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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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General (many free):
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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (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)
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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
Law.com: NJ Supreme Court Affirms Prosecutors’ Right to Subpoena Inmate Phone Recordings
Law.com: NJ Supreme Court Affirms Prosecutors’ Right to Subpoena Inmate Phone Recordings by R. Robin McDonald (“The New Jersey Supreme Court on Wednesday affirmed that prosecutors can subpoena recordings of telephone conversations made by defendants held in county detention facilities. … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: No REP in nonlegal mail sent from jail where witness tampering was suspected
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in nonlegal mail sent from jail where he was suspected of tampering with witnesses (collecting cases). The policy was already well established (if that matters). United States v. Chivers, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
NM: “Is there anything on your person that I should know about?” is subject to Quarles public safety exception
A question about anything on defendant’s person was subject to Quarles public safety exception. “While Defendant was in custody, but before he was advised of his Miranda rights, an officer asked him, ‘Is there anything on your person that I … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: Nexus here was so “thin” that the court won’t even apply GFE
The government didn’t even show a connection between the defendant and the alleged crime to get access to his subscriber information. “While courts may find the good-faith exception to apply when an application is ‘thin,’ a showing of some connection … Continue reading
ABAJ: Inmate wins [pretrial] release after jail recorded hundreds of attorney-client calls
ABAJ: Inmate wins release after jail recorded hundreds of attorney-client calls by Stephanie Francis Ward:
Daily Press: After Virginia prisons strip searched an 8-year-old, state lawmakers passed 4 bills to limit the practice
Daily Press: After Virginia prisons strip searched an 8-year-old, state lawmakers passed 4 bills to limit the practice by Gary A. Harki (“Four bills addressing the strip searching of visitors at jails and prisons in Virginia passed the General Assembly … Continue reading
TX11: Automobile exception doesn’t permit a vehicle search after the object of the search has been recovered
The automobile exception did not apply where defendant was stopped for an alleged theft and the property was recovered before the search occurred, thereby obviating it. State v. Whitman, 2020 Tex. App. LEXIS 1481 (Tex. App. – Eastland Feb. 21, … Continue reading
CA9: Sexual groping during a prison search states 4A excessive force claim
It was clearly established that groping a (transgender) woman during prison searches was unreasonable as excessive force. Goff v. Ramirez, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 4876 (9th Cir. Feb. 13, 2020). (The plaintiff being transgender had nothing to do with the … Continue reading
CA11: No justification is needed for a jail booking strip search
No justification is needed for a jail booking strip search. [The court alludes to what might possibly be some factual justification but doesn’t say that it was.] Watkins v. Pinnock, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 1881 (11th Cir. Jan. 22, 2020). … Continue reading
CA4: RS is the standard for a prison visitor strip search
Reasonable suspicion is the standard for a prison visitor strip search, and officers had reasonable suspicion here. Calloway v. Lokey, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 1756 (4th Cir. Jan. 21, 2020):
Law360: Lawmakers Push To Extend Atty-Client Shield To Prison Emails
Law360: Lawmakers Push To Extend Atty-Client Shield To Prison Emails by RJ Vogt:
D.Minn.: Actual knowledge of jail calls being recorded isn’t required because of inmate handbook, signs on wall, and the sounds on the phone call
Testimony of actual knowledge that non-attorney jail calls would be recorded isn’t required. The inmate handbook, signs by the jail phone, and a notice in the call itself tell inmates that. United States v. Strother, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6185 … Continue reading
CT: No REP in jail letter to def’s mother with admission
Defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights weren’t violated by corrections officers copying a letter to his mother with an admission then turning it over to law enforcement officers. He had no privacy interest in his mail that society would recognize. The claim … Continue reading
Law360: Lawmakers Push To Extend Atty-Client Shield To Prison Emails
Law360: Lawmakers Push To Extend Atty-Client Shield To Prison Emails by RJ Vogt:
S.D.Ohio: Lack of factual basis for stop deprives state of Heien mistake of law argument
The video from the patrol car doesn’t support the officer’s claim that defendant didn’t properly stop at a stop sign that that was the basis for the stop. The court doesn’t find Heien applies because this isn’t a mistake of … Continue reading
D.C.Cir.: Dewey and Mine Safety Act provide for no precompliance warning or review before inspection
The petitioner here was a contractor working at a mine, and a mine safety inspector looked at equipment and cited the contractor a $116 fine. The ALJ denied relief, and, on a petition for review of the fine, the court … Continue reading
NYTimes: Strip-Searching of 8-Year-Old at Prison Leads Virginia to Halt the Practice
NYTimes: Strip-Searching of 8-Year-Old at Prison Leads Virginia to Halt the Practice (“Gov. Ralph Northam suspended the policy after a girl was strip-searched while trying to visit her father.”) And I lost a case similar to this about 18 years … Continue reading
CA6: Alleged violation of discovery order by unauthorized possession of Jencks material justifies search of jail cell, not that there’s a REP in it anyway
Alleged violation of a protective order on discovery authorized a search of defendant’s jail cell and a search warrant for his mother’s home after he mailed it to her to copy and disseminate. The protective order itself justified the search … Continue reading
Courthouse News Service: False Drug Test Results Blamed for Jailhouse Punishments
Courthouse News Service: False Drug Test Results Blamed for Jailhouse Punishments by Amanda Ottaway (“According to the complaint, DOCCS is currently in the process of overturning all positive results generated by the faulty tests, which it says are the result … Continue reading