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Recent Posts
- W.D.N.Y.: No due process right to adversarial hearing before issuance of a DNA warrant
- E.D.Wis.: Lifetime GPS monitoring of some sex offenders traveling out of state doesn’t violate 4A
- 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
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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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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
S.D.N.Y.: One officer nearly immediately running dog around car while second dealt with stop was reasonable
One officer running a dog around a car while the license was being checked was reasonable. The dog, of course, alerted. United States v. Dominguez-Villa, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20949 (S.D. N.Y. Feb. 14, 2017). “Between the female passenger’s attempt … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Def retained REP in his phone from a second search by the feds after a state search without a SW; plain view doesn’t apply to digital searches
Defendant retained a reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell phone after a state search when the phone data was turned over to the ATF, and they, too, should have obtained a search warrant. The court discusses United States v. … Continue reading
IN: Stop without RS reverses def’s conviction for threatening officer after illegal stop
Police received a report of a person “acting suspicious” but did not receive any information at to what that was. When defendant was encountered his conduct did not admit of any criminal activity being “afoot.” The officer told defendant to … Continue reading
ND: Exclusionary rule does not apply to civil administrative drivers license suspensions
The exclusionary rule does not apply to civil administrative drivers license suspensions. Beylund v. Levi, 2017 ND 30, 2017 N.D. LEXIS 30 (Feb. 16, 2017):
CA7: No REP re conversations with co-defs in back of a police van
Chicago courts had previously found a distinction between the reasonable expectation of privacy in conversations held in the back of a police squad car and a police van (called a squadrol). The circuit ends this distinction finding it unsupportable. There … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Govt proved inventory valid and not pretext; there was also PC for the search
Defendants were arrested for robbery, and they objected to the R&R as failing to consider that the inventory of the vehicle was a pretext for an investigative search. The court finds that the policy on inventory was followed and that … Continue reading
GA: State computer privacy statute doesn’t protect IP information from third-party disclosure
A state computer privacy statute cannot be interpreted to protect IP information from administrative subpoena. The state courts have already held it isn’t protected because it’s third-party information. Courtney v. State, 2017 Ga. App. LEXIS 56 (Feb. 17, 2017): Here, … Continue reading
WaPo: What’s missing in the government’s briefs in the Playpen warrant cases
WaPo: What’s missing in the government’s briefs in the Playpen warrant cases by Orin Kerr: As regular readers know, dozens of federal district courts around the country have ruled on motions to suppress evidence in cases arising from the Playpen … Continue reading
NY Times: Federal Agency Begins Inquiry Into Auto Lenders’ Use of GPS Tracking
NY Times: Federal Agency Begins Inquiry Into Auto Lenders’ Use of GPS Tracking by Michael Corkery and Jessica Silver-Greenberg: They can figure out when you leave town and see where you parked your car. They can see how many times … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Roadblock on the path of escape from an armed robbery was a reasonable stop
A roadblock on the path of escape from an armed robbery was a reasonable stop. United States v. Philpot, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 183882 (N.D.Ga. June 3, 2016), adopted, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 177557 (N.D. Ga. Nov. 16, 2016):
The Guardian: German parents told to destroy doll that can spy on children
The Guardian: German parents told to destroy doll that can spy on children by Phillip Oltermann: German watchdog classifies My Friend Cayla doll as ‘illegal espionage apparatus’ and says shops and owners could face fines.
NPR: Local Police Departments Invest In Cell Phone Spy Tools
NPR: Local Police Departments Invest In Cell Phone Spy Tools, All Things Considered: As we depend on our cell phones more and more, the tools to peek into our phones are getting better. Local police departments across the country are … Continue reading
M.D.La.: When multiple people with apparent authority are present, just one can consent
When multiple people with apparent authority are present, any one of them can consent. Here, the credible evidence shows that three did. Defendant’s Randolph argument is rejected. United States v. Bourgeois, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18927 (M.D. La. Feb. 9, … Continue reading
D.Nev.: No actual or apparent authority to consent shown; presence of gun in motel room not exigency per se
Actual authority to consent and apparent authority in a motel room are two different things. Here, the government can’t show either on this record. The possibility of a gun in the room is not an exigent circumstance. United States v. … Continue reading
Orin Kerr on Playpen warrants:
DOJ has filed appellate briefs in 3 Playpen warrant cases– CA1, CA8, CA10. Notably, none of the DOJ briefs argue no search occurred. And, Playpen warrants sustained. United States v. Pawlak, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23100 (N.D. Tex. Feb. 17, … Continue reading
CA5: No QI immunity for arrest for videotaping police station; 1A claim was not well-settled at time of arrest, but it is now
Plaintiff was arrested in September 2015 for videotaping a Ft. Worth police station from across the street. They first asked him for identification which he refused to provide. Then they arrested him and left him in a hot police car … Continue reading
OH7: The SW included def’s car, and her driving off before police could search it didn’t prevent stopping and searching it away from the house
The search warrant for defendant’s house included her car. When he arrived there, the police attempted to stop her to search the car, but she got away and was stopped about a mile away. Because the warrant provided for the … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Driving 1,000 miles to Iowa to meet one’s brother without knowing where in the entire state was “unusual travel plans”
The officer reasonably extended the stop by seven minutes by defendant’s consent after he told the defendant the stop was over and defendant agreed to answer more questions. The reasonable suspicion was that he was meeting his brother in Iowa … Continue reading