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- W.D.La.: Israel’s capture of Palestinian cell phone calls was foreign search in case here
- 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
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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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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
AP: “Man sits in jail when drywall powder is mistaken for cocaine” because a drug dog said it was cocaine
AP: Man sits in jail when drywall powder is mistaken for cocaine: OVIEDO, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man spent 90 days in jail after police officers who stopped him for driving without headlights said white powder found in his … Continue reading
KS declines to decide whether odor of MJ on the person is PC because here there was more than just that
Defendant didn’t dim headlights and officers stopped the car suspecting inattentive driving. The smell of marijuana coming from the car was obvious. “We decline the State’s offer to embark on a new legal proposition that would allow Kansas law enforcement … Continue reading
OH3: Narc told patrol officer def was drug suspect, and patrol officer ran DL and found it was suspended; stop valid despite pretext claim
A patrol officer was told that defendant was a drug suspect. He was told because he had stopped defendant before and was familiar with him. He ran defendant’s name through the state computer and it showed that defendant had no … Continue reading
OH5: Working meth lab is exigency
Defendant was initially stopped with information from a CI amounting to reasonable suspicion that he was purchasing precursors and ingredients to manufacture methamphetamine. When the police got to his house, it was apparent there was a working meth lab, and … Continue reading
MI: Electric company’s use of smart meters is not state action for 4A purposes
The electric company’s decision to install smart meters is not a Fourth Amendment issue because the company is a private actor. In re Consumers Energy Co., 2017 Mich. App. LEXIS 2161 (Oct. 10, 2017, published Dec. 28, 2017). The state … Continue reading
There are six pending SCOTUS Fourth Amendment cases
Six pending SCOTUS Fourth Amendment cases
NYTimes: The Failed War on Drugs
NYTimes: The Failed War on Drugs by George P. Shultz and Pedro Aspe:
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Today is [or maybe] the 414th anniversay of Semayne’s Case and judicial recognition of knock-and-announce and the castle doctrine
Today (as best as can be determined) is the 414th anniversary of Semayne’s Case recognizing both knock-and-announce and the castle doctrine at common law. Back then, the dates of decisions weren’t as important and they appeared in reporters well after … Continue reading
OH6: Warrantless blood draw from believed to be dying motorcyclist valid
A warrantless blood draw from defendant was reasonable where, at the scene of his motorcycle accident on I-75 hitting the rear of a car when it was travelling approximately 102 in a 65 and killing his passenger throwing her 450′ … Continue reading
IN: DRE exam requires warning of right to counsel under state const.
The Indiana Constitution recognizes a right to warning that counsel may be consulted of a person in custody before a consent search is sought in Pirtle v. State, 323 N.E.2d 634 (Ind. 1975). That has been held not to apply … Continue reading
OR: Mobility is all that’s required for auto. exception under state const. too
As long as the vehicle was mobile and there was probable cause, the automobile exception applies. “In sum, the automobile exception applies in this case because defendant’s car was mobile when officers encountered it in connection with defendant’s felony arrest … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Good cause shown for execution of SW at night because of neighborhood children
The government showed good cause for execution of a search warrant at night because of defendant’s house’s proximity to a school on break that would likely have kids around in the day in case the raid became violent. In any … Continue reading
IL: ER dr. ordered forced catheterization from combative female for urine sample; wasn’t state action because two police officers helped hold her down
Defendant was involved in a vehicle accident and hospitalized. The ER doctor needed to know whether she was on drugs, and he ordered forced catheterization to get urine since defendant was combative. Two officers who also wanted to know whether … Continue reading
PA: Alluding to a SCOTUS case without fleshing out how it applies held waiver when argument complicated
The defense didn’t properly frame its argument under Birchfield about forced implied consent and thus didn’t preserve error. “We cannot conclude that the trial court erred in denying Appellant’s suppression motion that vaguely cited to Birchfield.” Commonwealth v. Smith, 2017 … Continue reading
D.Md.: A SW for cell phone data going to Verizon in FL was within the court’s jurisdiction
Where the crime under investigation is in this district, it doesn’t matter that the search warrant for geolocation data from defendant’s cell phone is located in another district. The government can still get it by search warrant under Rule 41(b) … Continue reading
CA10: Scope of consent to search has to be raised in the trial court
The issue of scope of a consent search has to be presented to the trial court to be preserved. This wasn’t. United States v. Vargas, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 26869 (10th Cir. Dec. 28, 2017). There is no right to … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: Conclusorily pleading a Franks violation isn’t a sufficient offer of proof
Defendant fails in his Franks argument for a failure of an offer of proof. Merely conclusorily stating the issue isn’t enough. There has to be context and how it was knowingly false. United States v. Martin, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
CA10: Smell of MJ authorizes search for MJ, not looking at multiple credit cards
An anonymous caller said defendant was smoking marijuana on his car. This was reasonable suspicion at best. Assuming the smell of marijuana provides probable cause to search, the search was for marijuana, and inspecting credit cards unreasonably expanded the search. … Continue reading