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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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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)
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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
W.D.N.Y.: Smell of MJ on one in car doesn’t justify search of other two
Where the smell of marijuana came from one person in a car of three, searching all three was unreasonable. United States v. Brock, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90990 (W.D.N.Y. July 12, 2016):
CA6: Qualified immunity given for use of victim in aiding document search
In a § 1983 case over an insurance billing search warrant executed with the aid of BCBS to help identify records, the court finds the officers are entitled to qualified immunity. There was no showing that the non-law enforcement assistance … Continue reading
Texas refuses to follow One 1958 Plymouth and holds that the exclusionary rule doesn’t apply to civil forfeiture cases
Texas refuses to follow One 1958 Plymouth and holds that the exclusionary rule doesn’t apply to civil forfeiture cases because there is no deterrence rationale and it’s a dated case; i.e., pre-Herring. State v. One (1) 2004 Lincoln Navigator, 2016 … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: Inventory form doesn’t have to be complete to be valid
The inventory of defendant’s vehicle turned up criminal evidence, and the inventory essentially listed only that and not the rest except generally [e.g., a duffle bag]. The government argues that an inventory can become a criminal search by what it … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: SCA warrant can cross jurisdictional lines
“The Court agrees with the Magistrate Judge’s determination that the SCA provided authority for the search authorized by Magistrate Judge Smith. See United States v. Berkos, 543 F.3d 392, 398 (7th Cir. 2008) (geographic limitation of Rule 41(b) does not … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Where a parolee spends the night is subject to search, even if just a visitor
Where a parolee stays is subject to search under his parole condition, whether staying for a day or a month. United States v. Sanders, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88706 (N.D.Ga. June 6, 2016), adopted 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88507 (N.D. … Continue reading
Miscellany
Stopping in traffic justified defendant’s traffic stop. A gun was seen on the floor board in plain view after the officer chose to get the occupants out, his prerogative. Defendant’s statement “you guys got me with a gun, just charge … Continue reading
CA9: GJ subpoena for emails was unreasonably overbroad and should have been quashed
A grand jury subpoena for the Oregon former governor’s emails was overbroad and made no effort to limit the emails under investigation. Therefore, the district court should have quashed. In re Grand Jury Subpoena; United States v. Kitzhaber, 2016 U.S. … Continue reading
CA9: Searching the engine air filter during an inventory search was reasonable
Searching the engine air filter during an inventory search was reasonable. United States v. Torres, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 12941 (9th Cir. July 14, 2016). Court’s summary:
C.D.Cal.: CSLI is but third party information, following almost every other court
Defendant challenges CSLI and concedes four circuits have held it’s third party information. That’s the holding of the court. United States v. Elima, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 87588 (C.D.Cal. June 22, 2016).* Officers entering defendant’s curtilage after following him home … Continue reading
ID: Def was entitled to retrieve duffle bag in rental car before inventory
Defendant had standing to challenge the search of his duffle bag in a rental car. The State conceded that the officers’ conduct in refusing to allow him to take the luggage from a rental car and notifying him that the … Continue reading
GA: Police calling 911 from cell phone left in cab did not involve an expectation of privacy [clearly wrong reason; right result]
Defendant fled a taxicab to avoid the fare but left his cell phone behind. The police used the phone to call 911 to capture his name, phone number, and other 911 information. This wasn’t a search, and it was governed … Continue reading
GA: Unconscious defendant doesn’t get the implied consent notice
Unconscious defendant doesn’t get the implied consent notice. Bailey v. State, 2016 Ga. App. LEXIS 433 (July 13, 2016).* The officer here had reasonable suspicion to stop defendant’s car after it left a motel with a man and woman inside, … Continue reading
CA2: Court order under SCA can’t require production of emails stored off-shore
In the Matter of a Warrant to Search a Certain E Mail Account Controlled and Maintained by Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft Corporation v. United States, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 12926 (2d Cir. July 14, 2016):
NPR: State Laws Restrict Release Of Police Body Cam Footage
NPR: State Laws Restrict Release Of Police Body Cam Footage: NPR’s Robert Siegel interviews Nancy La Vigne, director of the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, about a survey of state laws restricting the release of police body cam … Continue reading
CA11: On habeas, because law was “murky” about transportation on RS for an eyewitness ID, counsel can’t be ineffective for not challenging it
The law was murky at the time, and still is, that a Terry stop includes moving a suspect for a possible victim ID without requiring probable cause. Focusing somewhat on the merits, but mostly on whether the Florida appellate court … Continue reading
WaPo: Communications network providers opposed government surveillance — in 1928
WaPo: Volokh Conspiracy: Communications network providers opposed government surveillance — in 1928 by Orin Kerr: A lot of readers are familiar with Olmstead v. United States, the 1928 Supreme Court case ruling that wiretapping a telephone line is not a … Continue reading
CA6: Nexus is PC for the place, not necessarily for a person in the place
Probable cause is a connection to a place to be searched, not necessarily to a person to be searched for in the place. That’s nexus. Here there was nexus. United States v. Adams, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 12793 (6th Cir. … Continue reading
NYTimes: Technology Doesn’t Change the Need for Legal Protection
NYTimes: Technology Doesn’t Change the Need for Legal Protection by Kami N. Chavis: Technology is playing a greater role in law enforcement — from robots to “predictive policing” software to “shot spotter” technology — and it can increase efficiency in … Continue reading