Archives
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Recent Posts
- WSJ: ‘We Know You Live Right Here’: No Secrets in America’s New Surveillance Dragnet
- NY Columbia Co.: Alleged excessive nervousness when multiple police cars arrive at a traffic stop doesn’t add to RS
- CA4: Backpack dumped in flight in grandmother’s yard was abandoned
- GA: Virtually all-inclusive list of items to be seized wasn’t overbroad
- CA4: Dist.Ct. erred in applying search incident to arrest to suppress bag when inventory was inevitable
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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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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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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"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: Immigration arrests
WSJ: Florida Cops Turn Traffic Stops Into Deportations
WSJ: Florida Cops Turn Traffic Stops Into Deportations by Arian Campo-Flores, Scott Calvert & Elizabeth Lindell (“A ride-along shows how the state’s police force has become integrated into federal government’s enforcement efforts; ‘You’re here illegally.’”):
SCOTUSBlog: The Trump administration puts ethnicity on the court’s emergency docket
SCOTUSBlog: The Trump administration puts ethnicity on the court’s emergency docket by César Cuauhtémoc García Hernandez (“Earlier this month, the Department of Justice filed an emergency request asking the Supreme Court to stay a temporary order from a district court … Continue reading
Natl. Imm. Law Center: Warrants & Subpoenas: What to Look Out for and How to Respond
Natl. Imm. Law Center: Warrants & Subpoenas: What to Look Out for and How to Respond, fact sheet (Jan. 2025)
LATimes: Immigration agent fires shots at vehicle with people inside in San Bernardino operation
LATimes: Immigration agent fires shots at vehicle with people inside in San Bernardino operation by Brittny Mejia. The officers claim shooting at the vehicle was in self-defense:
SCOTUSBlog: Trump administration urges Supreme Court to block district court ruling preventing immigration stops
Amy Howe: Trump administration urges Supreme Court to block district court ruling preventing immigration stops (SCOTUSBlog Aug. 7), Noem v. Perdomo, 25A169. The stay application is here. The response is due August 12th, 5 pm. Note: This is an application … Continue reading
Reason: Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Imperils the Fourth Amendment Rights of U.S. Citizens
Reason: Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Imperils the Fourth Amendment Rights of U.S. Citizens by Damon Root:
CA9: Stay against race-based ICE stops denied
Plaintiffs and class members were Latino U.S. citizens stopped and arrested and searched by ICE based merely on race, ethnicity, and location. Based on the government’s own admissions of what it was doing, the risk of recurrence was significant enough … Continue reading
D.C.Cir.: Rental inspection ordinance not unconstitutional because it requires a SW if inspection refused
D.C. Code provision on rental unit inspections requires an administrative warrant if the owner refuses inspection, so it’s not facially unconstitutional. Lyle v. District of Columbia, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 18954 (D.C. Cir. July 29, 2025). Two BAC results here: … Continue reading
The Guardian: Immigration agents told a teenage US citizen: ‘You’ve got no rights.’ He secretly recorded his brutal arrest
The Guardian: Immigration agents told a teenage US citizen: ‘You’ve got no rights.’ He secretly recorded his brutal arrest by Clare Considine (“Video from Kenny Laynez-Ambrosio, 18, puts fresh scrutiny on the harsh tactics used to reach the Trump administration’s … Continue reading
C.D.Cal. denies stay in immigration stops without RS
Perdomo v. Noem, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 137993 (C.D. Cal. July 17, 2025), posted here, holds that reasonable suspicion is required for immigration stops and race alone isn’t enough. The government’s motion for stay pending appeal is denied. Without more … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: Roving immigration patrol stops without RS violate 4A
“Roving patrols without reasonable suspicion violate the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and denying access to lawyers violates the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. What the federal government would have this Court believe—in the face of a mountain of evidence … Continue reading
WaPo: What is and isn’t legal when ICE officers make an immigration arrest
WaPo: What is and isn’t legal when ICE officers make an immigration arrest by Arelis R. Hernández (“Videos showing masked officers whisking people into unmarked cars have sparked outcry. A look at ICE’s powers as Congress prepares to give the … Continue reading
Reason: Florida Used a Nationwide Surveillance Camera Network 250 Times To Aid in Immigration Arrests
Reason: Florida Used a Nationwide Surveillance Camera Network 250 Times To Aid in Immigration Arrests by Autumn Billings (“Flock Safety’s 40,000 cameras present in over 5,000 communities across the U.S. are being used to detain undocumented immigrants, many of whom … Continue reading
Arnold & Porter: People Are Not Documents: Texas Court Rules That Administrative Inspection Warrants Cannot Be Used for Immigration Raids of Businesses
Arnold & Porter: People Are Not Documents: Texas Court Rules That Administrative Inspection Warrants Cannot Be Used for Immigration Raids of Businesses by Mohamed Al-Hendy, Lee M. Cortes, Jr., Ryan Hartman & Murad Hussain:
NYT: Judge Temporarily Blocks Border Patrol’s Stop-and-Arrest Tactics in California
NYT: Judge Temporarily Blocks Border Patrol’s Stop-and-Arrest Tactics in California by Kate Selig (“Border Patrol agents carried out sweeps in California’s Central Valley. Lawyers argued that people were stopped and arrested based on their skin color.”)
Reason: Justice Department Memo Claims Alien Enemies Act Allows Warrantless Home Searches and No Judicial Review
Reason: Justice Department Memo Claims Alien Enemies Act Allows Warrantless Home Searches and No Judicial Review by C.J. Ciaramella (“The memo says ‘Alien Enemies’ aren’t subject ‘to a judicial review of the removal in any court of the United States.’”):
WaPo: How a defunct gang registry helped deliver Kilmar Abrego García to a Salvadoran prison
WaPo: How a defunct gang registry helped deliver Kilmar Abrego García to a Salvadoran prison by Katie Mettler, María Luisa Paúl, Jasmine Hilton and Lateshia Beachum (“Federal officials have launched a full-throated effort to label Abrego García a gang member … Continue reading
CW34 West Palm Beach: U.S. citizen detained in Florida under new immigration law, released after 48 hours
CW34 West Palm Beach: U.S. citizen detained in Florida under new immigration law, released after 48 hours by Grace Bellinghausen (“A 20-year-old U.S. citizen was unlawfully detained by ICE for two days following a traffic stop near the Florida border. … Continue reading
NYTimes: This Company’s Surveillance Tech Makes Immigrants ‘Easy Pickings’ for Trump
NYTimes: This Company’s Surveillance Tech Makes Immigrants ‘Easy Pickings’ for Trump By Paul Mozyr, Adam Satariano & Aaron Krolik (“Geo Group, a private prison firm that makes digital tools to track immigrants, becomes one of the Trump administration’s big business … Continue reading
CalMatters: Border Patrol to retrain hundreds of California agents on how to comply with Constitution
CalMatters: Border Patrol to retrain hundreds of California agents on how to comply with Constitution by Wendy Fry and Sergio Olmos. Oh? They are the best source? Update: Then this Sunday: San Diego Post: California immigration raids slammed as racial … Continue reading