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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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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
CA9: School resource officer’s arrest of alleged bullying middle school girls ‘to prove a point’ and ‘make [them] mature a lot faster’ was unreasonable under T.L.O.
Arresting middle school girls for alleged bullying and fighting at school violated the Fourth Amendment and was unreasonable: “After concluding that the girls were unresponsive and disrespectful, the deputy arrested the girls ‘to prove a point’ and ‘make [them] mature … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Impersonating a DEA agent in one’s car justifies automobile exception
Defendant was arrested for impersonating a DEA officer and using his car to do it. That gave probable cause to search the car. Defendant’s argument that there was an unreasonable inventory are off the mark. United States v. Wade, 2018 … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Being in hotel room past checkout time justified hotelier locking him out
The court can’t determine from the record whether defendant’s actions in his hotel room justified the hotel locking him out and seizing the room, so the court goes to an alternative argument: The rental period expired at 11 am with … Continue reading
N.D.Ill. Bankr.: A bankruptcy filed after seizure can defeat an attempted forfeiture
The City of Chicago seized a car for a forfeiture, and the owner filed bankruptcy. The city refused to give the car up to the bankruptcy court, and the court holds the city violated the bankruptcy stay. In re Shannon, … Continue reading
Axios: Three state-level cases will shape cellphone privacy law
Axios: Three state-level cases will shape cellphone privacy law by Haley Britzky:
D.S.C.: NC CI provided information for SC search; PC shown and GFE would apply
The CI was known to the Fayetteville NC PD, and he provided information there that panned out and led to arrests. Information was provided for North Myrtle Beach SC, and the CI was unknown in SC. Still, there was some … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Whether the maintaining one’s lane statute was violated is subject to Heien and the reasonable mistake of law
The collective knowledge doctrine applies to reasonable suspicion, too. Here, there is argument whether defendant actually violated the requirement of staying in his lane by touching the lane marker or crossing it. Either way, the court finds that this qualifies … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: People found in the backyard when SW executed subject to frisk
It was reasonable to patdown men found in the backyard of a house searched under a warrant. Ybarra distinguished. There was virtually reasonable suspicion as to anybody associated with the property. United States v. Cargill, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 152038 … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: When a criminal defense lawyer’s office was the target of a SW, a special master was appropriate
Defendant is a criminal defense lawyer, and his office was subjected to a search and some client files were seized. When a criminal defense lawyer is the target of the search, there are clear Sixth Amendment concerns. While courts often … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Violation of state law on informant hearsay [erroneously] imported into federal prosecution
The court finds the search warrant issued without probable cause as to the informant hearsay under New York law, and a hearing will be scheduled to determine whether to exclude. [Considering that state law violations generally have no affect on … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Reconsideration granted of suppression order to admit gun in a murder conspiracy
With apparent reluctance, the court grants the government’s motion to reconsider the grant of a motion to suppress a gun found in a backpack in the trunk of defendant’s car now linked to two homicides. The government could have raised … Continue reading
W.D.La.: Being asleep in a running car with a gun in lap is RS
Police found a car stopped with the engine running and the driver unconscious or asleep with a gun in his lap. That justified further inquiry, and the officer’s actions were with reasonable suspicion. The fact his hands came up without … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Pre-Carpenter obtaining CSLI under SCA was valid under GFE
CSLI obtained in January 2017 via the Stored Communications Act were admissible after Carpenter via the good faith exception. United States v. Pleasant, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 150406 (E.D. Pa. Sep. 5, 2018).* Defendant argued that the affidavit for the … Continue reading
NYTimes & WaPo: Inappropriate use of Tasers in today’s papers
NYTimes: Video Shows Cincinnati Officer Confronting 11-Year-Old After Using Taser on Her by Mihir Saveri WaPo: A sleeping student wouldn’t wake up in class. So an officer pulled out her Taser. by Cleve R. Wootson Jr.
CO: Def doesn’t get a jury instruction in a DUI case that the officer could have sought a SW for blood
In a DUI case, defendant was not entitled to a jury instruction that the officer could have sought a search warrant for a blood draw. That’s not a jury question. People v. Gwinn, 2018 COA 130, 2018 Colo. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA10: Search of car was inevitable by later inventory (completely overlooking automobile exception)
Defendant was stopped after robbing a Dollar General store of cigarettes. When confronted in the parking lot, he pulled a gun on the employees. Albuquerque PD found the car, surrounded it, and got him out. The car was searched and … Continue reading
CA4: Collective knowledge doctrine doesn’t require reporting back to the source
The CI’s information viewed under the totality provided reasonable suspicion for the stop of defendant. [Defendant’s approach was divide and conquer the facts.] The collective knowledge doctrine does not require the stopping and arresting officer keep the officer providing the … Continue reading
CA9: Search of backpack was inevitable either as SITA or booking
Defendant was booked on two misdemeanors, and his backpack was searched. If his backpack wasn’t subject to a search incident, it was subject to inevitable discovery for a search at booking. Also, for what it’s worth, defendant twice attempted to … Continue reading
FL4: Use of cell site simulator requires SW
Warrantless use of a cell site simulator to capture cell phone calls violates the Fourth Amendment. That information was used to get a search warrant for CSLI. State v. Sylvestre, 2018 Fla. App. LEXIS 12671 (Fla. 4th DCA Sep. 6, … Continue reading