Archives
-
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
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
-
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
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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: Warrant execution
N.D.Cal.: Cell-site simulator requires SW; state law doesn’t permit federal officers to execute state SW
(1) The government’s disclaiming a critical fact in the affidavit for search warrant undermines the probable cause vitiating the warrant. (2) “Use of a cell-site simulator requires a warrant. See United States v. Ellis, 270 F. Supp. 3d 1134, 1141-46 … Continue reading
N.D.Fla.: Email SW didn’t required search protocol be stated in SW
“The officers followed a reasonable protocol in conducting the search. The protocol was not in the warrant, but this did not render the warrant defective. See United States v. Khanani, 502 F.3d 1281, 1290 (11th Cir. 2007). And in any … Continue reading
DE: A visitor’s car parked outside a house being raided wasn’t enough to search it; here, however, the keys were found next to heroin inside, and that was enough
Defendant’s vehicle was parked outside of a house where a search was going down. Merely being outside isn’t cause to search the car. Finding the keys next to heroin inside was because that provided nexus to the drugs in the … Continue reading
D.Utah: Def told his friend that police failed to seize something they were looking for in the search of his house, and that justified an obstruction enhancement under USSG 3C1.1
“The Presentence Reported noted that, after his arrest, Petitioner called an individual who was living at his home. Petitioner instructed this person to get rid of additional evidence that police had not found during the execution of the search warrant. … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Cell phone search protocol can’t be described in SW in advance
It is difficult for law enforcement officers to describe in the search warrant a protocol for searching electronic data from a cell phone, whether it be a mechanical search or an electronic search. In fact, Cellebrite didn’t work on one … Continue reading
CA9: Unreasonable detention of those present when SW executed not shown
“The district court also did not err in granting summary judgment in favor of the individual defendants on Strong and Byers’ claims that the detention violated their Fourth Amendment rights. Officers may detain all persons present when a warrant is … Continue reading
Sputnik News: US Sheriff Wildly Exaggerates Drug Bust for Social Media Fame (VIDEO) [raid turns up nothing]
Sputnik News: US Sheriff Wildly Exaggerates Drug Bust for Social Media Fame (VIDEO) Drug raid at a “narcotics” house with MRAP vehicle and SWAT team turns up nothing; gets viewed 3.4m times. Police raids consistently show up on social media … Continue reading
NY4: Oral motion to suppress denied; has to be written
An oral motion to suppress fails. It was required to be in writing for the record. People v. Hinojoso-Soto, 2018 NY Slip Op 03264, 2018 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3195 (4th Dept. May 4, 2018). Driving a car at a … Continue reading
CA5: Search of wrong house by inadequate investigation means no QI
It was clearly established that search of the wrong house because of inadequate investigation violated the Fourth Amendment. Gerhart v. Barnes, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 10626 (5th Cir. Apr. 26, 2018), prior opinion Gerhart v. McLendon, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: SW can issue after def charged with crime and for the same crime
The fact defendant has already been charged with a crime does not prevent a search warrant issuing for DNA to link him further to it. Humbert v. United States, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68779 (S.D. Fla. Apr. 24, 2018). Sale … Continue reading
N.D.Tex.: Neither 4A or Rule 41 requires SW be served on def before its execution
“Neither the Fourth Amendment nor Rule 41 requires the executing officer to serve a search warrant on the owner before beginning the search. United States v. Grubbs, 547 U.S. 90, 98-99 (2006). Counsel was not ineffective for failing to file … Continue reading
Lawfare: Prosecuting Attorneys Alongside Clients: Some Recent Examples
Lawfare: Prosecuting Attorneys Alongside Clients: Some Recent Examples By Harry Larson & Sabrina McCubbin
CA7: No 4A right to see SW before search; therefore, accidentally showing wrong warrant doesn’t violate 4A either
The Fourth Amendment does not require the search warrant be presented to the person whose premises were to be searched before it occurred. Thus, accidently presenting the wrong search warrant at the time of the search doesn’t constitutionally matter. Also, … Continue reading
CA10: GFE applied to cell phone SW in KS where phone was actually searched in MO
Search incident did not justify seizure of defendant’s cell phone when he was arrested because he’d been separated from the cell phone. The government’s claim that officers seizing the cell phone were proceeding under “direction of” defendant’s PO is rejected … Continue reading
AK: SW clause to “search any persons” here didn’t enable search of every person who came to the premises during the search
Defendant came to a Fairbanks house when a search warrant was being executed, and he was searched, too, under the auspices of the “search any persons” present reference in the warrant. Defendant’s search was unreasonable under the circumstances. Innocent persons … Continue reading
CA6: No knock entry at 4 am stated claim for unreasonable execution of SW
Plaintiffs adequately allege a claim for unreasonable execution of a search warrant. The officers executed a search warrant at 4 am without knocking or announcing, and shot the lock off the door. Greer v. City of Highland Park, 2018 U.S. … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio declines to wait for Microsoft to be decided and issues SW for gmail in another country
The government has applied for a Google search warrant stored overseas. Rather than wait for United States v. Microsoft to be decided, the court reviewed all the briefing in that case and decides that the search warrant will issue. In … Continue reading
OH8: Affidavit for SW showed PC for weapons only; search for drugs exceeded SW’s limits
The affidavit only showed probable cause to search for weapons, not drugs, and there was no probable cause for drugs in the affidavit. As to drugs, the search warrant is suppressed. Defendant also raised the argument that the officer sought … Continue reading
CA5: “The mistaken execution of a valid search warrant on the wrong premises does not automatically violate the Fourth Amendment”; officer gets qualified immunity
“The mistaken execution of a valid search warrant on the wrong premises does not automatically violate the Fourth Amendment.” The officers get qualified immunity for getting out when they discovered it. Thomas v. Williams, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 2478 (5th … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: A claim that government agents disclosed the contents of the search of his house to FoxNews didn’t state a claim under The Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a
A claim that government agents disclosed the contents of the search of his house to FoxNews didn’t state a claim under The Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a. “Rule 41 does not authorize a court to manage the collection, storage, … Continue reading