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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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General (many free):
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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)
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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
D.Nev.: Officer came to def’s house on a domestic call and had no RS def was armed; frisk invalid
Responding to a domestic call, the officer met defendant at the door and he was compliant and holding a bag. There was no reason to believe that defendant was armed, but a stop and frisk was done, actually finding a … Continue reading
IN: Officers lacked RS to take gun off an otherwise law abiding citizen based on a citizen informant tip def had a gun
A cab driver called the police because defendant dropped a gun. The cab driver feared he was to be robbed (but he wasn’t). The police showed up and claimed defendant acted nervous. (Only a little.) The frisk and removal of … Continue reading
GA: Smell of MJ on def’s person and not in his truck justified search of person
During a traffic stop, the officer noticed that defendant’s eyes were bloodshot and glassy, and his taste buds were white and risen. The officer smelled raw marijuana when he approached defendant’s truck; noticed that the odor dissipated during the search … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: In a rare departure from the norm, court finds there was no RS for def’s stop near the border
Based on the totality of circumstances (“(1) characteristics of the area; (2) proximity to the border; (3) usual patterns of traffic and time of day; (4) previous alien or drug smuggling in the area; (5) behavior of the driver, including … Continue reading
Constitution Center: A Twenty-First Century Framework for Digital Privacy
Constitution Center: A Twenty-First Century Framework for Digital Privacy: Balancing Privacy and Security in the Digital Age by Jeffrey Rosen: Introduction: A Twenty-First Century Framework for Digital Privacy At the beginning of the twenty-first century, breathtaking changes in technology pose … Continue reading
Motherboard: This Is the Secret Court Order That Forced the NSA to Delete the Data It Collected About You
Motherboard: This Is the Secret Court Order That Forced the NSA to Delete the Data It Collected About You The court found an “institutional lack of candor on NSA’s part and emphasized that this is a very serious Fourth Amendment … Continue reading
ABAJ: ABA expresses concern about border searches of lawyer laptops and other electronic devices
ABAJ: ABA expresses concern about border searches of lawyer laptops and other electronic devices by Debra Cassens Weiss: ABA President Linda Klein is expressing serious concern about standards that permit searches of lawyer laptops and other electronic devices at the … Continue reading
CA6: Tossing gun to avoid police is abandonment
Defendant voluntarily answered questions, but he tossed his gun, and that’s an abandonment. United States v. Matthews, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 8292 (6th Cir. May 8, 2017). Two lane changes were reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop that led to finding … Continue reading
BNA: Can You Hear Them Now? Robbers Ask SCOTUS for Phone Privacy
BNA: Can You Hear Them Now? Robbers Ask SCOTUS for Phone Privacy by Jordan S. Rubin: From Criminal Law Reporter
We were hacked (again). Nobody is safe
You probably noticed that the site didn’t work for a good part of yesterday. It’s been hacked before, and the server owner we contract it to took their sweet time undoing this one. The password has been changed twice, but … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: Trailer on blocks with no means around to pull it not subject to automobile exception
An RV trailer elevated on a block with nothing to pull it around is not subject to the automobile exception. United States v. Maley, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69797 (D.Ariz. May 5, 2017). A detailed tip about defendant on supervised … Continue reading
CA2: Unlicensed driver of rental car rented by another had no standing in car
The court does not have to decide whether the unauthorized driver of a rental car as to the rental contract has standing, despite being loaned the car by the renter, noting differing authorities; because defendant was also an unlicensed driver … Continue reading
D.S.C.: Motorcycle owner’s GPS tracked to def’s backyard; no Franks violation in the SW affidavit because it was really backyard
The owner of a motorcycle had a GPS tracker on it, and he reported to the police that it was pinging at defendant’s address. Defendant’s claim that the affidavit for the search warrant for defendant’s address violated Franks because the … Continue reading
D.Minn. USMJ finds Playpen warrant constitutionally defective and no GFE
“Accordingly, the NIT warrant is void ab initio. Without an identifiable warrant exception (the Government offers none and the Court is aware of none) the Court concludes that the NIT warrant’s violation of Rule 41(b) and 28 U.S.C. § 636(a) … Continue reading
EFF: The Fight Against General Warrants to Hack Rages On
EFF: The Fight Against General Warrants to Hack Rages On by Kate Tummarllo: The federal government thinks it should be able to use one warrant to hack into an untold number of computers located anywhere in the world. But EFF … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Gun on person was in plain view during struggle with officer
The gun on defendant’s person was in plain view during the defendant’s struggle with the officer. United States v. Cann, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68028 (E.D. Pa. May 3, 2017).* A witness claimed defendant was viewing child pornography on his … Continue reading
D.Utah: No 4A requirement for a police car in the field to have internet access to more speedily check records without radioing it in
There is no constitutional requirement for a police car in the field to have internet access to more speedily check records without radioing it in. Also, he testified that rural service is spotty. United States v. Lopez-Casillas, 2017 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
MA: Porch and side yard of multifamily dwelling was protected curtilage
The porch and side yard of a multifamily residence was within the curtilage for Dunn and Jardines, so the police entry to look under the porch was unreasonable and the search is suppressed. Commonwealth v. Leslie, 2017 Mass. LEXIS 341 … Continue reading