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- CA6: Knowing passcode to cell phone shows common authority over it to consent
- VI: Smell of MJ no longer PC in VI since legalization
- Reason: 3 Charlotte Cops Resign After Group Chat Reveals Competition To Arrest the Most Black People
- E.D.Mich.: Second SW for cell phone data retained by govt was valid
- S.D.W.Va.: “Shocking” nature of immigration raid on a Mexican restaurant at lunchtime didn’t warrant suppression
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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 -
Latest Slip Opinions:
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Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
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S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
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General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
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Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
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
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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. 
Category Archives: Uncategorized
IN: Law firm’s suit over fees for work complying with GJ subpoena to client leads to reduced fees
The law firm sued over its attorneys fees in complying with federal grand jury subpoenas for a client after a search warrant directed to the client. The trial court made findings of fact finding the reasonable fee one-third of what … Continue reading
TX: Perjured police testimony in drug raid leads to finding of actual innocence
Petitioner showed actual innocence to get his drug conviction set aside. The Houston officer involved was shown to be a perjurer in drug case search warrant requests and trial testimony. That led to two deaths during a botched no-knock drug … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Def’s guilty plea even waived IAC 4A claim
Defendant’s guilty plea waived his ineffectiveness claim on failure to investigate a possible Fourth Amendment claim. “Respondent argues that Petitioner’s ineffectiveness claim based on Defense Counsel’s failure to conduct a reasonable investigation into the search and seizure of her home … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: With California’s legalization of small amounts of marijuana, law enforcement can’t use federal criminal law as an excuse to search
Legalization of recreational marijuana in California makes possession of small quantities legal, despite federal criminal law leaving marijuana in schedule I, and thus denies law enforcement the ability to search for it. United States v. Talley, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Slightly speeding is still speeding and supports a stop
Defendant was slightly speeding and does not dispute it. The gravity of the traffic offense doesn’t matter on the reasonableness of the stop. United States v. Betances, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105632 (E.D.Mo. May 18, 2020):
Protocol: New York lawmakers want to outlaw geofence warrants as protests grow
Protocol: New York lawmakers want to outlaw geofence warrants as protests grow by Issie Lapowsky (“Geofence warrants are a relatively new but rapidly expanding phenomenon. Rather than issuing a warrant for data on a specific individual, these warrants seek information … Continue reading
Reason: Criminal Justice Divides the ‘Conservative’ Judiciary
Reason: Criminal Justice Divides the ‘Conservative’ Judiciary by Damon Root (“Pundits often speak of the judiciary in terms of liberal or conservative judges issuing liberal or conservative opinions. The reality is far more complicated.”)
Proposed Justice in Policing Act of 2020, some proposals on arrest and frisk, qualified immunity, use of force, and no-knock warrants
Proposed Justice in Policing Act of 2020 in the House of Representatives: some proposals on arrest and frisk, qualified immunity, use of force, and searches: In § 103, repeals case law on qualified immunity in revised § 1983 (pdf at … Continue reading
“America was neither founded, nor freed, by the well-behaved.”
— Semmes Luckett Jr. of Clarksdale, Mississippi [This was posted on July 4, 2010 & 2012]
Law.com/NYLJ: COVID-19 and the Constitution: How the Bill of Rights Is Being Tested by the Coronavirus
Law.com/NYLJ: COVID-19 and the Constitution: How the Bill of Rights Is Being Tested by the Coronavirus by John Curran, Jake Gardener and Jeffery Ding (“The coronavirus is set to test our Bill of Rights more broadly than any other event … Continue reading
FL1: Retaining lawfully obtained DNA in CODIS isn’t a separate search subject to 4A
“The retention of a lawfully obtained DNA record on CODIS for future use does not constitute a separate search or implicate the Fourth Amendment.” Porter v. State, 2020 Fla. App. LEXIS 7218 (Fla. 1st DCA May 26, 2020). Defendant was … Continue reading
AR: State const’l requirement of right to refuse consent on knock-and-talk reaffirmed; suppression hearing stipulation can’t be used at trial
The police violated a longstanding state constitutional prohibition of a knock-and-talk seeking consent to enter a home without a warning of a right to refuse. In addition, a factual stipulation for the suppression hearing couldn’t be used by the state … Continue reading
We’re back, somewhat
After three weeks of recovery, I’m going to get started on getting caught up. Three weeks behind is hundreds of cases I have to screen. It will be six weeks getting caught up, probably. So, basic cases that won’t be … Continue reading
Update on author
The author has been out due to illness (not COVID-19 related!), and will begin updating this site again next week. It was to be two days in hospital, but will end up being 11-12.
Just Security: How Much Liberty Must We Give Up? A Constitutional Analysis of the Coronavirus Lockdown Proposals
Just Security: How Much Liberty Must We Give Up? A Constitutional Analysis of the Coronavirus Lockdown Proposals by Ahilan Arulanantham (“Benjamin Franklin once said that ‘those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither … Continue reading
Reason: Volokh Conspiracy: Restrictions on Interstate (and Intrastate) Travel in an Epidemic
Reason: Volokh Conspiracy: Restrictions on Interstate (and Intrastate) Travel in an Epidemic (are generally constitutional (whether they forbid travel to a particular place, or require travelers to be temporarily quarantined)) by Eugene Volokh
VT AG: Attorney General’s Directive to Law Enforcement on the Enforcement of the COVID-19 Emergency Order
VT AG: Attorney General’s Directive to Law Enforcement on the Enforcement of the COVID-19 Emergency Order: The Executive Order 01-20 does not authorize road closure or the establishment of roadblocks, checkpoints or the authority to demand identification. You will continue … Continue reading
Corporate Counsel: Microsoft Chief Legal Officer Applauds Washington’s Recently Signed Facial Recognition Law
Corporate Counsel: Microsoft Chief Legal Officer Applauds Washington’s Recently Signed Facial Recognition Law by Dan Clark (“Washington’s new law shows how regulation and market forces can move forward together in a way that advances innovation to meet public needs,” Brad … Continue reading
Courthouse News: San Francisco OKs $369,000 Settlement for Journalist Targeted by Police
Courthouse News: San Francisco OKs $369,000 Settlement for Journalist Targeted by Police by Nicholas Iovino (“A journalist whose home was raided by police will get $369,000 from San Francisco taxpayers under the terms of a settlement approved by the city’s … Continue reading
NYTimes: Justice Department Watchdog Cites More Flaws in FBI’s Handling of Surveillance Warrants
NYTimes: Justice Department Watchdog Cites More Flaws in FBI’s Handling of Surveillance Warrants by Reuters (“The FBI has failed to properly maintain supporting documentation when seeking surveillance warrants, raising questions about the factual underpinnings of the warrant applications and violating … Continue reading