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- 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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General (many free):
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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
NE: Recognizing driver as having suspended DL is RS for stop without computer check
An officer recognizing the driver of a car as somebody with a suspended license is reasonable suspicion for a stop without even checking the computer. State v. Arizola, 295 Neb. 477, 2017 Neb. LEXIS 1 (Jan. 6, 2017). Plaintiff’s claim … Continue reading
D.Minn.: IP address and alleged crime was sufficient nexus to def’s electronic devices
Somehow linking defendant’s address to an IP address in an investigation of use of the internet is nexus if there is otherwise probable cause to search electronic devices at defendant’s address. (How it was obtained isn’t all that important. The … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Franks challenge requires proffer by affidavit, not merely representations by counsel
Franks challenge requires an offer of proof by affidavit. Representations of counsel aren’t enough. United States v. Houston, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 558 (M.D.Fla. Jan. 4, 2017). After dealing with all the allegations:
D.Idaho: Def’s flight from an unreasonable stop, after initial detention, wasn’t attenuated
Defendant’s flight and dropping gun from an illegal arrest here wasn’t an intervening circumstance. There was nothing in the 911 call that justified defendant’s stop in the first place. Defendant complied at first, and then fled. United States v. Gallinger, … Continue reading
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: This week in drug raids
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: This week in drug raids: The latest in busted doors, dead dogs and dead bodies. … Meanwhile, the Drug War Chronicle reports that 49 people were killed in police drug war operations in 2016, … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Apparent hand-to-hand transaction in high crime area is RS; officers don’t have to actually see the drugs
Officers don’t have to actually see drugs pass in an apparent hand-to-hand transaction in a high crime area to have reasonable suspicion. Reasonable suspicion isn’t a certainty. United States v. Slaughter, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 569 (W.D.Ky. Jan. 4, 2017):
The Legal Intelligencer: Will Technology Change the Interpretation of the Fourth Amendment? Part 2
The Legal Intelligencer: Will Technology Change the Interpretation of the Fourth Amendment? Part 2 by Leonard Deutchman:
Tribune-Review: Equal enforcement for all: Set StingRay standard (Editorial)
Tribune-Review: Equal enforcement for all: Set StingRay standard (Editorial): A new, bipartisan House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report rightly calls for a national standard governing all federal, state and local law enforcers’ use of devices that mimic cellphone towers … Continue reading
AntiWar.com: There’s Little Reason To be Optimistic About Trump and Privacy
AntiWar.com: There’s Little Reason To be Optimistic About Trump and Privacy by Lucy Steigerwald:
E.D.Mo.: SW description was defective but reference to affidavit and GFE saves it
The warrant was defective on its face, only authorizing a search of the person of the accused. The affidavit for the warrant, however, was more detailed and described places and things: a hotel room and a Mercedes. The officer sought … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: After gun was found in car, search incident and automobile exception didn’t apply, but inventory was inevitable [right result, wrong reasoning]
After defendant’s car was stopped, the officers conducted a Michigan v. Long protective weapons search of the car while gaining control of the defendant, and a gun was located. There was a search incident: “Furthermore, he was standing at the … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Def’s conditional plea and slight chance of success on appeal aren’t enough to avoid detention at plea
Defendant litigated a motion to suppress and lost, and then he entered a conditional plea. Because his sentencing range is 10 years or more, he is ordered into custody. The court is not convinced there is a debatable issue for … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: Rodriguez is not merely a durational test; RS allows continuing the stop
Rodriguez is not merely a durational test. Here, reasonable suspicion developed during the stop that justified the detention, something absent in Rodriguez. The video of the defendant’s stop doesn’t support his position, and it doesn’t undermine the government’s. It does … Continue reading
MA: A suppressed statement can’t be kept from the press
A suppressed statement cannot be suppressed from the press under the First Amendment. Commonwealth v. Chism, 2017 Mass. LEXIS 4 (Jan. 4, 2017):
Rare: Donald Trump has no interest in the Fourth Amendment
Rare: Donald Trump has no interest in the Fourth Amendment by Lucy Steigerwald:
S.D.Cal.: Def, a citizen of Mexico suspected of drug trafficking in his mother’s car, was lawfully arrested when he was lured to a border crossing to talk about her permanent resident status
Defendant’s mother, a citizen of Mexico who crossed regularly at Tecate, was arrested for importation of meth in her car, which she claimed was a gift from her son. Officers were looking for him and finally found him in Mexico … Continue reading
W.D.La.: Arrest of two in a check forgery scam created exigency for search of hotel room from which they operated with others
Defendant used a foil to cash checks for them, claiming it was for tax purposes. They turned out fairly quickly to be forged. Police found the foil and he told them all about it, and he said the same two … Continue reading
Guam: Jardines curtilage doesn’t apply to castle doctrine and defense of dwelling
Jardines on curtilage doesn’t apply to the statute on the castle doctrine for defense of home which applies to the habitable dwelling and not the porch. Defendant’s proffer jury instruction was properly denied. People v. John, 2016 Guam 41, 2016 … Continue reading
Center for Democracy and Technology: Alexa, is Law Enforcement Listening?
Center for Democracy and Technology: Alexa, is Law Enforcement Listening? by Joseph Jerome Just days after Christmas, news broke that police in Bentonville, Arkansas, had issued a warrant to Amazon to turn over audio recordings from an Echo as part … Continue reading
NYLJ: Ethics of Using Hacked Information to Prosecute Criminal and Civil Claims
NYLJ: Ethics of Using Hacked Information to Prosecute Criminal and Civil Claims by Rahul Mukhi and Martha Vega-Gonzalez: Since WikiLeaks first came to global prominence in 2010, an increasing number of vigilantes, activists, and allegedly even state actors have obtained … Continue reading