Archives
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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 -
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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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)
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"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
NY3: No exigency justified this entry; exclusionary rule applies in NY probation revo proceedings
There was no emergency basis for entry into defendant’s apartment, a probationer. The police understood that another person might be there who they were curious about. Still, there was no justification for the warrantless entry with gun drawn at midnight. … Continue reading
CA5: Mass suspicionless strip search of a class of 6th grade girls was clearly unreasonable with a failure to train on policy that would have prevented it
“During a sixth-grade choir class, an assistant principal allegedly ordered a mass, suspicionless strip search of the underwear of twenty-two preteen girls. All agree the search violated the girls’ constitutional rights under Texas and federal law. Even so, the district … Continue reading
D.Md.: Credibility question shown on whether def counsel failed to call material witness at suppression hearing; hearing ordered
Petitioner alleged enough to get a hearing on his 2255 that defense counsel didn’t call a material witness at the suppression hearing that would have created a credibility dispute with the officers as to the nature of the entry. Defense … Continue reading
NYT: How Smart TVs in Millions of U.S. Homes Track More Than What’s on Tonight
NYT: How Smart TVs in Millions of U.S. Homes Track More Than What’s on Tonight by Sapna Maheshwari:
E.D.Mich.: By following def and causing him to slow down, the officer created the alleged violation of driving under the minimum speed; stop unreasonable
The DEA asked the Michigan State Police to stop defendant. A trooper followed him and he was driving the speed limit and violating no laws. The officer pulled up next to him to get a look, then slowed to pull … Continue reading
D.Conn.: Knock-and-announce was complied with, but def also well knew they were there and what for
First, knock and announce was complied with. The officers testified credibly they announced repeatedly as they approached. Second, even if they didn’t, exigency or futility would be an exception–futile because defendant was well aware of their presence. There was also … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: Def on a shuttle bus stopped at I-19 immigration checkpoint consented to search
Defendant was on a shuttle bus referred for secondary inspection at the I-19 immigration checkpoint in Arizona. About 50 come through there a day, and all are stopped and the occupants ordered off. Defendant slipped away and wouldn’t make eye … Continue reading
CA10: A KS child welfare pick-up order was valid on its face in CO and didn’t need to be registered to satisfy 4A
A Kansas court issued a pick-up order for ten children from one family for various allegations. At the time the family was found, they were in Colorado, and the order was executed there. There was no statutory or constitutional duty … Continue reading
OH9: ER’s blood draw for medical diagnosis didn’t require compliance with statute on DWI blood draws
Defendant was in a fatal accident and taken to the ER. The state trooper there tried to get him to consent to a blood test, and he declined. While the officer went to get a search warrant for this blood, … Continue reading
Gizmodo: These Academics Spent the Last Year Testing Whether Your Phone Is Secretly Listening to You
Gizmodo: These Academics Spent the Last Year Testing Whether Your Phone Is Secretly Listening to You by Kashmir Hill (it’s not but apps tracking what you see and seek may make it seem that way):
WSJ: How to Protect Your Email Inbox From Snoopers
WSJ (sub. req.): How to Protect Your Email Inbox From Snoopers by Douglas MacMillan: An email inbox is a vault of secrets. In recent years, millions of users have been giving out the combination.
The Hill: Lawmakers should accept reality that digital communication can never be ‘too secure’
The Hill: Lawmakers should accept reality that digital communication can never be ‘too secure’ by Chris Howell:
CA4: Carpenter didn’t apply under Davis GFE where circuit law didn’t require warrant before
Carpenter doesn’t apply under Davis good faith exception where circuit law didn’t require a warrant before. Besides, here it was harmless at best. United States v. Chavez, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 18022 (4th Cir. July 2, 2018):
CA7: Drug court staffers’ making arrests outside courthouse may have violated state law but were reasonable under 4A
In claims against a drug court out of control involving multi-month detentions for really short term ordered incarcerations, there was also a Fourth Amendment claim: Two drug court staffers, one a bailiff with no authority outside the courthouse, undertook to … Continue reading
CA9: Prior illegal entry into home doesn’t void subsequent SW if observations removed from SW affidavit
Assuming, without deciding, the warrantless entry into defendant’s home was invalid, there still was probable cause for issuance of the search warrant based on the remainder of the affidavit, excising the product of the prior entry. Inclusion of information from … Continue reading
CA2: A request to Italy to search a computer under MLAT wasn’t governed by 4A
Defendant was accused of computer hacking from Italy, and Italian police conducted a search of his computers there. “Beyond alleging that the search was conducted at the request of the U.S. government, however, Gasperini does not argue that Italian officials … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Pole camera surveillance was troubling, but for def being on supervised release with a reduced REP
Pole camera surveillance of defendant may have been intrusive, and the court is sensitive to the ability of a pole camera to invade on privacy, but this case turns on defendant being on supervised release with a lower expectation of … Continue reading
M.D.N.C.: Calling def a “suspect” in the affidavit for SW for his house, without more, isn’t PC and the GFE doesn’t apply
Defendant was identified as a “suspect” in a shooting, but the police provided nothing to the issuing magistrate that even suggested how. The affidavit for the search warrant of defendant’s home was “bare bones,” and the good faith exception can’t … Continue reading