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- CA10: SW for gun three weeks after road rage incident wasn’t stale
- OH10: Parole search of cell phone can occur even when it’s taken from the property room at jail
- TX14: No REP in location information on bondsman’s GPS monitor
- W.D.N.Y.: No IAC for not challenging search without standing
- CAAF: Victim’s 4A rights were at issue, too
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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)
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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) -
“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: Prison and jail searches
CA5: Def’s contesting authenticity of jail calls let the govt establish they came from jail
Not a search claim: Admission of jail telephone calls didn’t undermine the presumption of innocence. Defendant wouldn’t stipulate to authenticity so the government had to establish the source of the calls. United States v. Arayatanon, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 35922 … Continue reading
IN: Officers had sufficient suspicion of contraband on the person for a booking strip search
Officers had the requisite degree of suspicion for a strip search at the jail for a misdemeanor. He had suspicions there was something amiss with defendant’s unusual small talk, but, coupled with the facts, added up. Reagan v. State, 2020 … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Seizure of work product from def’s jail cell for witness tampering was reasonable and run through a taint team
The search of defendant’s jail cell for evidence of witness tampering in his “work product” was reasonable, and the government used a taint team to segregate it. “The government’s conduct in this case was neither ill-conceived nor outrageous. It must … Continue reading
CA9: Prison visitor should be allowed to avoid a strip search based on RS by being permitted to leave
A prison visitor has the right to leave a prison to avoid a strip search based on reasonable suspicion as a condition of entry. Qualified immunity, however, is granted because the right was not well established before this case. Cates … Continue reading
MA: SW affidavit showed inference def’s house was base of operation for drug operation, and that’s nexus
The affidavit for search warrant here raised more than an inference that defendant’s home was used as a base of operations for his drug dealing enterprise, and that was nexus. Commonwealth v. Andre-Fields, 2020 Mass. App. LEXIS 145 (Sept. 23, … Continue reading
MT: Jail entry strip searches without RS of even traffic warrant arrestees were reasonable
Strip searches of inmates coming into the county jail without reasonable suspicion the detainee had contraband or weapons were valid under Florence and under the state constitution. “Plaintiffs have not demonstrated the strip searches at issue are not reasonably related … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Civilly committed sexually violent predator was effectively in prison for his 4A claim against room search
“Spaulding is civilly committed to the Florida Civil Commitment Center (‘FCCC’) under the Sexual Violent Predators Act” and his Xbox and blu-ray player were seized because having them wasn’t appropriate for his custody level. His due process and Fourth Amendment … Continue reading
CA5: Search for ptf’s ID was reasonable when she refused to ID self and was charged with obstruction
The search of plaintiff’s wallet for her ID was reasonable when she refused to identify herself when stalled on an interstate highway. A search of the car for her wallet and then the search of the wallet was thus reasonable … Continue reading
CA7: Prison inmates have 4A reasonableness protection against abusive strip and body cavity searches
Prison inmates retain a Fourth Amendment reasonableness right against abusive strip and body cavity searches enough to state a claim here. Qualified immunity is reserved for later. Henry v. Hulett, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 25390 (7th Cir. Aug. 11, 2020) … Continue reading
HPPR: Class Action Suit Over Recorded Calls At Leavenworth Prison Settles For $3.7 Million
HPPR: Class Action Suit Over Recorded Calls At Leavenworth Prison Settles For $3.7 Million by Dan Margolies:
W.D.Mo.: No const’l distinction between jailer monitoring jail calls and turning them over to prosecutors
There is no constitutional distinction between a jailer listening to calls and then forwarding them to prosecutors for use as potential evidence. United States v. Nesbitt, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 131220 (W.D. Mo. July 24, 2020). Officer’s statement that a … Continue reading
CA7: County jail’s body cavity searches of ptf were fact based on RS and reasonable
Plaintiff was subjected to two body cavity searches of her rectum and vagina for drugs she was reasonably believed to have smuggled into the jail through booking. It was invasive, but it was reasonable on balance with the jail’s security … Continue reading
CA9: UA in prison is reasonable
“It is undisputed that urinalysis testing is a search under the Fourth Amendment and that drug testing in the prison context is generally constitutional unless it is conducted in an unreasonable manner. See Thompson v. Souza, 111 F.3d 694, 701 … Continue reading
CA4: Opening jail legal mail away from inmate violated 1A, but separate 4A claim for that not clearly established
Opening pretrial detainee’s legal mail 15 times outside his presence was a First Amendment violation, even though he’d been suspected of receiving contraband about the witnesses against him both in legal and nonlegal mail. The First Amendment violation is injury … Continue reading
TX13: Affidavit for SW shouldn’t have been admitted at trial, but it was harmless error as cumulative
The state conceded error that the affidavit for defendant’s blood search warrant should not have been admitted into evidence at trial. (Defendant objected to a paragraph of hearsay.) It was, however, harmless error and merely cumulative to what the officer … Continue reading
ME: No REP in paperwork kept in prison
Plaintiff had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his prison paperwork under Hudson v. Palmer or state law. If legal mail were involved, plaintiff would have to show actual injury [n.5]. Anctil v. Cassese, 2020 ME 59, 2020 Me. LEXIS … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Desire to file a Franks motion doesn’t expand discovery rights
“Generally, the fact that a defendant wishes to seek a Franks hearing ‘does not entitle him or her to additional discovery before the Franks hearing.’” The government stated it has provided discovery required by Rule 16. Defendant’s request for further … Continue reading
MO: Search incident of a McDonald’s sack in a car for shoplifting a sweatshirt was unreasonable
Defendant was stopped in a shopping center parking lot for suspicion of shoplifting a sweatshirt. He consented to a frisk of his person and car, and nothing was found. Another officer arrived, and he was de facto arrested. A search … Continue reading
W.D.N.C.: Prisoner’s § 1983 strip search case dismissed
Pro se prison inmate plaintiff fails to state claims for § 1983 relief including alleged arbitrary strip searches. With his disciplinary record, they aren’t arbitrary. He’s in a prison, after all. Wright v. United States, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 59884 … Continue reading