Archives
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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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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)
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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
W.D.Ky.: Typo in the affidavit for SW didn’t merit suppression; when corrected, no staleness
The wiretap underlying the search warrant has already been sustained by the USDJ, so that can’t support suppressing the search. Defendant’s Franks challenge to the affidavit because of the date is really just a typo (2004 v. 2012), so it … Continue reading
Bloomberg: Trump Quips He’d ‘Destroy’ Texas Lawmaker Who Irked Sheriff [over forfeiture reform]
Bloomberg: Trump Quips He’d ‘Destroy’ Texas Lawmaker Who Irked Sheriff by Toluse Olorunnipa & Margaret Talev: President Trump jokes about destroying a politician’s career
WaPo: These smart TVs were apparently spying on their owners [mere third party data?]
WaPo: These smart TVs were apparently spying on their owners by Hayley Tsukayama. So, if this is third party data, is it subject to mere subpoena and not a search warrant? Feel free to be creeped out. I have a … Continue reading
Tenth Amendment Center: Montana House Passes Bill Taking on Warrantless Electronic Data Collection
Tenth Amendment Center: Montana House Passes Bill Taking on Warrantless Electronic Data Collection: HELENA, Mont. (Feb. 7, 2017) – Yesterday, the Montana House passed a bill that would require police to get a warrant in order to obtain electronic communication … Continue reading
CO: Dog alert for MJ still justifies a search of a car, even in a MMJ and recreational use state
Even in a recreational and medicinal marijuana state, the smell of marijuana picked up by a dog is probable cause including a search of the trunk. The court rejected the claim that the dog would alert on both legal and … Continue reading
CA10: QI applies to suit by driver and his child in car over police shooting driver
Several officers attempted to stop plaintiff at 3:50 am, and he finally stopped. One officer got in front of the car with a shotgun, and the car moved forward. That officer fired two shots from a shotgun at the driver, … Continue reading
Nervousness and reasonable suspicion
“By now, Deputy Kolbe was confronted with conflicting stories that, individually and collectively, defied common sense and reason. He had accumulated substantial observations of their suspicious behavior, beginning before he initiated the traffic stop and extending through the signs of … Continue reading
WaPo: New York Court of Appeals to hear argument in ‘In re 381 Search Warrants’ case
WaPo: New York Court of Appeals to hear argument in ‘In re 381 Search Warrants’ case by Orin Kerr:
NE: Automobile exception depends upon its mobility, not on def’s ability to move it
The automobile depends only on the mobility of the vehicle and not on whether defendant could be the one moving it. Even if he’s in custody, the vehicle is still movable. State v. Rocha, 295 Neb. 716, 2017 Neb. LEXIS … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: A cell phone may be searched under the border search exception [CA5 to decide soon]
A cell phone may be searched under the border search exception. While the Fifth Circuit hasn’t decided the issue yet, it soon will be [see quoted n.4, infra]. United States v. Molina-Isidoro, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 183368 (W.D. Tex. Oct. … Continue reading
NACDL Press Release: Nation’s Criminal Defense Bar Welcomes Passage by House of Representatives of the Email Privacy Act
NACDL Press Release: Nation’s Criminal Defense Bar Welcomes Passage by House of Representatives of the Email Privacy Act
CA1: No curtilage in def’s apt building yard
Defendant’s curtilage to an apartment building wasn’t violated by police entry through an unlocked back gate to get to the front door. (That apparently was a common way in.) Defendant came to the door and let them in, and then … Continue reading
CA7: Def had no standing in a car shipped by car hauler being delivered to him that he’d never seen
Defendant had no standing in a car being shipped by a car hauler across the country when it was searched in transit. He was named neither the sender nor the recipient, and he had never been in or seen the … Continue reading
Miami Herald: Ex-cop convicted of stealing from drivers during traffic stops
Miami Herald: Ex-cop convicted of stealing from drivers during traffic stop by David J. Neal:
LA2: Arrest of def away from the premises where SW being served unreasonable under Bailey
Defendant was seen leaving the premises when police showed up with a search warrant. Then they went after him and stopped him a distance a way to return him to the scene of the search. The stop lacked reasonable suspicion … Continue reading
CA10: Handcuffing and jailing an inebriated man as “incapacitated” violated the 4A and no QI
Plaintiff showed up at a concert at the Xfinity Center in Boston inebriated, but not so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing. Security separated him from the incoming line into the hands of the defendant, an off-duty officer … Continue reading
MD: A stop and a frisk have separate constitutional justifications; courts must confine Terry to its 4A mooring
This Terry stop failed reasonable suspicion and all tenets of Terry. [Subtext: Police are abusing Terry, and the courts have to control them.] Ames v. State, 2017 Md. App. LEXIS 121 (Feb. 3, 2017) (Moylan, J.) (caution: The Lexis version … Continue reading
CA4: No QI for arrest w/o PC and pft held for 80 days; lack of PC was obvious
Plaintiff was held for 80 days on an arrest utterly without probable cause, and the officer has no qualified immunity. Smith v. Munday, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 1975 (4th Cir. Feb. 3, 2017):