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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)
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
CA9: Bivens permits cause of action against Border Patrol agent for shooting a Mexican citizen across the border who posed no threat
In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth Circuit held Bivens permitted an action against a US Border Patrol agent who shot from the U.S. into Mexico and killed a Mexican teenager. In addition, there was no qualified immunity. Rodriguez v. Swartz, … Continue reading
OH5: GFE applies although affidavit for SW showed no nexus to house
The affidavit for the search warrant identified the suspects and what was to be searched for, but it said nothing about nexus to defendant’s house. Yet, the court finds that the search warrant was not bare bones based on supposition, … Continue reading
The Verge: New facial recognition tool tracks targets across different social networks
The Verge: New facial recognition tool tracks targets across different social networks By Russell Brandom: The open-source program is designed for security researchers.
CA3: FBI doesn’t need permission from the states under 10A to get a SW in a bank robbery
“Johnson argues that ‘if a search warrant was required then the 10th Amendment requires the Department of Justice to obtain subject matter jurisdiction because the administration of criminal justice under our federal system has rested with the States.’ Pro Se … Continue reading
D.S.C.: Delegating to Drug Enforcement Unit how it executes no-knocks was municipal policy, MSJ denied
The Drug Enforcement Unit’s de facto policy not to properly knock-and-announce as a municipal policy survive defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Plaintiff was rendered a paraplegic during the no-knock entry. Plaintiff alleged that the DEU essentially failed to knock-and-announce at … Continue reading
W.D.Mich.: In a prison male group strip search, def female guard doesn’t show QI from how it was done
In a prison group strip search, “Defendant has failed to properly support her motion for summary judgment with relevant evidence showing the existence of a legitimate penological need for the group strip search and why her presence inside the Chapel … Continue reading
CA11: GFE applies to particularity, too
The good faith exception applies to the particularity of this search warrant. It was reasonably narrow, and even if it could be narrowed more, it wasn’t obviously overbroad. United States v. Alford, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 21581 (11th Cir. Aug. … Continue reading
CA6: Franks violation overcomes qualified immunity in § 1983 case
In this § 1983 case, the officer provided false information in the affidavit for the search warrant that was critical to the finding of probable cause. Without that information, there was no probable cause. The district court’s finding that qualified … Continue reading
Relevance of a Jesus Malverde statute
Not a Fourth Amendment case, but a relevance issue in drug cases: Was there prejudice from testimony about a Jesus Malverde statute? United States v. Valencia, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 21659 (8th Cir. Aug. 6, 2018)*:
LA Times: Editorial: Bugging conversations between criminal defendants and their lawyers is bad news
LA Times: Editorial: Bugging conversations between criminal defendants and their lawyers is bad news: The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, and under various court rulings that means government agents must first get warrants before listening in on … Continue reading
Washington Post: Subpoena for app called ‘Discord’ could unmask identities of Charlottesville white supremacists
Washington Post: Subpoena for app called ‘Discord’ could unmask identities of Charlottesville white supremacists By Meagan Flynn: Discord, which was started in 2015 as a secure chat app for videogamers, also happened to be conducive for white supremacists, white nationalists, … Continue reading
Talk Business: SmartDrive focuses on fleet safety using video to improve risky driver behavior
Talk Business: SmartDrive focuses on fleet safety using video to improve risky driver behavior by Jeff Della Rosa:
CA7 decides Franks IAC claim on merits: there is PC and the GFE applies; the issuing magistrate was not intentionally or recklessly misled
Defendant raised a Franks IAC claim, and the Seventh Circuit deals with the merits of the claim to determine that there was no Fourth Amendment violation, therefore no IAC. The district court concluded there was no probable cause but the … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Flight from a potential encounter in a high crime area is RS; detention after that was reasonable based on collective knowledge
Flight from a potential encounter in a high crime area is reasonable suspicion. Detention after that was reasonable based on collective knowledge. The court also addresses at length vertical and horizontal collective knowledge and follows the Fourth Circuit rule that … Continue reading
CA6 declines to decide a clear 4A PC issue that would result in affirmance just to decide on good faith
The search warrant was based on three controlled buys out of defendant’s house. Instead of just saying that that is probable cause, which it obviously is (although the panel kind of merely suggests it might be a close call by … Continue reading
GA: Probate judge could issue SW under state law
It wasn’t a violation of state law that a probate judge signed the search warrant in this case. Joyner v. State, 2018 Ga. App. LEXIS 474 (Aug. 3, 2018). Defendant’s DNA was found on bullet casings, and that was added … Continue reading
OK: Trial court’s granting motion to suppress without even considering GFE on state’s request was an abuse of discretion
The trial court abused its discretion in granting the motion to suppress the search warrant without even considering the good faith exception after the state raised it. State v. Haliburton, 2018 OK CR 28, 2018 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 28 … Continue reading
CA9: No justification for probation search of locked bedroom of non-probationer roommate brother
Defendant lived with his brother who was on probation in a locked room. Officers came to conduct a probation search of the brother, and it was unreasonable to search defendant’s locked room. They had no reason to believe the brother … Continue reading
NPR: The Pot Breathalyzer Is Here. Maybe
NPR: The Pot Breathalyzer Is Here. Maybe by Eric Westervelt: As legalization of recreational and medical marijuana continues to expand, police across the country are more concerned than ever about stoned drivers taking to the nation’s roads and freeways, endangering … Continue reading