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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
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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
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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Solicitor General's site
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Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
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S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
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General (many free):
LexisWeb
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Findlaw.com
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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)
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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
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)
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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
Legal Intelligencer: As Genealogy Databases Aid in Crime-Solving, Are Courts Ready to Tackle DNA Privacy?
Legal Intelligencer: As Genealogy Databases Aid in Crime-Solving, Are Courts Ready to Tackle DNA Privacy? by Max Mitchell: The trail of murders and assaults spanning California went unsolved for decades, until investigators turned to a tool more popular with genealogy … Continue reading
D.Nev.: When the govt says it won’t use the product of the search at trial, the motion to suppress is moot, yet def still argues it
The government responded to the initial motion to suppress by saying it wouldn’t use the evidence obtained in the search. The court held the motion was then moot. Defendant pro se then claimed that meant that the officer must have … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Disney World’s own fraud investigators conducted private search of hotel room
Walt Disney World’s fraud investigators received a call from American Express that a card was being used fraudulently there. Ultimately, WDW own investigators entered defendant’s room without telling the police what they were doing and found access devices in plain … Continue reading
OR: There was no PC for an administrative seizure of def’s car
The seizure of defendant’s car was without probable cause for an administrative seizure. While her insurance card did not fully comply with the statute, it was fair on its face that it was her and for her cars. State v. … Continue reading
M.D.La.: Leaving one’s garage door open is not a waiver of REP or standing
Defendant’s garage door was left open, and that reduced his reasonable expectation of privacy in it, but that didn’t mean he had no standing. By leaving open the garage, defendant didn’t invite the police in, and exigent circumstances or a … Continue reading
LA Times: Authorities recorded privileged attorney-client conversations, district attorney’s office says
LA Times: Authorities recorded privileged attorney-client conversations, district attorney’s office says by Nina Agrawal:
WaPo Opinion: Facial recognition threatens our fundamental rights
WWaPo Opinion: Facial recognition threatens our fundamental rights by Clare Garvie:
SCOTUSblog: Judge Kavanaugh on the Fourth Amendment
SCOTUSblog: Judge Kavanaugh on the Fourth Amendment by Orin S. Kerr: Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s views of the Fourth Amendment have drawn significant interest following his recent nomination to the Supreme Court. This post takes a close look at Kavanaugh’s key … Continue reading
CNN: FBI releases Carter Page surveillance warrant documents
CNN: FBI releases Carter Page surveillance warrant documents by Jeremy Herb and David Shortell. The 412 page application, warrant, and other papers is here. The applications included Page’s denials made to the FBI before it was sought. NYT: Without Evidence, … Continue reading
D.D.C.: SW for Manafort’s home sustained; SW for state of mind evidence permitted under Andresen
The search warrant for defendant’s home for “[a]ny and all financial records,” “[e]vidence indicating Manafort’s state of mind as it relates to the crimes under Investigation,” and “[c]omputers or storage media used as a means to commit the Subject Offenses” … Continue reading
TN: Failure to leave copy of SW mere technical error
Defendant had her blood drawn by search warrant, and the officer failed to leave a copy of the warrant with her. The trial court granted her motion to suppress, and the court of criminal appeals affirmed. Reversed: The mere nonprejudicial … Continue reading
CA9: Def shows issuing magistrate on arrest warrant wasn’t neutral and detached, but he still loses to GFE
The Ninth Circuit recognizes judicial abandonment under the neutral and detached magistrate requirement, but defendant here still loses. The officers arresting him on the warrant weren’t there when the judicial officer failed to read the papers, and they had no … Continue reading
CA3: Violation of Vienna Convention on arrest doesn’t lead to dismissal
“Dismissal of the indictment and suppression of evidence are not appropriate remedial measures for a violation of Article 36 [of the Vienna Convention] in this case.” Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon, 548 U.S. 331, 350 (2006). United States v. Castillo, 2018 U.S. … Continue reading
CA9: On remand for a hearing on inevitable discovery, the district court found it applied three ways
On remand from United States v. Harris, 642 Fed. Appx. 713 (9th Cir. 2016), the district court had a hearing on application of inevitable discovery. “At the supplemental hearing, the district court made three findings in determining that the inevitable … Continue reading
The Hill: Special master in Cohen case rejects more than a third of legal team’s privileged items
The Hill: Special master in Cohen case rejects more than a third of legal team’s privileged items by Aris Folley: According to court documents filed Thursday, Special master Barbara Jones found that 1,452 out of the 4,085 items designated privileged … Continue reading
Recode: Your phone is not secretly spying on your conversations. It doesn’t need to.
Recode: Your phone is not secretly spying on your conversations. It doesn’t need to. By Eric Johnson Northeastern University researchers Dave Choffnes and Christo Wilson (mostly) debunk the internet’s favorite conspiracy theory on the latest Too Embarrassed to Ask.