Archives
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Recent Posts
- MD: Hot pursuit can be days later, here exigent CSLI to find him
- D.D.C.: Alleged illegal arrest doesn’t void DNA SW
- S.D.Fla.: Inventory that omitted “miscellaneous personal items” was not unreasonable
- CA4: That ptf charged with witness intimidation didn’t do it again wasn’t material for Franks
- CO: Not 4A or state constitutional violation for govt to access def’s computer via peer-to-peer sharing with BitTorrent software
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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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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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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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)
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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: Warrant execution
Cal.2: SWs must be executed reasonably, and facts determine who has the burden of proof
A search warrant must be executed reasonably, and it depends on which side has knowledge of what for the burden of proof. Here, the issue involves a blood draw at a hospital, and defendant has access to that information, and … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Two month delay in getting SW for def’s storage unit wasn’t with bad faith and didn’t prejudice him
There was a two month delay between the seizure of defendant’s storage unit and the search warrant for it. There was no bad faith here. At worse, getting a search warrant fell through the cracks. The officers had probable cause … Continue reading
WI: GPS warrant is not subject to execution in 5 days requirement because it is for information not something physical
Because placement of a GPS device gathers information and not something physical or digital or a document, it is not subject to the execution in five days requirement of state law. State v. Pinder, 2018 WI 106, 2018 Wisc. LEXIS … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Co-def’s winning suppression motion shows IAC for this defendant
Defendant satisfied his burden of proof that defense counsel was ineffective because his codefendant prevailed on his motion to suppress. If he’d timely moved to set aside the plea it would have almost certainly been granted. Perez v. United States, … Continue reading
VA: Statute on filing warrant papers in court is procedural and suppression not the remedy
The statute requiring search warrant papers be filed with the circuit clerk is merely procedural, and it confers no substantive rights for its violation. Heroin in the car was visible from outside and thus in plain view, and that was … Continue reading
NH: Def who borrowed car not prejudiced by five day delay in getting SW for it
Because defendant didn’t own the car he borrowed, he wasn’t prejudiced by the five day delay in getting a search warrant for it. State v. Stacey, 2018 N.H. LEXIS 208 (Nov. 2, 2018). State law requires automobile exception apply to … Continue reading
CT: Records of a search and seizure are public records under state FOIA
Search and seizure records are public records under the state FOIA. The records of what are seized from the subject of the search are still the public’s business. Comm’r of Emergency Servs. & Pub. Prot. v. Freedom of Info. Comm’n, … Continue reading
CA6: Seizure of cell phone under SW had to be within time prescribed but the actual off-site search can be later
The seizure of the cell phone was within the time prescribed in the search warrant, but the actual search of the phone didn’t occur until after the time prescribed. This did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Off-site analysis was expected … Continue reading
WaPo: Opinion: Little Rock’s dangerous and illegal drug war
WaPo: Opinion: Little Rock’s dangerous and illegal drug war by Radley Balko (with security video of the raid) (and this is a product of Hudson v. Michigan, which we can thank SCOTUS for):
WaPo: Pr. George’s police thought they were bursting into home of a drug dealer. They were at an innocent man’s door instead.
WaPo: Pr. George’s police thought they were bursting into home of a drug dealer. They were at an innocent man’s door instead. by Lynh Bui and Clarence Williams:
D.S.D.: Reasonable to stop car driving off rural property as police arrive to execute a SW
Officers arrived with a search warrant for a house on rural property, and a vehicle was leaving. It was reasonable to stop the vehicle to determine whether it or an occupant belonged at the house and was covered by the … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: People found in the backyard when SW executed subject to frisk
It was reasonable to patdown men found in the backyard of a house searched under a warrant. Ybarra distinguished. There was virtually reasonable suspicion as to anybody associated with the property. United States v. Cargill, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 152038 … Continue reading
W.D.Mich.: Def standing next door wasn’t on his property when the SW was executed at his house and could not be detained
A search warrant was issued for defendant’s house for two buys from it: one an hour earlier, and another a week earlier. The warrant authorized detention and search of persons found there. When 19 officers showed up to serve the … Continue reading
KY: SW not invalid because the color of door was wrong; finding gun during search for drugs not unreasonable
“Appellant specifically argues that the warrant was defective because it incorrectly described the front door to his residence as black when, in fact, the door was brown. Appellant’s first name was also misspelled in the warrant. However, neither of these … Continue reading
CA7: Searching wrong apt on ambiguous SW (apt 1 where there were 1A & 1B) gets qualified immunity here
When the officer arrived at plaintiff’s address with a search warrant for apartment 1, he instead found apartments 1A and 1B. The officers attempted to clear up the ambiguity before the search, and they searched 1A finding nothing, and the … Continue reading
CA5: Microsoft’s checking photos uploaded to cloud for CP is a private search
Defendant uploaded child pornography to Microsoft’s Skydrive. Microsoft runs all pictures’ hash values against known child pornography. Finding some, it reported it to law enforcement. This was purely a private search. United States v. Reddick, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 23012 … Continue reading
CA6: SW’s flexibility as to when it could be executed didn’t make it an anticipatory warrant with a triggering condition
The search warrant reasonably provided flexibility as to when it would be executed, but it was not an anticipatory warrant at all. United States v. Huntley, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 20956 (6th Cir. July 30, 2018):
TN: Failure to leave copy of SW mere technical error
Defendant had her blood drawn by search warrant, and the officer failed to leave a copy of the warrant with her. The trial court granted her motion to suppress, and the court of criminal appeals affirmed. Reversed: The mere nonprejudicial … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Cell phone seized during child porn raid was initially seized and searched, and then seven months later searched again; no exclusion
The defendant’s cell phone was seized during a child pornography raid. The phone was attempted to be searched reasonably promptly, and it was confirmed there was child pornography on it. The search was not completed, however, because of problems with … Continue reading
CA9: Def’s 22 minute detention was reasonable because he wouldn’t properly ID himself
Defendant’s 22-minute detention was reasonable because he was lying about who he was, and officers had a right to know. United States v. Thompson, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 18603 (9th Cir. July 9, 2018). Defendant’s vehicle was outside a house … Continue reading