Archives
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Recent Posts
- CA9: With a SW for a murder weapon, a frisk of the occupants is reasonable
- W.D.Mich.: Drug dealers commonly keep proceeds and drugs at home, and that’s nexus
- OH8: For Rodriguez purposes, checking out-of-state DLs just 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
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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
Privacy Foundation
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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
CA9: States court’s rationale for rejecting 4A claim subject to “unreasonable application” clause of § 2254(d)(1) on habeas
On federal habeas, the state court’s determination that defense counsel was reasonable in not filing a motion to suppress was subject to the “unreasonable application” clause of § 2254(d)(1). The state court’s denials were not an unreasonable application of the … Continue reading
OH7: House door wide open, no cars in driveway, skittish dog and a lot of dog feces justified entry on exigency
The emergency aid exception justified entry into defendant’s house where the officer reasonably feared the owner or occupant of the house was in some sort of danger based upon the front door being wide open in the middle of winter, … Continue reading
CA7: Being passed out at the wheel is RS of drunk driving
Being passed out at the wheel is reasonable suspicion of drunk driving. Still, the officer had the authority to order defendant out of the car and the gun would have been seen inevitably anyway. United States v. Dickson, 2017 U.S. … Continue reading
OH5: Statute makes meth lab exigency per se; entry to freeze premises for SW reasonable
Ohio statute states that a methamphetamine lab is per se an exigency, and the officer’s seizure without a search warrant to get a search warrant was reasonable. State v. Umstead, 2017-Ohio-698, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 691 (5th Dist. Feb. 24, … Continue reading
The automobile exception is 92 years old today
Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132 (1925)
PC World: US surveillance law may see no new protections for foreign targets
PC World: US surveillance law may see no new protections for foreign targets by Grant Gross: The law that authorizes NSA surveillance overseas expires in December, but lawmakers are focused on its impact on US residents.
EFF: An Illinois Court Just Didn’t Get It: We Are Entitled to Expect Privacy In Our Smart Meter Data, Which Reveals What’s Going On Inside Our Homes
EFF: An Illinois Court Just Didn’t Get It: We Are Entitled to Expect Privacy In Our Smart Meter Data, Which Reveals What’s Going On Inside Our Homes by Karen Gullo and Jamie Williams:
AP: Peeping Drones Crime Bill Clears Indiana Senate
AP: Peeping Drones Crime Bill Clears Indiana Senate: Anyone using the advanced technology of an aerial drone to undertake the age-old crime of voyeurism could be charged with a new offense under a measure approved by the Indiana Senate. In … Continue reading
WaPo: ‘The Watch’ Blog: Jeff Sessions dismisses DOJ reports on police abuse without bothering to read them
WaPo: ‘The Watch’ Blog: Jeff Sessions dismisses DOJ reports on police abuse without bothering to read them by Radley Balko: The AG should say when he thinks federal intervention is necessary, and when it isn’t.
OH11: Getting beat up in a bar fight permits a community caretaking search of your person
Defendant was beat up in a bar fight. He bled all over his shirt and his jaw was swollen. He rejected efforts for medical help, but the officer’s stop of him was reasonable under the community caretaking function. That community … Continue reading
OH8: Taking pictures of sex with a minor with a cell phone supports SW for home computer for storage
The child victim’s claim that defendant used his cell phone to take pictures of the two of them having sex logically supported a search warrant for defendant’s computers in his house because of the ease with which images can be … Continue reading
OH8: Smell of raw MJ from car didn’t support search of envelopes in car
Defendant was stopped by Cleveland State University officers for a traffic offense, and there was a strong smell of marijuana coming from the car. That gave probable cause to search generally for the source of the marijuana, but the court … Continue reading
The Atlantic: Papers, Please | passengers on a domestic flight ordered to produce ID to prove who they were
The Atlantic: Papers, Please by Garrett Epps:
CNN: Sources: Trump signed off on checking White House staffers’ phones
CNN: Sources: Trump signed off on checking White House staffers’ phones by Jeff Zeleny and Daniella Diaz: President Donald Trump signed off on press secretary Sean Spicer’s decision to check aides’ cell phones to make certain they weren’t communicating with … Continue reading
Law.com/The Recorder: Fighting Echo Warrant, Amazon Has Scant Law to Draw On
Law.com/The Recorder: Fighting Echo Warrant, Amazon Has Scant Law to Draw On by Ben Hancock: The showdown over access to data recorded by the Amazon ‘smart’ device is pushing the limits of traditional First Amendment and Fourth Amendment principles.
CA10 doesn’t defer to police: Travel plans were not implausible in context and did not support reasonable suspicion
Defendant’s speeding stop was valid, but the detention was unnecessarily long and without reasonable suspicion. The dog alert came too late after consent refused. The travel plans were not implausible at all in context and did not support reasonable suspicion. … Continue reading
N.M.I.: Can you overcome officer’s credibility questions by calling it a “reasonable mistake of fact”?
Even if the trial court were to credit the defendant’s version that his sudden lane change was to dodge a puddle or a dog, the officer didn’t see a puddle or dog, just the lane change and that made the … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Affiant officers in drug cases don’t have to be chemistry experts to state conclusions about drugs
The affiant officers stated conclusions about the chemistry of some of the drugs in the 24 search warrants issued in this case. The law doesn’t require they be chemistry majors, experts, or Walter White to state those conclusions when the … Continue reading
NYLJ: Indefinite Gag Orders Under the Stored Communications Act
NYLJ: Indefinite Gag Orders Under the Stored Communications Act by Peter A. Crusco:
New Book: H-Net, The Fourth Amendment in an Age of Surveillance
New Book: H-Net, The Fourth Amendment in an Age of Surveillance by David C. Gray Publisher: Cambridge University Press Publication Date: 4/30/2017