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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Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
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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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F.R.Crim.P. 41
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
Electronic Privacy Information Center
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
TX6: USDC dismissal w/o prejudice for Heck bar not preclusive of later state court action
Plaintiff originally sued in federal court and was barred by Heck, but dismissal was without prejudice to removal of the Heck bar. That was not preclusive of a state court action as res judicata. He claimed an unlawful seizure and … Continue reading
Chicago Tribune: Justice report finds systemic failures by Chicago police
Chicago Tribune: Justice report finds systemic failures by Chicago police by Jason Meisner, Annie Sweeney, Dan Hinkel and Jeremy Gorner: The U.S. Department of Justice has released a long-awaited report castigating the Chicago Police Department for abuse against citizens, excessive … Continue reading
New law review article: Is Qualified Immunity Unlawful?
William Baude, Is Qualified Immunity Unlawful?. Abstract:
Tenth Amendment Center: New Mexico Bill Takes on Stingray Spying, Bulk Warrantless Data Collection; Would Also Hinder Some Federal Surveillance Programs
New Mexico Bill Takes on Stingray Spying, Bulk Warrantless Data Collection; Would Also Hinder Some Federal Surveillance Programs: SANTA FE, N.M. (Jan. 12, 2017) – A electronic data privacy bill introduced in the New Mexico Senate would ban the use … Continue reading
CA6: Factual disputes deny appellate jurisdiction for excessive force qualified immunity appeal
There were disputes of fact on plaintiff’s excessive force claim that deprived this court of appellate jurisdiction over it. Harmon v. Hamilton County, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 497 (6th Cir. Jan. 9, 2017)*:
CA5: Frivolous 4A § 1983 case dismissed on MSJ and not appealed results in attorneys fees for defs
Plaintiffs ran a pawnshop that was searched. They were of “the short-lived reality TV program ‘Cajun Pawn Stars.’” They bought, not pawned, some equipment that turned out to have been stolen, and the police came and searched their pawnshop for … Continue reading
D.Utah: Ptfs alleged enough to stay in court against NSA sweeping up all calls in SLC during 2002 Winter Olympics
Plaintiffs plead enough to stay in court. They claimed that the NSA, with the authority of President Bush, intercepted and still stores all communications in the Salt Lake City area during the 2002 Winter Olympics. Amnesty International v. Clapper is … Continue reading
Orange County Register: Editorial: DEA must end its informant program now
Orange County Register: Editorial: DEA must end its informant program now: The DEA and other law enforcement agencies face skewed priorities when they can search and seize property — and then keep the proceeds — without so much as probable … Continue reading
WaPo: ‘The Volokh Conspiracy’ Blog: The Geek Squad and the Fourth Amendment
WaPo: ‘The Volokh Conspiracy’ Blog: The Geek Squad and the Fourth Amendment by Orin Kerr: This isn’t a new issue. There have been cases on computer repairmen turning over computers with child pornography going back at least as far as … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: RS still required for a Long protective weapons search of a car
There was no reasonable suspicion for a protective weapons search. Without reasonable suspicion, all cars are subject to search without cause, thereby nullifying the Fourth Amendment. Defendant was stopped in his driveway, and there was also an effort to call … Continue reading
OH6: Because OH limits minor misdemeanor searches more than the 4A, search of def because of marijuana flakes on shirt was unreasonable
Defendant was a passenger in a vehicle stopped for suspicion the driver had a suspended DL because of a computer check. Defendant was made to get out of the vehicle despite being blind. The officer noted marijuana flakes on his … Continue reading
Reason: ‘Hit and Run’ Blog: Inside Mississippi’s Asset Forfeiture Extortion Racket
Reason: ‘Hit and Run’ Blog: Inside Mississippi’s Asset Forfeiture Extortion Racket by C.J. Ciaramella: State narcotics police seized $4 million in cash—as well as couches, comics, and 18-wheelers—through asset forfeiture in 2015.
SCOTUS: Warning before use of deadly force not “clearly established” [or established at all]
It does not violate clearly established law under the Fourth Amendment to shoot without warning when the shooting is otherwise justified. White v. Pauly, 2017 U.S. LEXIS 5 (Jan. 9, 2017) (per curiam):
OR: Trash collector could segregate def’s trash for police
Defendant’s trash was segregated by the private contractor working for the city on defendants’ collection days. That is virtually indistinguishable from State v. Howard, 204 Ore. App. 438, 129 P.3d 792 (2006), aff’d, 342 Ore. 635, 157 P.3d 1189 (2007), … Continue reading
D.Me.: Third party consenter’s apparent authority included the attic
“Contrary to Defendant’s argument, Ms. Barry had common authority over the property. She lived in the home with Defendant and their minor child, and shared a bedroom with Defendant. Consistent with the fact she resided in the home and had … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: USMJ accidentally crossing out a paragraph when a single sentence about no-knock was intended to be struck didn’t undermine PC; judge deciding the case made the mistake
The USMJ who issued the search warrant decides its validity. An entire paragraph was crossed out, but the court says that it only intended to cross out the no-knock authorization. Since the warrant was signed and the officers were directed … Continue reading
D.Utah: Tossing bag of drugs onto somebody else’s porch is an abandonment; where the police were standing doesn’t matter
Defendant’s tossing a black bag with drugs onto the porch of another apparently attempting to distance himself from them was an abandonment, and he had no standing as to what was thrown onto the porch. It matters not where the … Continue reading
IN: Tossing flash bang into room with only a 9 month old baby in a playpen during drug raid was excessive under the circumstances; suppressed
Using a flash bang device during a SWAT drug raid that went off in a room with only a nine-month old baby in a playpen violated the state constitution for its overall unreasonableness. Watkins v. State, 2017 Ind. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Frisk was without RS, but computer check showed outstanding arrest warrant, so inevitable discovery applies
“In sum, at the time Browning decided to conduct a Terry pat-down of James’ outer clothing, he was faced with a suspect that (1) was present in a high-crime area, (2) was, by his own admission, recently released from prison … Continue reading