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Recent Posts
- E.D.Tenn.: Application for SW was considered in detention ruling
- TN: RS didn’t develop to continue stop; second stop based on first suppressed
- CA4: Traffic stop immediately became firearms investigation; suppressed
- CA10: Disagreement over spelling of street name didn’t make warrant fail particularity; GFE at least would apply
- VA: Statutory requirement to provide SW papers only applies to “places of abode”
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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)
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Section 1983 Blog -
"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: Issue preclusion
CA10: No REP against officer running an LPN
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a license plate number. Officers can run any LPN number. They can also walk up to his car in his driveway and look at it. Becerra v. City of Albuquerque, 2023 U.S. … Continue reading
D.Alaska: Admin. inspections of intrastate goldmines are legal under Mine Safety and Health Act
The Mine Safety and Health Administration sought an inspection of the respondent goldmine based on safety complaints it had received. The Fourth Amendment does not require an administrative warrant for an inspection. “Regulatory inspections pursuant to the Mine Act are … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: 4A does not require gun seen in protective sweep be immediately seized; SW was obtained
If officers saw defendant’s .22 during a protective sweep, the Fourth Amendment doesn’t require that it be seized immediately. It can be seized during execution of the later issued search warrant. A .22 is not a weapon of choice for … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Arrested target of cell phone SW has common law right of access to affidavit and SW
The target’s motion to unseal the search warrant affidavit for his cell phone is granted. There is a common law right of access, and the First Amendment right of access does not even have to be decided. The government’s only … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: State law jurisdiction of the officers involved isn’t cognizable in a 2254
State law jurisdiction of the officers involved isn’t cognizable in a 2254. McDowell v. Hainesworth, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 187496 (M.D. Pa. Oct. 18, 2023). Petitioner doesn’t get a CoA to appeal his 2255. He provides no basis for concluding … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Text and Facebook messages about crime justified warrant for them
In a health care fraud case, the government knew that messages about the crime were exchanged by text and Facebook, and that was sufficient to get a search warrant for them. In any event, the good faith exception applied. United … Continue reading
CA11: Pretext for a criminal search can be an issue in administrative searches
Pretext for a criminal search can be an issue in administrative searches. “Accordingly, the district court erred in failing to recognize the existence of a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the February 2015 administrative search was focused … Continue reading
CA7: Restating 4A claim doesn’t satisfy successor habeas standard
A restated Fourth Amendment claim doesn’t satisfy the standard for a successor 2254 petition. Hardy v. Neal, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 25343 (7th Cir. Sep. 25, 2023). Plaintiff fails in his claim the county routinely violates the Fourth Amendment in … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Defense counsel was ineffective for not raising valid suppression issue that would have reduced Guideline range below life
Defense counsel at trial was ineffective for not raising a suppression issue that would likely have prevailed and taken defendant from a life sentence down to a 20 year MM. United States v. Dasinger, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 168974 (M.D. … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Drug dog breaking plane of the car window is a trespass and entry without PC
The drug dog broke the plane of the window, and that’s a trespass. There was no probable cause at that point, and the R&R is rejected. The motion to suppress is granted. United States v. Buescher, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
MN: CI’s successful track record supports reliability
The court reiterates that a CI’s successful track record supports his reliability. State v. Mosley, 2023 Minn. LEXIS 451 (Sep. 6, 2023). The exclusionary rule does not apply to supervised release violations. Defendant’s panicking to a felony arrest was “not … Continue reading
ME: State constitutional arguments must be developed; citing it not enough
(1) The tracking device placed on defendant’s vehicle by court order was with probable cause. (2) “For a claim under the Maine Constitution to be deemed preserved for our review, however, the party advancing the claim cannot merely allude to … Continue reading
CA6: Officer parking next to def’s car was not a seizure
Police parking next to a defendant’s car is not a seizure. United States v. Gartrell, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 22719 (6th Cir. Aug. 28, 2023). Covid limitations on visitation at a small hospital wasn’t a Fourth Amendment violation, among other … Continue reading
CA5: Arrest of ptf for social media joke about police violated 1A and 4A
Defendant officer’s arrest of plaintiff for terrorizing under state law for a social media post joke about the police violated clearly established law and violated the First Amendment, too. Bailey v. Iles, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 22503 (5th Cir. Aug. … Continue reading
OH4: Franks challenge seven years after motion to suppress denied by res judicata
There was a motion to suppress denied at trial. “Now, seven years later appellant seeks to file a motion to suppress and a motion for a Franks hearing. We believe, however, that the trial court correctly concluded that res judicata … Continue reading
W.D.Okla.: Broad challenges to how ptf was investigated all barred by Heck
“Many of Plaintiff’s alleged violations attack the procedures used to investigate and charge him, the evidence used to convict him, as well as the constitutionality of the first-degree murder statute under which he was convicted. Success on some of these … Continue reading
“There is no ‘inadvertent negligence’ exception to [Stone v.] Powell.
“More to the point, however, is the irrelevance of any officer negligence in this habeas corpus case. Stone v. Powell bars habeas corpus consideration of Fourth Amendment claims as a basis for habeas relief. There is no ‘inadvertent negligence’ exception … Continue reading
MI: Omission def was a CI was not material where SW was based on possession and sale of drugs
“Agent Merle’s failure to reveal that Brown was a CI for DTF was not a material omission. As discussed previously, the warrant affidavit was based on Brown’s possession and sale of illegal drugs, which did not fall within the scope … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Federal suit to force state court to apply exclusionary rule barred by Younger and Rooker/Feldman
Plaintiff’s suit in federal court to cause state court to apply the exclusionary rule in state court is barred by Younger and Rooker/Feldman. Chappel v. Adams Cnty. Child.’s Servs., 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 112877 (S.D. Ohio May 19, 2023). Defendant’s … Continue reading