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- M.D.Fla.: Unidentified pills in driver’s lap may have been RS but it wasn’t PC for arrest
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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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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. 
Category Archives: Border search
EFF Urges Appeals Court To Toughen Privacy Protections for Devices at the Border Warrants Should Be Required to Search Cell Phones, Computers
EFF Urges Appeals Court To Toughen Privacy Protections for Devices at the Border Warrants Should Be Required to Search Cell Phones, Computers:
CA10: Extended border search of truck that had been flagged was with RS
Defendant’s vehicle was subjected to a border search in February 2013 and an empty hidden compartment was found after a dog alert. That information was entered in the computer. In September, defendant came through the border twice, and a border … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Where def’s laptop and cell phone immediately revealed child porn in a border search, the Ninth Circuit’s Cotterman case is inapplicable
The border search of defendant’s laptop and phones was manual and quickly found child pornography, so the court does not have to follow United States v. Cotterman, 709 F.3d 952 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc) which required reasonable suspicion for … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: If you’re rejected driving to Canadian customs, turning around and going back is still a U.S. border crossing
A border search occurred where defendant attempted to enter Canada and was turned away on suspicion of manufacturing child pornography on cell phone videos. His cell phone was subjected to a border search at the U.S. border. His argument he … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: A cell phone is an “instrumentality” of a drug crime; turning on a cell phone to see if it answers is not a “search”
Defendant’s 12 cell phones could be seized as instrumentalities of a drug crime under a search warrant. Calling a number the officers obtained during a wiretap to identify a phone was not an illegal search. Turning on the phones just … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Exit border search of computer without reasonable suspicion was unreasonable
Defendant is a Korean businessman who regularly flew between Korea and California. The government suspected that shipments back to China for his business were routed to Iran, so they seized his laptop as he was leaving in 2012 to search … Continue reading
CA9: Once criminal proceedings are over, the original search isn’t an issue in Rule 41(g) proceedings for return of property
Defendant’s Rule 41(g) motion was granted in part and denied in part. The district court did not err in refusing to reconsider the original search question. “[I]n the context of Rule 41, that after criminal proceedings are completed, ‘the legality … Continue reading
TechDirt: 2009 DHS Document Says Border Patrol Can Search/Copy The Contents Of Your Device Just Because It Wants To
TechDirt: 2009 DHS Document Says Border Patrol Can Search/Copy The Contents Of Your Device Just Because It Wants To by Tim Cushing: FOIA clearinghouse MuckRock has scored another revealing document, this time from Customs and Border Protection. As we’re well … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Not knowing your address while walking “home” in a high crime area and pulling up pants because of likely weight of gun was RS
Walking alone at night in a high crime area [the ‘hood?] and pulling up pants strongly suggested defendant had a gun there in his pants. He was nervously looking at the police car. He said he was going home but … Continue reading
CA1: There was RS for the border search of defendant’s computer and cell phones
Defendant made his fifth short trip from Puerto Rico to Colombia in a few months, and he was flagged for secondary border screening. His older but operational laptop had no data on it. Questions about his trip made no real … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Ignoring a Border Patrol officer near the border is a factor in reasonable suspicion of alien smuggling
Ignoring a Border Patrol officer near the border is a factor in reasonable suspicion of alien smuggling. United States v. Juarez-Olmedo, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12167 (S.D.Tex. February 3, 2015). The officer was responding to a shots fired call at … Continue reading
WaPo: Meth seizures at U.S.-Mexico border soar in 2014
WaPo: Meth seizures at U.S.-Mexico border soar in 2014 by AP: SAN DIEGO — Seizures of methamphetamine soared at the U.S.-Mexico border during fiscal 2014, accelerating a trend that began several years ago as new laws that limited access to … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Even if NSA captured def’s calls, search of laptop at LAX was attenuated and with RS
Defendant was charged with violating the trade embargo with Iran. The government refused to provide details of how it accessed telephone call information, the defendant asserting that the NSA must have captured his call information. Assuming, then, that the search … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Touching the fog line when a police car is in one’s blind spot isn’t a traffic offense; stop unreasonable
Defendant touched the fog line and wasn’t driving erratically. As he explained on the video during the stop, he was concerned that there was a police car staying in his blind spot and he was trying to stay away from … Continue reading
D.V.I.: Post-flight x-ray of bags was unreasonable
CBP x-rayed bags of passengers flying between St. John’s and St. Thomas VI during Carnival between 7 am and 5 pm. A gun was found in defendant’s carry-on bag. It was not a flight involving Customs, as flights from and … Continue reading
OH8: Entry into def’s home for DWI arrest wasn’t with sufficient justification
Police officers’ warrantless forced home entry to arrest defendant suspected of OVI violated the Fourth Amendment and the Ohio Constitution because, under the totality of the circumstances. Evidence that defendant turned into his driveway and parked the car before the … Continue reading
D.Md.: Riley cell phone case has no effect on border searches of cell phones
Posted back on April 8th: “[U]nder the facts presented by this case, a forensic computer search cannot be performed under the border search doctrine in the absence of reasonable suspicion. Because the officials here reasonably suspected that Saboonchi was violating … Continue reading