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- IN: Officer’s interpretation of traffic law wasn’t reasonable so stop was void
- Gizmodo: How You Could End Up in a Government Surveillance Database and Never Know It
- 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
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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)
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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
NJ: When driver can’t or won’t produce registration, a limited search for it is permissible
“Sufficient credible evidence supported the trial court’s determination that defendant was given an adequate opportunity to present the vehicle’s registration before the search commenced. When a driver is unwilling or unable to present proof of a vehicle’s ownership, a police … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Email SW completely lacked PC, then there were false statements and material omissions, too
The motion to suppress the search warrant for defendant’s emails is granted. “Nothing in the 2013 affidavit used to obtain the search warrant approaches probable cause.” And, “Therefore, the 2013 search warrant affidavit is so lacking in indicia of probable … Continue reading
MD: Surreptitious recording of def’s statement on cell phone violated state wiretap act
A parent’s surreptitious recording of defendant on cell phone for use to make a sex offense against him was inadmissible under the state wiretap act. Holmes v. State, 2018 Md. App. LEXIS 310 (Apr. 6, 2018).* First paragraph:
CA8: Stop of car apparently leaving scene of crime was valid
There was reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop based on the fact the vehicle matched the description of one leaving the scene of a robbery by time and proximity, too. United States v. Daniel, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 8504 (8th Cir. … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: This SW affidavit was adequate and different than co-def’s SW affidavit where it was suppressed
The affidavit for the search warrant as to this defendant adequately demonstrated probable cause. The fact the codefendant’s search warrant lacked probable cause isn’t binding on this search warrant. United States v. Damondo, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57204 (S.D. Ohio … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Statement is suppressed, but def’s giving up passcode to cell phone is not
While defendant’s statement is suppressed, his giving up the passcode to his cell phone is not, so the search of the cell phone was by consent. United States v. Jackson, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55965 (D. Minn. Feb. 27, 2018):
MI: Exclusionary rule doesn’t apply in child protective proceedings
The exclusionary rule does not apply in child protective proceedings. In re Kirschner, 2018 Mich. App. LEXIS 1093 (Apr. 3, 2018):
D.Neb.: Def’s Franks IAC claim fails for lack of any allegations of fact
“Lloyd makes four claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. Those claims border on the ridiculous.” As to his Fourth Amendment IAC claim for not making a Franks challenge, he alleges nothing was false. United States v. Lloyd, 2018 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
CA6: Decedent’s putting gun to head during execution of SW at his house justified deadly force against him
Officers executing a search warrant had the target pull a gun and put it to his head, so one shot him, and he died. There was a factual dispute about whether the officers properly knocked-and-announced before entry, but that’s not … Continue reading
OH9: Running drug dog around car during computer check didn’t delay the stop
Running a drug dog around defendant’s car while the computer check is going on didn’t delay the stop. State v. Torres, 2018-Ohio-1173, 2018 Ohio App. LEXIS 1274 (9th Dist. Mar. 30, 2018). The inclusion of a generalized along with a … Continue reading
MN: Getting out of a car, looking at officer, then walking away was hardly RS
Defendant’s stop, handcuffing, and questioning was without reasonable suspicion based on his looking at officers and walking away. State v. Davis, 2018 Minn. App. LEXIS 162 (Apr. 2, 2018) (“he looked at me” or “he didn’t look at me” has … Continue reading
TX1: Search incident and inventory invalid for failing to signal; as to inventory, the inventorying officer is a necessary witness
A drug officer called a patrol officer to stop defendant. After he failed to promptly signal a turn, he was stopped, handcuffed, and his car was searched. “The search of Appellant’s vehicle incident to his arrest for failing to signal … Continue reading
IL: Hospital employee seizing def’s clothing from private room at police request violated 4A
Police enlisting a hospital employee to enter defendant’s hospital room to take his clothing violated his reasonable expectation of privacy and made the employee a police agent. The seizure violated the Fourth Amendment. People v. Gill, 2018 IL App (3d) … Continue reading
WaPo: Justice Department asks Supreme Court to moot Microsoft email case, citing new law
WaPo: Justice Department asks Supreme Court to moot Microsoft email case, citing new law by Ellen Nakashima: Now that Congress has made clear that a U.S. search warrant covers emails stored overseas, the Justice Department on Friday asked the Supreme … Continue reading
Motherboard: Mass Surveillance Memes Show Our Collective Anxiety Over Government Spying
Motherboard: Mass Surveillance Memes Show Our Collective Anxiety Over Government Spying by Mack DeGeurin: Surveillance memes are everywhere because it feels like surveillance is everywhere.
NPR: Police Shootings Stir Outrage Among Some, But Not The Supreme Court
NPR: Police Shootings Stir Outrage Among Some, But Not The Supreme Court by Nina Totenburg: The U.S. Supreme Court has again stepped into the bitter public turmoil over police shootings of civilians, ruling Monday that an Arizona police officer is … Continue reading
WSJ: Artificial Intelligence Could Soon Enhance Real-Time Police Surveillance
WSJ: Artificial Intelligence Could Soon Enhance Real-Time Police Surveillance by Shibani Mahtani and Zusha Elinson: CHICAGO—Several technology companies are working with police departments across the U.S. to develop the capability to add artificial intelligence to video surveillance and body cameras … Continue reading
Volokh Conspiracy: The Supreme Court’s Continuing Immunity Crusade
Volokh Conspiracy: The Supreme Court’s Continuing Immunity Crusade by Will Baude A few thoughts on today’s summary reversal in Kisela v. Hughes.
MN: Typo adding wrong name into a DNA SW along with the correct name didn’t make it overbroad
“A [DNA] search warrant that mistakenly includes an incorrect person’s name does not lack sufficient particularity when the warrant provides a description of the correct person to be searched that includes the correct person’s name, date of birth, and location, … Continue reading