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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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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
NY3: Fight in one room didn’t justify protective sweep of back rooms
Police responded to a disturbance call and heard a fight going on inside. The door was unlocked and they entered. They separated the combatants, and then the wife of the non-aggressor entered the room and sat down, too. They decided … Continue reading
CA5: Pre-Jardines dog sniff at garage was valid at time under case law; GFE applies
The good faith exception applied to validate dog sniffs based on law at the time saying that a sniff at defendant’s garage wasn’t an invasion of the curtilage back then. The search was 2008 and Jardines was 2013. The deterrent … Continue reading
W.D.Tenn.: Apt complex private security detained and searched def for trespass, and it was a private search
Defendant was in a friend’s apartment smoking pot when the complex’s security guards came to a noise complaint. Defendant was on a no-trespassing list and he was handcuffed and searched. Defendant had no standing in the pot in the apartment. … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Nexus to house shown by controlled buys
“[T]he affidavit only needs to show a ‘nexus’ between the place to be searched and the evidence sought. [¶] A common-sense reading of the affidavit leads to the conclusion that there is a nexus between the residence and the evidence … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Dashcam video showed officer slow walked the citation to add time for the drug dog; no RS for the delay
It was apparent from the video that the officer slow walked the citation to give more time to the drug dog to get there and do its job. Selective muting of the audio at the time by the officer also … Continue reading
New American: New Illinois Law Nullifies Expansion of Surveillance State
New American: New Illinois Law Nullifies Expansion of Surveillance State by Joe Wolverton, II: A new law in Illinois works to protect citizens of that state from being subjected to electronic surveillance that violates their right to be free from … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: No REP in a cell phone call made in back of patrol car caught on dashcam
Defendant’s stop was valid, and so was the ultimate inventory of the car under Bertine. Defendant was in the back of a police car, and he called his grandfather and the audio was picked up on the dashcam video where … Continue reading
MO: Where there’s PC to believe evidence is in a vehicle, it may be seized to remove it for search
When there is probable cause to believe a vehicle contains criminal evidence, exigent circumstances can support its seizure pending determination whether to search it under the automobile exception or to remove it to a secure location for search. State v. … Continue reading
D.Ore.: No territorial limitation for SW to Facebook under § 2703
“The territorial limitation in Rule 41 … does not limit warrants issued pursuant to [18 U.S.C.] § 2703.” A search warrant for Facebook in another jurisdiction was valid. United States v. Bundy, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94476 (D.Ore. July 20, … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Losing sight of the def for a few minutes didn’t dissipate the RS
The officer had reasonable suspicion on the totality, and it doesn’t dissipate just because the officer lost sight of defendant for a little while. United States v. Williams, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94514 (E.D.N.C. June 2, 2016),* adopted, 2016 U.S. … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Detailed tip about def coupled with seeing bulge of a gun was RS
Aside from the detailed tip the police had about defendant, the officer saw the bulge of a gun, and that was reasonable suspicion. United States v. Bridges, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 95367 (E.D.Mich. July 21, 2016).* Defendant’s patdown at the … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Motion to suppress wasn’t timely and discovery wasn’t that complicated; but he’d lose on standing or merits anyway
Defendant’s motion to suppress wasn’t timely, and he had plenty of time to get it filed and didn’t give an excuse or even mention it being late. “Large volumes of discovery can indeed constitute good cause for addressing a motion’s … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Search issue mentioned in passing and not fleshed out is waived
“The felony probation-violation arrest warrant alone was all the police needed to arrest James at any time, so his warrantless seizure argument is simply frivolous.” Another argument mentioned in passing is treated as waived for failure to flesh it out. … Continue reading
Miami Herald: He was arrested for meth, but the crumbs in his car were Krispy Kreme doughnut glaze
Miami Herald: He was arrested for meth, but the crumbs in his car were Krispy Kreme doughnut glaze by Alex Harris: Daniel Rushing was arrested, charged with possession with a weapon, strip-searched and jailed in December. The 64-year-old Orlando man … Continue reading
New Law Review Article: Protecting the Fourth Amendment in the Information Age: A Response to Robert Litt
New Law Review Article: Protecting the Fourth Amendment in the Information Age: A Response to Robert Litt by Cindy Cohn (short form here without footnotes)
C.D.Cal.: Purging an invalid consent search from the affidavit for SW, the remainder shows no PC, so search suppressed
The testimony of the defendants on consent was consistent, detailed, and credible, but the testimony of the officers was vague. Thus, the consent is found invalid. Since the consent search made it into the affidavit for the search warrant, it … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: Def didn’t show standing but gov’t didn’t raise it, so it’s waived
The court finds on the face of the pleadings that one defendant had no standing to contest the search but goes to the merits because the government failed to assert standing. United States v. Pierce, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 93614 … Continue reading
CA8: Car in abandoned car wash bay in high crime area in middle of night occupied by a known criminal was RS
The officer here came upon a car parked in an empty car wash bay in the middle of the night in a high crime area. When he saw and recognized defendant, to him a known criminal, he had reasonable suspicion … Continue reading