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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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)
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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
E.D.N.Y.: Def got a suppression hearing and was directed to address standing; he didn’t show it
Defendant was stopped for erratic driving in Brooklyn and his car was driven by another officer to the precinct station where it was inventoried. In the order setting the hearing, the court directed defendant to better address his standing, and … Continue reading
D.Colo.: Rare proved Franks violation; suppression required because of intent; no severability of a SW after Franks violation
Defendant was a chiropractor being investigated for health fraud, and the investigators procured a search warrant for records. Defendant was the target of an administrative investigation that produced a settlement, an Admonition Letter, with no finding of fault or fraud. … Continue reading
D.Guam: Def’s detention at Customs for 13 hours for SW for rectum was based on RS
Defendant’s 13 hour detention at airport customs was reasonable where it was based on a report from a CI that defendant would arrive from Manila with drugs hidden in his rectum. A dog also alerted on him in the luggage … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Decision of a USMJ to issue a search warrant is reviewed by the District Court for “clear error”
The decision of a USMJ to issue a search warrant is reviewed by the District Court for “clear error” in the Ninth Circuit. United States v. Alvarez, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75970 (N.D.Cal. June 10, 2016):
E.D.Wis.: Fact no ticket was issued for cause for stop doesn’t make stop unconstitutional
The stop was justified, and the fact the officers had a subjective motive to conduct a drug investigation and never issued a traffic ticket doesn’t make the stop and search unconstitutional. The search warrant for defendant’s home was based on … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: Riley does not apply to a search of a cell phone at the border
Riley does not apply to a search of a cell phone at the border. Calling it “investigatory” doesn’t add anything to the argument. “[A]n entire body of jurisprudence has been built around border searches, and the specific lexicon used by … Continue reading
D.Mass.: PC shown for white collar email search by declaration of investigator that email is commonly used
A federal search warrant issued by a USMJ in the District if Massachusetts could be served on an email provider in Florida under § 2703(b)(1)(A). The affiant’s statement that white collar defendants frequently use email to communicate was sufficient to … Continue reading
The Hill: NSA: We couldn’t have hacked the San Bernadino iPhone
The Hill: NSA: We couldn’t have hacked the San Bernadino iPhone by Joe Uchill: “We don’t do every phone, every variation of phone,” said an agency deputy director.
ME: State DEP doesn’t need a warrant to enter lands to look for noxious odors
The state Department of Environmental Protection gets an order permitting it to enter defendant’s lands at “reasonable hours” to inspect for the source of noxious odors. There is no warrant requirement for lands as opposed to buildings. State v. Dubois … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: Govt SW affidavit showed PC for any computer logged into Playpen on Tor network
In another Playpen child pornography search, the government’s use of the Tor network to take over the Playpen computer and then route to users’ personal computers through it, looking at those computers, was a search. The “commonsense judgment” is that … Continue reading
TN: Mere called-in description and location of allegedly impaired driver wasn’t enough for stop
A mere description of a truck and its general location, with no details of how the caller knew that the driver was impaired, was insufficient. Even when coupled with the officer’s one-minute interaction with defendant prior to seizing her where … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Trash bags were about as close to house as street; no REP
Defendant has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his trash bags. There were close to house, but they were as close to the street, and they were ready for collection. United States v. Thompson, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73035 (D.S.D. … Continue reading
DE: SW also for documents permitted seizure of a cell phone because nexus was shown; second warrant for contents of phone
Police were justified in entering defendant’s apartment without a warrant under the clothing exigency to retrieve clothing reasonably calculated to lessen the risk of injury to defendant, who was wearing only a t-shirt, underwear, and no shoes to go to … Continue reading
The Daily Beast: DEA Wants Inside Your Medical Records to Fight the War on Drugs
The Daily Beast: DEA Wants Inside Your Medical Records to Fight the War on Drugs by Christopher Moraff: The feds are fighting to look at millions of private files without a warrant, including those of two transgender men who are … Continue reading
NE: Def is presumptively entitled to return of noncontraband property seized from him when his case is over
Defendant is presumptively entitled to return of noncontraband property seized from him when his case is over. “As in State v. Agee, supra, we conclude that once the criminal proceedings against Dubray were concluded, Dubray was presumptively entitled to the … Continue reading
NM: Inventory of def’s backpack many feet away from him was unreasonable, even though he admitted MJ was in it [Revd by NMSC]
Defendant on his motorcycle was followed by an officer because the officer knew that he didn’t have a valid driver’s license. He pulled into his driveway and parked behind his car and got off the bike, putting his backpack on … Continue reading
TX: Def’s failure to get trial court ruling on constitutional question was defaulted
The constitutional claim of the legality of defendant’s blood draw was argued, but the trial judge never ruled, so the claim wasn’t preserved for appeal. Court of Appeals reversed. Smith v. State, 2016 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 89 (June 8, … Continue reading
WaPo: ‘The Watch’ Blog: New frontiers in asset forfeiture
WaPo: ‘The Watch’ Blog: New frontiers in asset forfeiture by Radley Balko: While much of the progress on criminal justice reform has stalled in recent months, there has been quite a bit of progress on civil asset forfeiture. … But … Continue reading
NACDL: Symposium Report: The Fourth Amendment in the Digital Age
NACDL: Symposium Report: The Fourth Amendment in the Digital Age: Washington, DC (June 8, 2016) — The Fourth Amendment has entered the digital age. New surveillance technologies and programs — from GPS tracking devices to automated license plate readers to … Continue reading