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- S.D.Ohio: Patdown on stop for fictitious tags was reasonable
- TX: 18 year old’s mother had apparent authority to consent to search of room
- LATimes: Federal judge blocks ICE from making racially discriminatory stops in Southern California
- E.D.Okla.: Fire scene suppressed because of failure to show timeline for Fire Marshal entry
- E.D.Mich.: Officer seeing a firearm in the car on a stop justified extending the detention
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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
WaPo: They confided in ChatGPT. Their secrets ended up in court.
WaPo: They confided in ChatGPT. Their secrets ended up in court. By Miriam Waldvogeland Gerrit De Vynck:
CA6: No interlocutory appeal of denial of motion to suppress
There is no interlocutory appeal of denial of a motion to suppress in the federal system. United States v. Cox, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 25677 (6th Cir. Aug. 24, 2026). Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not making a frivolous motion … Continue reading
CA11: Service of SW without attachments isn’t 4A violation
Defendant’s effort to subpoena five witnesses in support of his Franks challenge was properly denied. Their testimony would be material to the outcome, and they were also speculative. As to the execution of the warrant, the fact he got a … Continue reading
KS: Running warrants on a passed out person is reasonable
Defendant was passed out under a bridge, and the fire department and police were called. Firemen got her name and police ran a warrants check, finding one, and they arrested her. That was reasonable. State v. Willard, 2026 Kan. LEXIS … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Unidentified pills in driver’s lap may have been RS but it wasn’t PC for arrest
Defendant was stopped for speeding, and he was arrested for drugs based on unidentified pills found in his lap when the officer looked in. That might have been reasonable suspicion, but it wasn’t probable cause. Therefore, the arrest and car … Continue reading
D.C.Cir.: It was reasonable for officers to conclude that evidence or instrumentalities of the crime would be found in the car used in a robbery
It was reasonable for officers to conclude that evidence or instrumentalities of the crime would be found in the car used in a robbery. A mistaken description of the location of the car in the warrant was neither intentional nor … Continue reading
CA7: Officer’s warrantless view of CSAM flagged by hash value was not unreasonable
Google and others flagged apparent CSAM by hash value alone and reported them to NCMEC which forwarded them to police where the IP address was. The officer viewed the images without a warrant and found them with names suggesting they … Continue reading
D.Utah: Minor time detours to writing up a traffic ticket didn’t unreasonable extend this stop; the dog was quickly on its way
Minor detours to the traffic stop, but all related to it, didn’t unreasonably extend the stop. The dog was quickly called for. United States v. Alba, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 189133 (D. Utah Aug. 21, 2026). How the court handled … Continue reading
KY: Despite lack of nexus, SW sustained under GFE
A search warrant for defendant’s place was because Customs had flagged a child sex doll coming to his house. While the state supreme court held that while nexus was lacking, it remanded for determination of the good faith exception. Looking … Continue reading
CO: DNA could be seized from trash
Collecting defendant’s DNA from his trash out for collection didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment or the Colorado Constitution. People v. Anderson, 2026 COA 64 (Aug. 20, 2026) (2-1 on the state issue; a warrant should be required). Plaintiff’s claim that … Continue reading
WA: Sweat patch as condition of release violated state constitution’s privacy provision
The court imposing a sweat patch on plaintiff violated his state constitutional privacy rights. Lesser intrusive measures are required. Bailey-Cobb v. Snohomish Cty. Dist. Court, 2026 Wash. App. LEXIS 1871 (Aug. 17, 2026). Plaintiff stated a claim for his severe … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Michigan liquor control administrative searches here don’t comply with Burger/Patel
The administrative search provisions of the Michigan liquor control statute don’t measure up to the Burger/Patel standards for administrative searches. Defendants’ motion for summary judgment denied. Generis Ent., LLC v. Donley, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 185142 (E.D. Mich. Aug. 18, … Continue reading
Reason: Border Agents Searched His Phone 5 Times Without a Warrant. He’s Asking the Supreme Court To Put a Stop to It.
Reason: Border Agents Searched His Phone 5 Times Without a Warrant. He’s Asking the Supreme Court To Put a Stop to It. by Elizabeth Nolan Brown (“The Fourth Amendment says authorities can’t search you or your things without probable cause … Continue reading
CA11: SD card in a video voyeur device placed in another’s bedroom has no REP
“This appeal is about the reasonable expectation of privacy–or the lack thereof. Kenneth Mininger secretly placed video cameras in shared rooms in his ex-wife’s house. He used these cameras to record his ex-wife’s minor daughter undressing. The police examined the … Continue reading
CA7: False confession claim is a 4A not 14A claim
Plaintiff’s claim of false confessions sounds in the Fourth Amendment not Fourteenth. But here, the alleged false confession was never used in court. Therefore, no liability. Savory v. Andrews, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 24655 (7th Cir. Aug. 14, 2026)*:
CA5: RS required of weapons or contraband for search of vagina
This strip search of a female detainee stated a claim and overcame qualified immunity. Brown v. Wallace, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 24643 (5th Cir. Aug. 14, 2026):
CA4: Affidavit for SW provided neither nexus nor timing and even failed GFE
The affidavit for warrant here provided neither nexus nor timing to address 6740. As to all around it, yes, but not there. As to timing, as to the others, yes, but all the police had as to 6740 was 13-year-old … Continue reading
CA9: Ptfs didn’t meet burden of showing administrative subpoena was 4A violation or in bad faith
Bad faith administrative subpoenas are grounded in the Fourth Amendment, but the burden is high in showing bad faith, and plaintiffs didn’t meet it. Queerdoc, PLLC v. DOJ, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 24567 (9th Cir. Aug. 14, 2026) (“The prohibition … Continue reading
CA2: No 4A requirement for SWs being issued with notice to target
Search warrants are usually issued ex parte, and there’s no Fourth Amendment justification for advance notice to the target of the search. It avoids warning the target to destroy or hide evidence or flee. United States v. Leeper, 2026 U.S. … Continue reading