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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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
--Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012)
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"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
FL2: Fireman reported to LEO that he saw drugs in house; police entry couldn’t rely on inevitable discovery where no effort to get warrant
A fire happened at defendant’s house, and the firefighters put it out. They saw some drugs and drug paraphernalia in the garage and told the police. On resweeping the house yet a second time for no apparent reason other than … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Def could file second motion to suppress on different ground; this one prevails for lack of PC and no GFE
Defendant filed a motion to suppress on one ground and lost. He was not prohibited by law of the case from arguing the different issue of a complete lack of probable cause in a subsequent motion, on which he prevails. … Continue reading
Guam: Anonymous report of man in car with gun didn’t satisfy Navarette
Anonymous report of man with a gun in a car led to defendant’s stop, and the court finds it insufficient under Navarette because there was no allegation of a crime. People v. Mansapit, 2016 Guam 30, 2016 Guam LEXIS 28 … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Clause in SW that is overbroad requires def to show what was seized under it
One overbroad clause in the search warrant didn’t require exclusion of the rest that was specifically covered. Defendant also didn’t show that which was seized under the overbroad section to have it excluded. United States v. Traum, 2016 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
VA: Filing wrong version of affidavit in the return fatal error under statute
The version of the affidavit filed with the clerk after the search was not the one issued by the judge, and this is a fatal error, considering the statute on the subject. The statute being violated, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t … Continue reading
CO: State didn’t prove necessity for impoundment of car for driving on a suspended DL
The state failed to prove that defendant’s driving on a suspended license justified impoundment and inventory of the car. The state didn’t offer evidence to show that defendant would drive off from the ticket or that he would imperil other … Continue reading
UT: State failed to prove inevitable discovery after warrantless entry into home investigating hit and run accident
Two police officers went to defendant’s home because the LPN on the car involved in a hit and run came back to that address. At the house, the housekeeper greeted them and said that defendant probably was driving the car. … Continue reading
D.Guam: Traffic ticket delayed by 20 min, but RS existed on collective knowledge
The officer delayed writing the traffic ticket in this case for 20 minutes after the report back on defendant’s license, so Rodriguez was seemingly violated. So, the question is reasonable suspicion. The collective knowledge doctrine, however, of reasonable suspicion gives … Continue reading
ABAJ: Oregon civil rights lawyer files First [and Fourth] Amendment suit over surveillance of his Twitter account
ABAJ: Oregon civil rights lawyer files First Amendment suit over surveillance of his Twitter account by Debra Cassens Weiss:
Center for Democracy and Technology: Supreme Court Should Speak Up on Cell Site Location Information
Center for Democracy and Technology: Supreme Court Should Speak Up on Cell Site Location Information by Natasha Duarte:
WaPo: The Volokh Conspiracy: The Fourth Amendment and email preservation letters
WaPo: The Volokh Conspiracy: The Fourth Amendment and email preservation letters by Orin Kerr:
MD: Cell phones are so commonly involved in crimes that it’s now relatively easy to get a SW for one
Defendant was charged with child pornography: “I. Does an affiant’s assertion that ‘individuals who participate in [sex or drug] crimes communicate via cellular telephones, via text messages, calls, e-mails etc.,’ without more, provide a substantial basis to issue a search … Continue reading
New law review article: Digital Duplications and the Fourth Amendment
Note, Digital Duplications and the Fourth Amendment, 129 Harv. L. Rev. 1046 (2016)
Offline when on the road maybe from the DoS system attacks
First a cert petition due 10/25 and on the road for two CLEs. Back with more tomorrow after the last CLE. My system guy said it worked in Little Rock, but it wasn’t from Atlanta. Now in DC for NACDL’s … Continue reading
NPR: It Ain’t Me, Babe: Researchers Find Flaws In Police Facial Recognition
NPR: It Ain’t Me, Babe: Researchers Find Flaws In Police Facial Recognition by Laura Sydell: Nearly half of all American adults have been entered into law enforcement facial recognition databases, according to a recent report from Georgetown University’s law school. … Continue reading
KS: A statute may grant more rights than the 4A and it should be followed
A statute may grant citizens more protection than the Fourth Amendment or the state constitution, and it must be followed. If state law is silent, then the Fourth Amendment or state constitution govern. City of Dodge City v. Webb, 2016 … Continue reading
WV: Def left jacket at friend’s house where he occasionally spent the night; no REP at the time of seizure
Defendant was an occasional overnight guest in the home of a friend. He left a jacket there in a common area, and the police seized it by the consent of the homeowner. Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in … Continue reading
S.D.Ind.: Driving on a dead end road at night was RS
“[I]t was reasonable for Deputy Kirby to stop a car that matched the description of the suspects’ vehicle which was traveling on a dead end road that is rarely used in the nighttime, to investigate further. This reasoning further supports … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Text messages provided nexus for SW for cell phone that produced CP
Defendant lived in the heated garage converted to a bedroom of a couple with two small children. One of the children said she was touched by defendant and they ordered him out of the house. Later, a search warrant was … Continue reading
KS: Where law changed between 2001 appeal and this one to def’s benefit, harmless error applied
In the second appeal from a 1996 murder, the Fourth Amendment law changed between the first appeal in 2001 and this one by the 2004 decision in Groh v. Ramirez. The court concludes that law of the case doesn’t apply, … Continue reading