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- W.D.Pa.: Def can’t repackage a losing 4A standing claim into a due process claim
- GA: No case says SW required to ask for cell phone password
- VA: Body cam video of valid arrest would not be suppressed
- NM: Trial court’s finding of consent is reversed because the court engaged in its own internet investigation beyond what the parties provided
- Reason: No Warrant, No Suspicion, No Problem: Flock and Border Cellphone Searches Excluded From 4th Amendment Rules
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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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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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"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: Reasonable expectation of privacy
NY Kings Co.: Police led def to believe call from interrogation room was private
Defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his telephone call from a precinct interrogation room from being recorded. While there is a diminished expectation of privacy in an interrogation room, there was no warning what happened in the room … Continue reading
CA11: Ptf had no REP in workplace computer, even with personal iPhone backed up on it
Plaintiff had no reasonable expectation of privacy in her workplace computer from a search by the employer during an audit of her time off related to a second job instigated after a discrimination complaint. The fact she backed her iPhone … Continue reading
MS: No REP in contraband cell phone in prison
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a contraband cell phone in prison. United States v. Jackson, 866 F.3d 982 (8th Cir. 2017). Walker v. State, 2021 Miss. App. LEXIS 502 (Dec. 7, 2021). Accord: United States v. Basaldua, … Continue reading
CO: In a MJ recreational use state, a dog alert on a car doesn’t discriminate between legal and illegal drugs and violates privacy
Possession of small quantities of marijuana is legal in Colorado. Where the drug dog doesn’t discriminate between marijuana and other drugs, a dog alert can be an unreasonable search for a legal substance. Therefore, the district court did not err … Continue reading
TX3: REP in car parked on curtilage; plain view suppressed
The trial court’s suppression order is affirmed. Defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his curtilage and his car parked there. The plain view inside his car and then the search was unreasonable. State v. Serna, 2021 Tex. App. … Continue reading
NC: Undated Facebook screenshots as a part of PC showed enduring utility in what was sought, so not stale
Defendant’s argument is that Facebook screenshots showing probable cause in the affidavit for the search warrant don’t specify dates of the electronic data that’s being sought from his place. What was being sought is of enduring utility by its nature, … Continue reading
ACLU No. Cal.: Spies in the California Skies: New Records Expose State Police Aerial Surveillance of Racial Justice Protesters
ACLU No. Cal.: Spies in the California Skies: New Records Expose State Police Aerial Surveillance of Racial Justice Protesters (Nov 16, 2021) (“If you were one of the thousands of people in California protesting the murder of George Floyd, Breonna … Continue reading
PA: No REP in data moving back and forth over a (nearly) public wifi connection where user agreement told users that
Defendant connected to the wifi at his college, and he was aware of the computing access policy that said that he had no Fourth Amendment reasonable expectation of privacy in the information that moved back and forth over his connection. … Continue reading
IN: Knock-and-talk not barred by Jardines
DNA from a cold case murder was sent to a DNA genealogy company who tentatively matched defendant to the crime. Police did a trash pull and got more of a DNA match. Then they got a search warrant for his … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Paying $10 for a ride doesn’t increase the passenger’s REP in a vehicle
A passenger who paid a friend $10 to ride in the car has no increased reasonable expectation of privacy for standing. “Defendant’s arguments miss the mark. The key, guiding principle to a finding of standing in both Byrd and Jones … Continue reading
IA: No REP in attorney call from interrogation room
Defendant’s in-custody call to his attorney was overheard by the recording system in the room. There was no reasonable expectation of privacy where it was made. Luthi v. Neis, 2021 Iowa App. LEXIS 930 (Nov. 3, 2021). The trial court … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Handing over DL on request for police look wasn’t a seizure
Defendant was asked by the police for his ID. He gave it over and they noted it and gave it back. This was not a seizure. United States v. Stephenson, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 206467 (E.D.N.Y. Oct. 26, 2021).* Defendant’s … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: No REP in automatic license plate reader records in state database
The FBI querying the state automatic license plate reader database to connect a car to two bank robberies was not an unreasonable search. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the information. United States v. Brown, 2021 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
Army: Loaning one’s phone to another without express limitations is a waiver of REP
The military judge abused his discretion in concluding that defendant did not essentially waive all his reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell phone by loaning it to another person, including the passcode to open it. “Understandings” aren’t enough; express … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: When def claims material information is omitted from an affidavit for SW it becomes a Franks claim even if def doesn’t want it to be
Defendant’s claim that material evidence was omitted from the affidavit for this search warrant is, at bottom, a Franks claim that requires an offer of proof and a substantial preliminary showing it would change the probable cause determination. He failed … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Doctor had no REP in hospital’s patient records
A doctor working at a hospital had no reasonable expectation of privacy in patient records in the hospital’s computer system. United States v. Evers, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 200425 (M.D.Pa. Oct. 18, 2021). While a probationer is subject to broad … Continue reading
FL1: Drug dog sniff of motel door from common hallway reasonable
Drug dog sniff outside motel room door from common hallway invaded no reasonable expectation of privacy. Jardines inapplicable. Robinson v. State, 2021 Fla. App. LEXIS 13874 (Fla. 1st DCA Oct. 13, 2021). Defendant’s actions of pacing and reaching into his … Continue reading
W.D.Ark.: Scar on defendant’s thumb could be photographed on booking
During fingerprinting on defendant’s arrest when he came in with defense counsel, DHS officers noticed a scar on his thumb, and they photographed it as a part of the identification process. This violated neither the Fourth or Sixth Amendment under … Continue reading
LA1: No REP in an abandoned house
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in an abandoned house he was using, and the trial court erred in finding one. State v. Jackson, 2021 La. App. LEXIS 1354 (La. App. 1 Cir. Oct. 1, 2021). Articulable facts supported … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Mere allegation the private search was expanded fails; def has to show something
Defendant alleges that NCMEC or the police expanded a private search. “However, Defendant concedes that he has no knowledge or evidence that either NCMEC or the police expanded the scope of the Facebook search. … Therefore, Defendant cannot assert that … Continue reading