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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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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)
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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
D.P.R.: Under Payton, there’s a difference between where an arrestee “could be found” and “would be found”
Just because PRPD had two addresses for defendant as places he’d lived before didn’t give reason to believe he was there at the time they entered with an arrest warrant. That it “could be” a place he’d be found doesn’t … Continue reading
TX13: Suspending a DL for refusal of a blood test doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment
Suspending a DL for refusal of a blood test doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. Rankin v. Tex. Dep’t of Pub. Safety, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 5785 (Tex. App. – Corpus Christi – Edinburg June 2, 2016)*:
NYTimes: Trump Could Threaten U.S. Rule of Law, Scholars Say
NYTimes: Trump Could Threaten U.S. Rule of Law, Scholars Say by Adam Liptak: WASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump’s blustery attacks on the press, complaints about the judicial system and bold claims of presidential power collectively sketch out a constitutional worldview … Continue reading
MN: Outside condo door not curtilage for dog sniff, recognizing conflict
Defendant lived in a condominium, and the management company gave the police access to the common areas for a dog sniff outside his unit’s door. The police had reasonable suspicion for the sniff. The court concludes that the area outside … Continue reading
TN: Fact dashcam didn’t catch all of def’s bad driving didn’t help case
Defendant’s wandering all over the road and even off the pavement was reasonable suspicion for a stop. The fact the dashcam only caught the second occurrence was of no avail to the defendant. State v. Moore, 2016 Tenn. Crim. App. … Continue reading
AZ: Driver of a rental vehicle but not on the rental agreement but driving with permission of renter can still have standing
“First, the state argues that Douglas Christian Wasbotten had no standing to challenge a search of a rented vehicle when he was not an authorized driver under the rental agreement. Second, the state argues that the rental truck was properly … Continue reading
PA: Totality and common sense overcomes typo on year in SW application
On the totality and by common sense, the record and the affidavit for the search warrant show that a critical date in the search warrant application had a typographical error as to the year (March 2013 v. March 2014), and … Continue reading
MA: Def’s furtive movement was hiding a small quantity of MJ, and that didn’t justify search of the backseat area when he was out of car
During a traffic stop, defendant lifted himself up consistent with hiding something, and that justified an order to get out of the car. When only a small quantity of marijuana was found, the exigency dissipated, and a search of the … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: A CP SW for “‘computers’ and related material” includes a cell phone and SD card
A search warrant for child pornography for “‘computers’ and related material” permitted a search of a cell phone and an SD card found during the search. At the minimum, their search was in objective good faith. United States v. Tatro, … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Motion to suppress of “any Hotmail accounts under his direction, control, use or access” doesn’t show standing
Defendant failed to show standing in his motion to suppress by merely challenging the search of “any Hotmail accounts under his direction, control, use or access” without showing his connection. United States v. Archie, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 70620 (N.D.Ga. … Continue reading
Police Technical: “free white paper, titled Body Worn Cameras: How They Impact the Law Enforcement Community”
“POLICE TECHNICAL has released a free white paper, titled Body Worn Cameras: How They Impact the Law Enforcement Community.”
Just Security: With Remote Hacking, the Government’s Particularity Problem Isn’t Going Away
Just Security: With Remote Hacking, the Government’s Particularity Problem Isn’t Going Away by Andrew Crocker:
NJ: SW including “all persons present or reasonably connected to the property” didn’t permit search of two men in car down street
Two men parked in a car down the street could not be searched under a warrant for nearby property with an “all persons present or reasonably connected to the property” clause. There was no way to connect them to the … Continue reading
CA2: When the subject of of an arrest warrant is in a third party’s house, Payton governs the entry as to him and Stegald as to the resident
When the subject of of an arrest warrant is in a third party’s house, Payton governs the entry as to him and Stegald as to the resident. This entry satisfied Payton, and the suppression order is reversed. United States v. … Continue reading
VT: A mere “home visit” of a probationer is reasonable and it does not include a search of the house
A mere “home visit” of a probationer is reasonable and it does not include a search of the house; merely an entry to look. State v. Levitt, 2016 VT 60, 2016 Vt. LEXIS 58 (May 27, 2016):
NM: Opening car door that was too heavily tinted was reasonable for officer safety
It was reasonable for an officer in a DUI stop to open the defendant’s door for his own safety when the windows were tinted so darkly he couldn’t see inside. He also knocked on the window first. State v. Simpson, … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Joint venture doctrine is product of 4A, and citizens of another country prosecuted here for what happened there can’t claim it
Non-citizens cannot claim the joint venture doctrine in claiming an alleged Fourth Amendment violation in another country by the U.S. being on an alleged joint venture with the other country in a criminal investigation. In addition, the conduct doesn’t shock … Continue reading
CA4 en banc: CSLI is mere third-party information not requiring SW
CSLI is third-party information the government does not need a warrant to obtain. 221 days worth of information was admissible. It’s up to Congress or SCOTUS to change the third-party doctrine. United States v. Graham, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 9797 … Continue reading