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- W.D.La.: Israel’s capture of Palestinian cell phone calls was foreign search in case here
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- 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
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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 -
Latest Slip Opinions:
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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General (many free):
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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)
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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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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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)
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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
Two car and person searches suppressed for lack of RS
The USMJ “reasonably determined that although there was probable cause to stop the car in which Linaman was traveling for possible traffic violations, …, Deputy Tadlock prolonged the stop beyond the time reasonably required to investigate those violations and without … Continue reading
CA9: PC for arrest in the 1A context: ptf street performer’s arrest was without probable cause
Plaintiff is a Las Vegas Strip street performer, and she was arrested for conducting business with another performer without a license. The district court erred by deciding that the officers had probable cause to arrest plaintiff despite the First Amendment … Continue reading
CA4: Wikimedia can show standing to challenge internet surveillance under Clapper v. Amesty International
Wikimedia’s complaint against the NSA survives SCOTUS Clapper v. Amnesty International standing analysis. Wikimedia handles over one trillion internet communications a year, and every internet portal in the U.S. and likely the world reaches it. Therefore, some communications have to … Continue reading
NYLJ: Federal Jury Awards $8M to Man Injured by Police Stun Gun
NYLJ: Federal Jury Awards $8M to Man Injured by Police Stun Gun by Jason Grant: A federal jury has awarded a mentally disabled Long Island man and his parents $8.32 million after police used a stun gun on the man … Continue reading
WaPo: ‘The Volokh Conspiracy’ Blog: United States v. Wallace is a GPS case, not a cell-site case – here’s why it matters
WaPo: ‘The Volokh Conspiracy’ Blog: United States v. Wallace is a GPS case, not a cell-site case — here’s why it matters by Orin Kerr: Yesterday I wrote at length on United States v. Wallace, a new decision from the … Continue reading
Law.com: Fourth Amendment Exception Allows Customs to Search Personal Devices
Law.com: Fourth Amendment Exception Allows Customs to Search Personal Devices by Joe Martini & James Glasser: CBP agents can search cellphones, laptops and other electronic devices of those entering or leaving the country, regardless of citizenship and despite the vast … Continue reading
FL1: No REP in bloody clothes of shooting victim who came to ER: they were in plain view
Defendant was shot, and he showed up at an emergency room claiming he was the victim of a robbery. His bloody clothes were removed from him and bagged and on the floor. A police officer noticed the clothes and considered … Continue reading
TN: Def’s disclaimer of interest in apartment he was in denied him standing
The trial court credited the officer’s testimony that defendant said that he could not consent to a search of the apartment he was in because it wasn’t his residence. That meant he lacked standing. The police came there expecting it … Continue reading
WV: Def’s brother was the CI for a DUI stop
Defendant’s brother was the citizen informant who reported he was driving under the influence, and he was giving the police information by phone about where he was. The stop was with reasonable suspicion. State v. Wood, 2017 W. Va. LEXIS … Continue reading
MO: Systemic negligence in officer’s preparation of SW affidavits showed GFE couldn’t be relied upon
On remand from State v. Robinson, 454 S.W.3d 428 (Mo. App. 2015), the only evidence in the record showed that the officer who prepared the affidavit was systemically negligent in the preparation of search warrant affidavits, and that precludes application … Continue reading
SD: SI can occur after a valid citizen’s arrest
Defendant was stopped and subjected to a citizen’s arrest by Walmart security. Her purse was searched based on the arrest, and it was valid. “Thus, a search need not be incident to an arrest by law enforcement because a citizen … Continue reading
E.D.La.: Louisiana’s broad standing rule doesn’t apply in federal prosecutions
Defendant lacked standing in his codefendant’s cell phone and motel room. Louisiana’s broad state standing law doesn’t apply in federal prosecutions. United States v. Daniels, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 76266 (E.D. La. May 5, 2017). Officers had justification for a … Continue reading
CA5: Prospective CSLI is a records request, and it is not subject to the Fourth Amendment
A court order for prospective cell site location information is a records request, and it is not subject to the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Wallace, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 8914 (5th Cir. May 22, 2017), substituted opinion 2017 U.S. … Continue reading
D.N.M.: “An attorney’s choice in advancing one theory over another at a suppression hearing is often a strategic decision.”
“An attorney’s choice in advancing one theory over another at a suppression hearing is often a strategic decision.” United States v. Gutierrez, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 188570 (D.N.M. January 27, 2015). Defendant couldn’t claim ineffective assistance from a 2004 traffic … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Lack of attenuation from illegal search leads to exclusion
The lack of attenuation and exploitation of the illegality of an illegal search here favors exclusion. United States v. Cordero-Rosario, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 76904 (D.P.R. May 18, 2017):
OH2: Nothing about def or her driving suggested she was under the influence; PBT suppressed
There was no reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop: defendant had not admitted to drinking on the evening of the stop, that her traffic violation had been de minimis, that her speech was not impaired, that neither defendant’s movement when she … Continue reading
The last of the files left in the hacks are gone
Our server service took us down for 48 hours to cleanup files left during the hacks. Regretfully, there were phishing attacks coming from here because of implanted files. You remove what they point out, and then others appear, triggered maybe … Continue reading