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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General (many free):
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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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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
OR: SW for trace evidence on carpets allowed search of carpet cleaning equipment
In an attempted murder case, defendant was convicted of conspiracy. “[P]olice had a warrant to search the entire residence for evidence, and that DNA, blood or blood spatter, hair, and trace evidence were the types of evidence that one could … Continue reading
NY: Two on waiver for failure to articulate search issue, and failure to join defendant’s search issue is waiver
Defendant failed to preserve for review most of the issues for suppression by not making them specific in his motion to suppress and then getting the issue somehow before the trial court. Moreover, his failure to join in a codefendant’s … Continue reading
The Hill: Former NSA head to FBI: ‘Get over’ Apple dispute
The Hill: Former NSA head to FBI: ‘Get over’ Apple dispute by Cory Bennett: A former head of two intelligence agencies had a clear message on Friday for the government as it tries to get Apple to unlock an iPhone … Continue reading
Cal.1st: Warrantless school search of cell phone on RS justified by T.L.O.
A warrantless search of cell phone in a school was justified by reasonable suspicion under T.L.O. that the student had been in possession of a firearm found at school. There was sufficient exigency for Riley under T.L.O. Alternatively, the search … Continue reading
CT: Photographing def’s body would not be a search
“In the present case, the police officers’ attempts to photograph the defendant did not constitute either an unreasonable search or compelled self-incrimination. Because the defendant had no fourth or fifth amendment right to refuse to be photographed, his noncooperation was … Continue reading
TX: Being a ‘known criminal’ on the street at 2 am in a high crime area not reasonable suspicion
The officer “cited the time of day, the area’s known narcotic activity, and his belief, based on what other officers had told him, that Appellant was a ‘known criminal’ as the reasons for detaining Appellant. The court of appeals concluded … Continue reading
W.D.Tenn.: Def had a reasonable expectation of privacy in iPad even though family and housekeeper had password
Defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his iPad that was in his house despite the fact that others in the home, including the housekeeper, had the password. The housekeeper saw likely child pornography and told the police, and … Continue reading
CA8: Where two crimes alleged in affidavit and PC as to each is sufficient, Franks challenge to one is moot
Defendant’s Franks challenge fails: There were two unrelated crimes referred to, and the PC as to the drug crime was not challenged. As to the other, that wasn’t even in federal court, so it doesn’t matter and wasn’t material to … Continue reading
CA1: Def’s answer to book-in as to employment that he was “a drug dealer” was admissible at trial
The CI said defendant had a gun and crack. Surveilling the defendant, officers noticed him reaching for his waistband, indicating he was likely armed. The stop and frisk was based on reasonable suspicion from the surveillance corroborating the gun. At … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: One month old information about a gun is not stale
The CI’s seeing a gun in defendant’s house a month before the warrant issued is not stale at all. “The Affidavit established a fair probability that firearms would be found.” Also, the detail of the affidavit provided cross–corroboration. Finally, defendant’s … Continue reading
Harper’s: John Ehrlichman admitting the racist origin of Nixon’s “war on drugs” in 1993
Harper’s: John Ehrlichman admitting the racist origin of Nixon’s “war on drugs” in 1993 Legalize It All | How to win the war on drugs by Dan Baum:
N.D.Ga.: No REP in records of company in receivership
The owner of a company put into receivership has no reasonable expectation of privacy in the business records, and the receiver can give them all to the government without violating the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Avery, 2016 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
CA7: Dog sniff by second officer while first officer wrote ticket didn’t extend stop
The officer with the dog doing the sniff happened while the first officer was writing the ticket, and that made it valid. Even if not, there was reasonable suspicion extending the stop for the dog sniff. United States v. Guidry, … Continue reading
MN: Arrest warrant permitted entry to arrest short term guest known to be in house
When police have probable cause to believe that the subject of a valid arrest warrant is present as a short-term social guest at another person’s residence, police may enter that residence to effectuate the arrest pursuant to the warrant without … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Seizing flash drives outside of the warrant requires suppression
Seizing flash drives which were outside of the warrant requires their suppression. Failure to include the attachment in a warrant left on the premises is only a rule violation, not a constitutional one. United States v. Rojas-Camilo, 2016 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
D.N.J.: Burden on motion to reconsider high because it leads to endless litigation; even so, def would lose on merits [just to avoid an IAC claim]
Defendant doesn’t show “new evidence, no change of law, and nothing the Court overlooked in denying the prior motion for suppression.” On the off chance that this could lead to a potential ineffectiveness challenge against former defense counsel, the court … Continue reading
NYTimes: F.B.I. Clash With Apple Loosed a Torrent of Possible Ways to Hack an iPhone
NYTimes: F.B.I. Clash With Apple Loosed a Torrent of Possible Ways to Hack an iPhone by Katies Benner: SAN FRANCISCO — For weeks, the United States government has said that the only way to open an iPhone used by a … Continue reading
NYTimes: Apple Policy on Bugs May Explain Why Hackers Would Help F.B.I.
NYTimes: Apple Policy on Bugs May Explain Why Hackers Would Help F.B.I. by Nicole Perlroth and Katie Benner: For all the steps Apple has taken to encrypt customers’ communications and its rhetoric around customer privacy, security experts said the company … Continue reading
Ars Technica: Representatives say NSA must end plans to expand domestic spying
Ars Technica: Representatives say NSA must end plans to expand domestic spying by Megan Geuss: Americans “deserve a public debate” on 4th amendment encroachments, reps say. Today, two representatives from the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee sent a letter … Continue reading