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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
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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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General (many free):
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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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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
The New American: Utah Nurse Waives Lawsuit, Settles for $500,000 in Patient Privacy Case Written by Bob Adelmann
The New American: Utah Nurse Waives Lawsuit, Settles for $500,000 in Patient Privacy Case by Bob Adelmann:
techdirt: First Circuit Appeals Court Latest To Overturn Playpen Suppression Order
techdirt: First Circuit Appeals Court Latest To Overturn Playpen Suppression Order by Tim Cushing: A third Appeals Court has ruled on the tactics the FBI used to track down users of a dark web child porn site. And the third … Continue reading
WaPo: Debate on ‘Carpenter v. United States,’ the Fourth Amendment cell-site case
WaPo: Debate on ‘Carpenter v. United States,’ the Fourth Amendment cell-site case by Orin Kerr: Last Thursday, I participated in an excellent debate on Carpenter v. United States, the pending Fourth Amendment case on government access to historical cell-site records. … Continue reading
Just Security: Opinion: Can Defense Counsel Ever Be Lawfully Surveilled by the Government?
Just Security: Opinion: Can Defense Counsel Ever Be Lawfully Surveilled by the Government? by Charles J. Dunlap, Jr.: Could there be any circumstance where the surveillance of defense counsel in a terrorism case might be ‘defensible’?
Newsweek: Opinion: So If Police Body Cams Don’t Work, What’s the Solution?
Newsweek: Opinion: So If Police Body Cams Don’t Work, What’s the Solution? by Josephy Marguilies: The police must become part of a robust partnership involving the community and other municipal agencies. Collectively and creatively, the members of this partnership must … Continue reading
D.Kan.: AOL’s TOS deny an objective REP in CP transmitted by email (on remand from CA10)
In the district court’s original opinion, reversed for reconsideration in United States v. Ackerman, 831 F.3d 1292 (10th Cir. 2016), the district court assumed defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his emails. On remand, the court determines that … Continue reading
CA11: Franks challenge fails; officer’s frank admission of mistake [apparently] helped show mere negligence in including it
The mistake in the affidavit was just negligent and it didn’t undermine the probable cause at all. Besides that, there was an independent source for all the information in the warrant that was probable cause. United States v. Reddick, 2017 … Continue reading
GA: Def not compelled to perform breath tests, so no self-incrimination issue
Defendant was not compelled to perform breath tests, so the Fifth Amendment’s self-incrimination clause did not apply. State v. Council, 2017 Ga. App. LEXIS 531 (Oct. 30, 2017).* In a Franks challenge, “The Court is tasked with reassessing the probable … Continue reading
OH11: Admin SW for hoarding was issued with PC and wasn’t stale
Defendant here was referred to as “having a hoarding issue” because of a growing collection of junk in his yard and up against his house that was flammable and attractive to rodents. He was prosecuted for the exterior junk and … Continue reading
U.S. Sentencing Guidelines 30 years old today
The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines went into effect November 1, 1987, though they were at least three years in production. The U.S. Sentencing Commission has numerous publications on dealing with Guideline issues. All changes go into effect November 1st each year. … Continue reading
GA: Protective sweep of a house after a street fight and stabbing outside and a brief standoff with a cut def was reasonable
A protective sweep of defendant’s house right after his arrest was reasonable. Officers responded to a 911 call about a street fight and a possible stabbing. A dying victim was found in the street, and another victim was in hysterics. … Continue reading
WaPo: Oversight board finds many D.C. officers fail to properly use body cameras
WaPo: Oversight board finds many D.C. officers fail to properly use body cameras by Peter Hermann: More than a third of cases investigated by a D.C. police oversight board after complaints were made about officers’ conduct this past year involved … Continue reading
KS suppression statute permits pretext arguments; remanded
Kansas’s suppression statute permits the defense to make a challenge based on a race-based stop, if he can prove it. The trial court didn’t apply this test, and neither did the court of appeals, so remanded for reconsideration. State v. … Continue reading
NPR: WNYC: Predicting Crime and Enforcing Law Through Big Data
NPR: WNYC: Predicting Crime and Enforcing Law Through Big Data: Cutting-edge technology that uses big data is changing the face of law enforcement, and in ways many Americans don’t know about.
D.S.D.: If bad driving alone wasn’t RS, his leaving a drug house and being known have prior drug arrests made it RS
Here, defendant allegedly drove left of center and he challenges that as the basis of the stop. The court doesn’t agree and goes one further, prior drug arrests and just leaving a drug house added to the driving was reasonable … Continue reading
KS: That def’s relative owned a black Explorer and it had been parked at def’s house wasn’t RS to stop it
Stopping a car because a relative of the wanted defendant owned it and it had been seen at defendant’s house wasn’t reasonable suspicion for a stop. State v. Carr, 2017 Kan. App. LEXIS 78 (Oct. 27, 2017):
OR: No REP in a camera and SD card left recording in a Starbucks bathroom
Defendant left a camera disguised as a cell phone charger in a Starbucks bathroom. It was found by a customer and turned over to the store manager. The manager believed it to be a camera, opened the back, and found … Continue reading
CA6: Facebook messenger SW was not overbroad because limited in time
Defendant’s guilty plea waived any suppression motion because there was no ruling to appeal. On the merits, the search warrant here was not overbroad. The Facebook search warrant sought only five months of information related to sex with minors. It … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: 21 month pole camera surveillance of def’s front door was reasonable
Pole camera surveillance of defendant’s house for 21 months didn’t violate Fourth Amendment. He had a subjective reasonable expectation privacy, but it’s not one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable. The court traces Katz to Jardines, and concludes … Continue reading
NYLJ: Battle Over Emails Stored Overseas Reaches Supreme Court
NYLJ: Battle Over Emails Stored Overseas Reaches Supreme Court by Philip C. Patterson & Vera M. Kachnowski: In their International Criminal Law and Enforcement column, Philip C. Patterson and Vera M. Kachnowski discuss a case which highlights a recurring tension … Continue reading