant was granted a new murder trial on ineffective assistance of counsel grounds, one of which was failure to file a motion to suppress. On remand to the trial court, he pursued the motion to suppress claiming that a search … Continue reading
OR: On a domestic call, “The officers heard a man say ‘shut the fuck up,’ a woman crying and whimpering, a loud thump, and then silence.” This was exigency
Police get a domestic call, and when they get there “The officers heard a man say ‘shut the fuck up,’ a woman crying and whimpering, a loud thump, and then silence.” This was enough for exigency for an entry. State … Continue reading
The New Yorker: Can the Manufacturer of Tasers Provide the Answer to Police Abuse?
The New Yorker: Can the Manufacturer of Tasers Provide the Answer to Police Abuse? by Dana Goodyear: Axon’s body cameras are reshaping how video evidence is collected—and who controls it.
OH11: DAs get no immunity for forfeiture of a firearm others had an interest in
Prosecutors had no absolute immunity for disposing of a firearm after defendant’s conviction when others had a legal interest in the firearm because it was an administrative function. Ownership and possession are different concepts, and forfeiture of others’ interests were … Continue reading
CO: Def was accused of pointing a laser-sighted rifle from his house at a neighbor; police arrived and exigency justified the entry
The entry into defendant’s home was with exigent circumstances. A neighbor of defendant repeatedly called the police to say that defendant was repeatedly pointing a laser-sighted rifle at him from the house. Police came to the house to inquire. Defendant … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Entry was justified to arrest a wanted dangerous person
Defendant had standing as a guest in Commonwealth subsidized housing. The record wasn’t clear on how long he stayed there in total, but clearly at the time of the search. The occupant’s lease prohibited extended stay guests, but it also … Continue reading
CA9: No QI for IRS agent insisting that she watch ptf pee in her own bathroom during execution of tax SW
During an IRS criminal search, an IRS supervisory officer insisted that she watch plaintiff urinate in plaintiff’s own bathroom. This was sufficient to show an unreasonable invasion of privacy and overcome qualified immunity. Ioane v. Hodges, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA6: Even if part of affidavit for SW was illegally obtained, after purging it, the remainder still shows PC
A woman came to a motel office to hide because the man she was staying with had a gun. The police were called, and they ended up at the room, entered, and saw two guns and drug paraphernalia. They left … Continue reading
CA11: Aerial surveillance alone was independent source for SW
The independent source doctrine applies to officers’ aerial surveillance alone. If the officers had only mentioned their aerial surveillance seeing marijuana plants, that alone was probable cause. “The district court credited the agents’ testimony that they would have sought a … Continue reading