Archives
-
Recent Posts
- OH8: For Rodriguez, checking out-of-state DLs takes longer
- 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
-
Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
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)
-
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
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
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)
-
“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
Reason.com: Shackling Elementary School Kids Above Elbow Found to Violate the Fourth Amendment
Reason.com: Shackling Elementary School Kids Above Elbow Found to Violate the Fourth Amendment by Brian Doherty:
PA: Collective knowledge and RS doesn’t require the officer with knowledge actually communicate it to the others
Collective knowledge and reasonable suspicion doesn’t require the officer with knowledge actually communicate it to the others. “It is entirely permissible for an officer to engage in the investigation of a suspect based on the observations of another officer even … Continue reading
WBUR: Broad Jurisdiction Of U.S. Border Patrol Raises Concerns About Racial Profiling
WBUR: Broad Jurisdiction Of U.S. Border Patrol Raises Concerns About Racial Profiling by Kathleen Masterson: Within 100 miles of the border and the coastline, Border Patrol agents have broad authority to stop cars and people for immigration questions. For example, … Continue reading
OH5: Def’s refusal to stop digging in pockets during traffic stop was RS for frisk
Defendant’s erratic behavior during a stop was reasonable suspicion when he also refused to stop digging around in his pockets. State v. Imani, 2017-Ohio-8113, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 4469 (5th Dist. Oct. 5, 2017). The trial court did not err … Continue reading
OH follows Hudson on knock-and-announce under state constitution
The Ohio Supreme Court follows Hudson under the state constitution and holds that a violation of knock-and-announce does not justify suppression of the search. The state constitution has been applied more broadly than the Fourth Amendment on occasion, but not … Continue reading
WI: Checkpoint minutes after an armed robbery was reasonable; only two cars stopped
Officers responding to an armed robbery call were in the vicinity and parked in the street with top lights on along a possible escape route creating de facto checkpoint or roadblock. Because of time of day, there were few cars … Continue reading
Westlaw Insider: The Fourth Amendment in a Digital Age
Westlaw Insider: The Fourth Amendment in a Digital Age:
D.Nev.: SW to seize computers in CP case includes power to search
A warrant to seize computers in a child pornography case includes the power to search it. There was probable cause for the search warrants, and the Franks challenge was too deficient to get a hearing. United States v. Cohen, 2017 … Continue reading
NPR: Judge Limits DOJ’s Warrant For Records From Anti-Trump Site
NPR: Judge Limits DOJ’s Warrant For Records From Anti-Trump Site by Laurel Walsley:
The Hill: ACLU sues Homeland Security, Customs over ID check on domestic flight
The Hill: ACLU sues Homeland Security, Customs over ID check on domestic flight by Lydia Wheeler:
The Economist: More police departments and other first-responders are using drones
The Economist: More police departments and other first-responders are using drones
WA: Homeless man had REP in his tent camping in park after hours
A homeless man camping in a tent in Vancouver, WA had a privacy interest in his closed tent even though he was camping after hours. State v. Pippin, 2017 Wash. App. LEXIS 2365 (Oct. 10, 2017):
D.C.Cir.: Defense counsel not ineffective for not raising search issue where law was uncertain at best in jurisdiction
Counsel was not ineffective for failing to challenge evidence obtained from an electronic surveillance device (truck bug) unlawfully installed in a vehicle outside of the authorizing court’s geographic jurisdiction. In light of the deeply unsettled law on the question of … Continue reading
OH2 follows Heien on reasonable mistake of traffic law
Whether defendant properly stopped at the “stop bar” was at worst a reasonable mistake of law and thus still reasonable under Heien. Once stopped, the officer discovered defendant’s license was suspended. State v. Deacey, 2017-Ohio-8102, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 4457 … Continue reading
IL: PC for house comes from man leaving house in car registered at house to do a drug deal
There was a substantial basis for finding probable cause for a search warrant for defendant’s house where a man left the house to proceed directly to a drug transaction and the car was registered at that address. That’s sufficient nexus … Continue reading
MA: SW for def’s apt in drug case could authorize seizure of cell phone used to arrange drug transaction and orange shirt worn at time
The trial court erred in allowing defendant’s motion to suppress because the warrant affidavit established probable cause to believe defendant, acting through a middleman, sold cocaine to a street-level dealer. Thus, the seizure of nine cell phones found in defendant’s … Continue reading
NM: Def raised the Birchfield issue in trial court, and it applied even though case not decided until on appellate review
Birchfield applied to a case on appeal where defendant raised the issue at trial and Birchfeild came down during appellate review. State v. Vargas, 2017 N.M. LEXIS 71 (Oct. 5, 2017). When defendant was told to “take a seat” in … Continue reading
Police One: Legal, privacy concerns to consider before implementing iris-scanning technology
Police One: Legal, privacy concerns to consider before implementing iris-scanning technology by Val Van Brocklin Looking at some public concerns and legal issues can help law enforcement plan its use of the evolving technology
Fortune: How the Justice Department’s Facebook Subpoenas Threaten Free Speech
Fortune: How the Justice Department’s Facebook Subpoenas Threaten Free Speech by Aziz Hug: In recent months, the U.S. Justice Department has issued subpoenas against Facebook and web host DreamHost for records of thousands, perhaps millions, of citizens who expressed interest … Continue reading
The Register (UK): ‘There has never been a right to absolute privacy’ – US deputy AG slams ‘warrant-proof’ crypto
The Register (UK): ‘There has never been a right to absolute privacy’ – US deputy AG slams ‘warrant-proof’ crypto by Richard Chirgwin: Continuing the US government’s menacing of strong end-to-end encryption, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told an audience at … Continue reading