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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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Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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General (many free):
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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
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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
OH2: Towing company couldn’t be ordered to return car without being heard
The trial court doesn’t have the power to order the towing company to return defendant’s car without it being heard. It does, however, have the power to order the police to return what it seized that it does not need … Continue reading
OR: Search of browser history limited to the PC, and here it was one day
Police received a call that defendant’s infant son had died at home. In his interview with the police, defendant admitted a computer search about it. The police got a search warrant for his computer search history. The probable cause here … Continue reading
GA: No REP in a police interview room when you’re talking to yourself
Defendant talked to her dead sister she was later accused of killing while sitting alone in a police interview room that was being recorded. She had no reasonable expectation of privacy. She thought it was private, but that’s not enough. … Continue reading
CA11: Def was outside while consent sought from cotenant inside; consent valid and Randolph doesn’t help him
The consent of a cotenant was voluntary and valid, and she clearly had apparent authority to do so. Defendant was nearby and outside, but the police made no effort to ask him for consent nor to segregate him to prevent … Continue reading
UT: Photographing items for inventory rather than listing them is reasonable
Photographing the things seen in the inventory rather than listing them all is reasonable. Here, defendant also mounted a “vigorous” defense to the validity of the inventory in other respects, but they all fail. His backpack was searched in the … Continue reading
GA: Trial judge’s order of defense counsel to be drug tested violated 4A; ADA’s SW for blood test next day was valid, however
Defense counsel appeared to the trial judge to be under the influence of something, and the judge ordered a recess. Defense counsel came back to finish the trial after a few hours, and the condition still existed. The court ordered … Continue reading
SD: Electronic signature on a SW application sent in to magistrate is valid as an oath
An electronic signature on a search warrant application is still an oath for an affidavit required under state law, and the motion to suppress was properly denied. State v. Bowers, 2018 SD 50 (June 27, 2018). Juvenile defendant was interrogated … Continue reading
E.D. Mich.: Typo on date of affidavit can be overlooked when proven
The search warrant was facially stale, having been issued on February 7th where the affidavit was signed on January 7th. It’s shown to be a typographical error that may be overlooked. The search warrant was accompanied by its affidavit, and … Continue reading
IA adopts tighter inventory search standard under state const. and rejects SCOTUS cases
Iowa declines to follow SCOTUS cases on the Fourth Amendment in determining validity of inventory searches under the state constitution. The asserted justifications for inventory under the Fourth Amendment hold no weight on closer examination, and vehicle owners should get … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Smell of MJ from passenger compartment is PC only as to that area
The smell of marijuana came from the passenger compartment, and the court finds that the probable cause that it creates is limited to the passenger compartment under the automobile exception. United States v. Chavez, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 107695 (N.D. … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: 28 days of warrantless GPS tracking of a boat suppressed under Jones
Defendant’s boat was adrift off West Palm Beach, Florida for a few hours when the Coast Guard found him and boarded the boat. It was towed to the Coast Guard station and a border search was conducted. Nothing was found, … Continue reading
IN: Cell phones are a tool of the trade of drug dealers; a lot of information extracted from it doesn’t show SW was overbroad
There was nexus between defendant’s alleged crime of drug dealing and his cell phone since cell phones are a tool of drug dealers. The search warrant was not impermissibly overbroad. Although 1000 pages of information was extracted from the phone, … Continue reading
MA: First time CI still corroborated by “imperfectly executed controlled ‘buy’”
“In this interlocutory appeal by the Commonwealth, we must decide whether the information provided by a first-time, confidential police informant (CI) was sufficiently corroborated by a single, imperfectly executed controlled ‘buy’ of cocaine for the purposes of establishing probable cause … Continue reading
GA: In responding to 911 call of a loud party where homeowners weren’t present, entry into backyard violated curtilage
Police received a report of a party going on at a house, and they walked to the back of the house where it was. There were many people on a deck, and they suspected from a radio call that the … Continue reading
CA6: SW affidavit was so lacking in evidence that it did not show PC; def’s criminal record not enough; SW affidavit so lacking, no GFE
To determine whether the warrant affidavit supported probable cause to search defendant’s residence under Fourth Amendment, the court was required to assess the significance of each piece of evidence relied upon. Then it considers all the evidence together to determine … Continue reading
NYT: N.S.A. Purges Hundreds of Millions of Call and Text Records
NYT: N.S.A. Purges Hundreds of Millions of Call and Text Records by Charlie Savage The National Security Agency has purged hundreds of millions of records logging phone calls and texts that it had gathered from American telecommunications companies since 2015, … Continue reading
NYT: Newspaper Shooting Shows Widening Use of Facial Recognition by Authorities
NYT: Newspaper Shooting Shows Widening Use of Facial Recognition by Authorities by Cade Metz and Natasha Singer: When the police apprehended a suspect for the shootings at The Capital Gazette’s newsroom in Annapolis, Md., on Thursday, he refused to divulge … Continue reading
D.D.C.: SW for cell phone can also compel use of biometric data to open it
The government may also seek a search warrant for a cell phone that requires use of biometric information to open it, as long as it happens at the time of execution. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in fingerprints … Continue reading
Cal.: Carpenter‘s search warrant requirement does not apply to cell phone records merely used to show that co-conspirators communicated with each other
Carpenter’s search warrant requirement does not apply to cell phone records merely used to show that co-conspirators communicated with each other. In light of the whole trial, it wasn’t all that important. People v. Anderson, 2018 Cal. LEXIS 4698 (June … Continue reading
MD: Odor of MJ from the person is PC to search the person
The odor of marijuana provides probable cause to believe that marijuana is present, and therefore, the smell of marijuana emanating from a vehicle provides probable cause to believe that contraband or evidence of a crime will be in the vehicle … Continue reading