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- Reason: Homeland Security Is Monitoring Activists Building Anti-Flock Tech
- 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
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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 $ -
Research Links:
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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)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
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
Privacy Foundation
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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)
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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
M.D.Tenn.: Single trash pull at a duplex with one trash container was still PC and nexus
A single trash pull that produced some evidence of limited possession at a duplex with one trash container was still probable cause with nexus to defendant. United States v. Hogan, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30039 (M.D. Tenn. Feb. 21, 2020). … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: No 4A REP in VA medical records
There is no Fourth Amendment reasonable expectation of privacy in VA medical records, vis-a-vis another government agency. United States v. Grant, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27270 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 18, 2020):
IA: Trash container on the alley not on his property; no REP
A trash seizure [remember those?] was of trash on an alley awaiting pick up. There was no entry on the curtilage or his reasonable expectation of privacy. State v. Wright, 2020 Iowa App. LEXIS 151 (Feb. 5, 2020). The officer’s … Continue reading
OR: Car owner had no REP from GPS installed by his company before he got the car from them
Plaintiff worked for Toyota Motor Credit and Toyota Financial Services. When he severed his employment with them, he was allowed to keep the vehicle he used for them. Unbeknownst to him, Toyota Financial Services had a GPS device on the … Continue reading
OH6: Checking DMV records involves no 4A intrustion
“[T]he law is clear that a police officer’s check of a person’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles records does not implicate Fourth Amendment rights, as it does not constitute an invasion as it involves no intrusion.” State v. Price, 2020-Ohio-220, 2020 … Continue reading
OH11: “Hand swabs” in SW for person fairly includes fingernail scrapings; no REP in clothing removed at ER by nurses
Defendant was brought to a hospital for alleged injuries. He was exceedingly drunk for a juvenile and covered in blood. He was cleaned up at the ER and no injuries found. The nurses there took his clothes. Police later seized … Continue reading
D.Mont.: With court ordered pinging of cell phone, govt violated no REP in following the pings
Once officers had a warrant authorizing capturing defendant’s cell phone pings back even in 2015, he had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements in public when they were following him based on the result of the pings. Therefore, … Continue reading
CA6: Def doesn’t show officer delayed stop for drug dog; whole encounter was 5-10 minutes
Defendant argued that the officer delayed the process of issuing a traffic citation by extraneous questioning just to get a dog sniff in within the period before the traffic citation could be completed. Still, the entire process reasonably took ten … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: FedEx’s taking a package off its conveyor belt for a dog sniff wasn’t a seizure that interfered with def’s possessory interest
“[T]he police did not ‘seize’ the package until after the dog alerted to the presence of drugs. It was not a seizure to remove the package from the FedEx conveyor belt, carry it 200 feet to the back of the … Continue reading
CA5: Even assuming 4A violation, ptf doesn’t show it was clearly established
“In short, we decline to opine on whether Campbell’s actions amount to a [Fourth Amendment] violation. Robles failed to meet his burden to show that such a violation was clearly established, particularly when dealing with an underlying violent crime. Accordingly, … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Removing drugs from a package with an already issued anticipatory warrant and not telling court wasn’t material to PC
There was no material falsity in the affidavit for the search warrant which mentioned 58 prior international shipments to defendant’s place. Specifically, the drugs were removed from the package for the anticipatory warrant and replaced with fake stuff after the … Continue reading
TX1: Def lost REP in his mislaid phone that somebody found and opened to try and discern the owner to return it
Defendant mislaid his cell phone, and he didn’t abandon it. Nevertheless, it was available for anyone to pick up and turn in to somebody to help find him. Moreover, it wasn’t passcode protected, and it was reasonable for someone to … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Use of a key fob to identify defendant’s vehicle is not a search; it’s commonly available technology under Kyllo
Use of a key fob to identify defendant’ vehicle is not a search invading a reasonable expectation of privacy. United States v. Burgess, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 206776 (E.D. Pa. Nov. 29, 2019):
PA: Refusing to submit to BAC blood draw under SW supports obstruction of justice conviction
Refusal to submit to a blood draw search warrant for BAC supports a conviction for obstruction of justice. Commonwealth v. Palchanes, 2019 Pa. Super. LEXIS 1186 (Nov. 27, 2019). The CI’s basis of knowledge and reliability was adequately shown, and … Continue reading
W.D.Wash.: No reasonable expectation of privacy in Bitcoin records
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in Bitcoin records. Zietzke v. United States, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 204274 (W.D. Wash. Nov. 25, 2019):
MI: 4A not violated by taking of fingerprints and photographs during a Terry stop
Plaintiffs’ Fourth Amendment rights were not violated by police officers taking their photographs and fingerprints based on reasonable suspicion during valid Terry stops, because plaintiffs had no reasonable expectation of privacy in physical characteristics that were constantly exposed to the … Continue reading
WA: Washington Privacy Act prohibiting unwarned recordings does not apply to law enforcement bodycams and dash cams
The Washington Privacy Act prohibiting unwarned recordings does not apply to law enforcement bodycams and dash cams. “Conversations with uniformed, on-duty law enforcement officers are typically not private conversations.” State v. Clayton, 2019 Wash. App. LEXIS 2930 (Nov. 19, 2019):
M.D.Ala.: One day’s GPS monitoring reasonable under Knotts, all things considered
A valuable opinion from the Middle District of Alabama on privacy v. property, mosaic theory or not, reasonable expectations of privacy on the open road. The court is constrained to find one day’s GPS tracking was reasonable under Knotts. United … Continue reading
VT: Game wardens’ entry on def’s curtilage to investigate deer jacking was reasonable as was look through detached garage window
Defendant was suspected of “deer jacking,” shooting a deer from outside the window of a homeowner before 4 am on Thanksgiving Day 2017. A game warden investigated at the scene finding deer blood and hair. The game warden had a … Continue reading