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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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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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
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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
Cal.: Cal.’s initiated DNA act constitutionally requires DNA sampling from those charged with serious felonies
California’s initiated DNA collection act requiring DNA sampling of those charged with serious felonies applies to defendant’s arson arrest. He refused to provide a sample on booking and was convicted of a misdemeanor offense. The California statute is not exactly … Continue reading
W.D.Mich.: No REP in overheard unethical ex parte communication with a judge
An ex parte communication between lawyers and a judge overheard on an open phone line of a part of a call that hadn’t been completely disconnected has no reasonable expectation of privacy. Ideally, there woud be a reasonable expectation of … Continue reading
Volokh Conspiracy: Why the Supreme Court Reviews So Many Qualified Immunity Cases
Volokh Conspiracy: Why the Supreme Court Reviews So Many Qualified Immunity Cases by Orin Kerr: Here’s a theory, at least.
SCOTUS: Qualified immunity for shooting a woman holding a knife in an apparent threatening manner
In Kisela v. Hughes, 17-467 (U.S. April 2, 2018), decided on the cert petition and response, the Supreme Court held that an officer who shot a woman holding a knife in an apparent threatening manner [although that seems to be … Continue reading
The Economist: There will be little privacy in the workplace of the future
The Economist: There will be little privacy in the workplace of the future: AI will make workplaces more efficient, safer-and much creepier.
Wired: The Hairy Problem With Drug Testing
Wired: The Hairy Problem With Drug Testing by Ellen Airhart: Boston police officers whose hair tests positive for drugs usually have two options: admit their substance abuse problems and agree to a stint in rehabilitation, or relinquish their position. But … Continue reading
NYTimes: Hey, Alexa, What Can You Hear? And What Will You Do With It?
NYTimes: Hey, Alexa, What Can You Hear? And What Will You Do With It? by Sapna Maheswari: Amazon and Google have filed patent applications, many still under consideration, that outline how digital assistants can monitor more of what users say … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: CP SW for images “created, modified or stored in any form,” including electronically included a cell phone
A child pornography search warrant for images “created, modified or stored in any form,” including electronically included a cell phone. As to defendant’s Franks challenge, his complaint about hearsay completely fails because whatever the police had, they obtained another person’s … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: Suit over opening medical records envelope as non-legal mail was frivolous
Suit over opening of non-legal mail, here medical records, was frivolous. Villafana v. Clarke, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 54893 (E.D. Va. Mar. 30, 2018). The first officer at the scene conducted a search without probable cause. A supervising officer appeared … Continue reading
CA3: Controlled buy moots Franks challenge to CI
The CI’s story was confirmed by two controlled buys. The Franks challenge to the CI fails as to whether it was corroborated or completely immaterial because of the controlled buys. United States v. Carney, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 8116 (3d … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Prison inmate states 4A claim for digital rectal search in front of other inmates
Plaintiff prison inmate states a claim for a digital search in front of other inmates. Fuentes v. Cal. Dep’t of Corr., 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 52132 (E.D. Cal. Mar. 29, 2018). The prison strip search here had a legitimate penological … Continue reading
TX5: Pre-Jardines dog sniff was apparently valid at the time and wouldn’t be suppressed
Defendant’s home was subjected to a dog sniff a year before Jardines. Relying on that, the trial court suppressed. Because enough Texas cases held similar searches were valid prior to Jardines, the court concludes that the exclusionary rule would not … Continue reading
IL: SW in murder investigation was general and sought drug evidence without showing PC for it
The search warrant in a murder investigation didn’t incorporate the affidavit in support, and it wasn’t present for the search, so this warrant was too general to support a search. The search warrant was shown to be for a drug … Continue reading
NJ: Vehicle SW doesn’t sanitize the prior illegal stop or shift the burden to defense
A later issued search warrant doesn’t retroactively justify a stop the defense showed to be without a legal basis. The state carried the burden of proof throughout, and it could not shift the burden to the defense by the issuance … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Issuance of a state’s prosecutor’s subpoena for an ulterior motive states a claim
A state AG’s subpoena was issued for a prisoner’s medical records, but not in a criminal investigation. Enough cases, especially in this circuit, hold there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in medical records to overcome qualified immunity. In addition, … Continue reading
Cal.5: Detaining visiting non-probationer during probation search was unreasonable
Defendant was visiting a friend when the friend’s PO showed up for an unannounced search. Defendant was detained, too. His detention was unreasonable. People v. Gutierrez, 2018 Cal. App. LEXIS 282 (5th Dist. Mar. 29, 2018). This defendant challenged the … Continue reading
CA4: Jardines didn’t bar officers from following burnt marijuana smell to def’s apartment
Two officers on bike patrol rode through an apartment complex and smelled burning marijuana. They followed their noses and sniffed at defendant’s place and knocked. The district court erred in suppressing because it read too much into Jardines. The officers … Continue reading
OH7: 23 days isn’t stale in a SW for guns
The police were in defendant’s house and observed guns. They didn’t realize that he was a felon in possession until two weeks later. Then they sought a warrant 23 days after seeing the guns. That wasn’t unreasonable considering the fact … Continue reading
D.Me.: SW didn’t authorize search of visitor’s cars arriving after search started
The search warrant in this case did not authorize a search of a vehicle that arrived at the premises during the search. There was, however, independent probable cause for a search of the vehicle under the automobile exception. United States … Continue reading