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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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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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
D.Nev.: GPS warrant based on transaction from car three weeks earlier wasn’t stale
A GPS tracking warrant wasn’t stale based on a drug deal out of the car three weeks earlier. That led to probable cause to stop and search the vehicle two weeks later. United States v. Cabrera, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
IL: Heroin overdose victim injected with Narcan is PC to arrest for possession
When the police come upon a heroin overdose and inject Narcan, there is probable cause to arrest the defendant for possession. People v. Teper, 2016 IL App (2d) 160063, 2016 Ill. App. LEXIS 794 (Nov. 17, 2016):
CO: Officers had clear indication def had drugs in mouth for body search on exigency
There was a clear indication that defendant had hidden drugs in his mouth, and that was exigency for a search of his mouth. When the state as appellee argues there is probable cause for defendant’s arrest and the opening brief … Continue reading
NJ rejects the state’s prior subjective inadvertence requirement of the plain view doctrine
The prior subjective inadvertence requirement of the plain view doctrine is rejected prospectively only. State v. Gonzales, 2016 N.J. LEXIS 1177 (Nov. 15, 2016) (summary by the court):
CA11: Arguable probable cause entitles the officer to qualified immunity
Arguable probable cause entitles the officer to qualified immunity, here for a mental health seizure. May v. City of Nahunta, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 20501 (11th Cir. Nov. 15, 2016), same result on rehearing, May v. City of Nahunta, 2017 … Continue reading
WA prescription drug monitoring program doesn’t violate 4A or state const’l rights of physicians
The Washington prescription drug monitoring program records do not violate the Fourth Amendment or state constitutional rights of physicians. Alsager v. Bd. of Osteopathic Med. & Surgery, 2016 Wash. App. LEXIS 2768 (Nov. 15, 2016):
MA: Officer’s observation of obvious drug transaction by car pulling up on street was PC
The experienced police officer’s observation of defendant reaching into a car with Maine LPN was consistent with “car meets” for drug sales, and that was probable cause. Commonwealth v. Sanders, 2016 Mass. App. LEXIS 164 (Nov. 15, 2016). Plaintiff complained … Continue reading
IN: Seizure of person justified under community caretaking function
A seizure of the person may be justified under the community caretaking function when the person appears so intoxicated or out of it that he’s a danger to himself or others. McNeal v. State, 2016 Ind. App. LEXIS 408 (Nov. … Continue reading
Cal.3d: This suspicionless parole search wasn’t unreasonable or harassing
While a suspicionless search condition can be harassing and thus unreasonable, this one wasn’t. People v. Perkins, 2016 Cal. App. LEXIS 980 (3d Dist. Nov. 14, 2016):
W.D.Ark.: Search for electronic evidence can be intense; digital media can be “mere centimeters long”
A search for digital evidence in a Facebook threat case led to a plain view of firearms and drugs, and the search was valid. The digital evidence could have been on flash drives “mere centimeters long” and that permitted an … Continue reading
VA ABC agent correctly fired for violating pending licensee’s rights during administrative search
Appellant was an ABC officer terminated for violating the Fourth Amendment rights of a pending licensee by searching in excess of their government’s ability to administratively search or the pending licensee’s consent. The termination decision was affirmed. He argued the … Continue reading
FLETC training website link added
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources added to the research materials on the right side Be sure to check your state law enforcement training schedules. In Arkansas, first year training includes 2 hours on search and seizure law. I did … Continue reading
OH11: Trial court’s finding of no RS to delay the stop was clearly erroneous
The trial court’s finding that the officer delayed the stop without reasonable suspicion is clearly erroneous because the record does not support the finding. State v. Taylor, 2016-Ohio-7745, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS 4613 (11th Dist. Nov. 14, 2016):
CA5: “criminal activity underfoot” was reasonable suspicion
Court seemingly confuses “criminal activity a foot” with “criminal activity underfoot.” Leaving a gun in a stranger’s car here was reasonable suspicion for further action. United States v. Cook, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 20339 (5th Cir. Nov. 11, 2016):
WSJ: Cellphone Smudges Yield a Trove of Forensic Data
WSJ: Cellphone Smudges Yield a Trove of Forensic Data by Robert Lee Hotz: Researchers say molecules and microbes left on phone, keys, credit cards can linger for months.
ID: Officer writing ticket providing backup to drug dog abandoned traffic ticket making it a criminal investigation; suppressed
The officer’s delaying of the traffic stop for 2½ minutes while performing a back-up function for a drug dog sweep violated defendant’s rights under the Fourth Amendment, because the seizure, initially valid based on a cracked windshield, became unreasonable after … Continue reading
CA6: Rule 41(g) motion for return of property doesn’t lie in federal court when state officers seized, even in a federal prosecution
Rule 41(g) motion for return of property requires that officers of the federal government have seized it. Where state and local authorities seized the property, a 41(g) motion doesn’t lie in federal court. United States v. Price, 2016 U.S. App. … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Landlord had apparent authority to consent because of writ of possession
Defendant’s landlord had a writ of possession from a state court and had evicted him from the premises. He called the police and the police saw the writ of possession, and they had no reason to question it. The court … Continue reading
MD: Dog sniff two months earlier didn’t justify search incident on arrest
Defendant’s car was subjected to a drug dog sniff in March 2014 finding drugs, but he wasn’t arrested. Arrest warrants were issued later, and two months later he was arrested. A search incident for drugs wasn’t valid two months later, … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Cursory look at cell phone that revealed nothing doesn’t preclude PC for SW
A cursory search of a codefendant’s phone produced nothing and a cursory look at defendant’s phone didn’t either. That does not, however, preclude a finding of probable cause to believe that there was evidence on the phone for a search … Continue reading