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- Yahoo Tech: Can you be prosecuted for wiping your phone at the border?
- LATimes: Immigration agents used racial slurs referring to Latinos in text messages, video obtained by ACLU
- Cal.4: No error not unsealing CI’s identity in SW application
- D.P.R.: A shed on the curtilage was within scope of SW
- NY4: Payton does not apply to an arrest in a common area of an apartment building
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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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Congressional Research Service:
--Electronic Communications Privacy Act (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: Immigration arrests
NYTimes: A Border Agent Detained Two Americans Speaking Spanish. Now They Have Sued.
NYTimes: A Border Agent Detained Two Americans Speaking Spanish. Now They Have Sued. by Liam Stack:
Law & Crime: North Carolina Sheriffs Clash With ICE Officials After Series of Unwanted Immigration Raids
Law & Crime: North Carolina Sheriffs Clash With ICE Officials After Series of Unwanted Immigration Raids by Colin Kalmbacher:
CA3: Legality of arrest on an ICE warrant for overstaying visa irrelevant to removal
“Matos first argues that local law enforcement violated his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable seizures by arresting him pursuant to the purported ICE warrant. Matos protests that he never waived this right when he entered … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Immigration questions require RS; here they had it
Immigration status questions require reasonable suspicion. It was lacking at first because they thought at first defendant was somebody else, but the officer quickly concluded the correct facts. Then there was reasonable suspicion. United States v. Hernandez-Hernandez, 2018 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
NBC News: American-born citizen sues sheriff after he was nearly deported to Jamaica
NBC News: American-born citizen sues sheriff after he was nearly deported to Jamaica by Daniella Silva: Peter Sean Brown, who was born in Philadelphia, was detained by Florida authorities and flagged for deportation after a request from ICE, according to … Continue reading
WaPo: Lawsuit targets Greyhound over warrantless stopping of buses by border agents
WaPo: Lawsuit targets Greyhound over warrantless stopping of buses by border agents by Spencer S. Hsu Lawyers for a California woman asked a state judge Thursday to order Greyhound Lines to stop allowing federal immigration agents to board its buses … Continue reading
WaPo: Motel 6 agrees to pay up to $7.6 million to settle claim it helped ICE target Latino guests
WaPo: Motel 6 agrees to pay up to $7.6 million to settle claim it helped ICE target Latino guests by Lindsey Bever: After a nationwide class-action lawsuit against Motel 6, the chain agreed to pay as much as $7.6 million … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: With PC to arrest because of prior immigration removal, distance from border doesn’t matter
Even though they were more than 100 miles from an international border, ICE officers had probable cause (which was conceded) to believe that defendant was in the U.S. despite having been previously removed. Therefore, the stop was valid. United States … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Immigration stop 56 miles from border was without RS
Defendant’s immigration stop 56 miles from the border was without reasonable suspicion under Brignoni-Ponce. He was alone and stopped and checked his phone and pulled into a car wash. Defendant’s actions were more consistent with innocence than criminal conduct. United … Continue reading
CA11: Apparent consent for 5:30 am entry defeats “egregious” 4A violation for exclusion in immigration removal
Petitioner’s declaration did not make a prima facie case of an egregious violation of the Fourth Amendment to preclude evidence in his removal proceeding. The entry was at 5:30 am, but there was also evidence of consent to the entry. … Continue reading
CA11: Plea to indictment without plea agreement isn’t conditional plea
Defendant’s plea to the indictment without a plea agreement didn’t preserve any appeal issues. Thus, there was no conditional plea. United States v. Thomas, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 22594 (11th Cir. Aug. 15, 2018). The Immigration Judge found that the … Continue reading
CA2: In removal proceedings, pet’rs made a prima facie case of egregious 4A violation; remanded
“In removal proceedings before the IJ, both petitioners moved to suppress the evidence obtained during the search, arguing that the search violated the Fourth Amendment because it was conducted without a warrant, consent, or exigent circumstances, and, even assuming the … Continue reading
The order in the Philadelphia sanctuary city case
The Philadelphia sanctuary city case: City of Philadelphia v. Sessions, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94709 (E.D. Pa. June 6, 2018).
KOAT-Albuquerque: Border patrol agent stops two people after they spoke Spanish in Montana
KOAT-Albuquerque: Border patrol agent stops two people after they spoke Spanish in Montana by David Taube:
Vice: ICE Agents Should Know the Law, but They’re Fine with Warrantless Raids
Vice: ICE Agents Should Know the Law, but They’re Fine with Warrantless Raids by Eoin Higgins: A leaked training manual says officers should be familiar with Fourth Amendment procedures. So what explains their aggressive actions on a New York farm?
WNYC: The U.S. Citizens ICE Wants to Deport
WNYC: The U.S. Citizens ICE Wants to Deport, hosted by Hari Kondabolu
CA5: TX sanctuary cities law is not enjoined pending trial; law not shown unconstitutional in all its applications
Texas’s sanctuary cities law (SB4) is not enjoined pending trial. Plaintiffs do not show that the law is unconstitutional in all its applications. City of El Cenizo, Texas v. State of Texas, 17-50762 (5th Cir. Mar. 13, 2018):
HuffPo: Trump’s Anti-Immigration Machine Is Chipping Away At The Fourth Amendment
HuffPo: Trump’s Anti-Immigration Machine Is Chipping Away At The Fourth Amendment by Cesar Vargas: Now as president with the power to direct actions by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees our nation’s border and immigration policies, he is exploiting … Continue reading
The Intercept: Confidential ICE Handbook Lays Out Paths for Investigators to Avoid Constitutional Challenges
The Intercept: Confidential ICE Handbook Lays Out Paths for Investigators to Avoid Constitutional Challenges by Eoin Higgins:
The Intercept: Confidential ICE Handbook Lays Out Paths for Investigators to Avoid Constitutional Challenges
The Intercept: Confidential ICE Handbook Lays Out Paths for Investigators to Avoid Constitutional Challenges by Eoin Higgins: