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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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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
The Daily Beast: DEA Wants Inside Your Medical Records to Fight the War on Drugs
The Daily Beast: DEA Wants Inside Your Medical Records to Fight the War on Drugs by Christopher Moraff: The feds are fighting to look at millions of private files without a warrant, including those of two transgender men who are … Continue reading
CA8: No REP in magnetic strip on back of credit cards; it is intended to be read when used
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the magnetic strip on the back of a credit card, here many allegedly fraudulent cards, because the whole idea is that the magnetic strip is read every time the card is used. … Continue reading
CO: Residents of a “residential community corrections facility” are in DOC custody and subject to prison searches
“Triplett was an offender residing in the Mesa County residential community corrections facility.” He was taking a shower, and an officer of the facility was walking around for a cleanliness inspection. He touched defendant’s sock and felt a vial that … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: Criminal defense lawyers state 4A claim against jail phone co. for recording attorney-client calls
The plaintiff lawyers group, an association of criminal defense lawyers, have standing in their own right and individually to complain of recording of attorney-client telephone calls from the Travis County Jail. They also state a claim under the Fourth Amendment … Continue reading
W.D.N.C.: Wired CI invaded no REP in transmitting audio and video to waiting officers
Defendants admitted a wired CI into a home for a drug deal. The CI transmitted real time to officers outside audio and video of the drugs and guns. No reasonable expectation of privacy was involved. He could see exactly what … Continue reading
CA7 gives an interesting historical and current summary of “the Supreme Court[‘s] … reviv[al of] a ‘property-based approach to identify unconstitutional searches.”
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the basement area of an apartment building. Neither was it curtilage. The court includes an interesting historical and current summary of “the Supreme Court[‘s] … reviv[al of] a ‘property-based approach to identify … Continue reading
Inc.com: Why Your Fingerprint Isn’t Protected by the Constitution
Inc.com: Why Your Fingerprint Isn’t Protected by the Constitution by Will Kakowicz: You are protected against revealing passwords under the Fifth Amendment’s right against self-incrimination, but your biometrics are not.
OH4: No reasonable expectation from a snitch coming into one’s home and recording a drug sale
There is no reasonable expectation from a snitch coming into one’s home and recording a drug sale. By letting the snitch in, defendant assumed the risk. State v. Taylor, 2016-Ohio-2781, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS 1644 (4th Dist. April 27, 2016). … Continue reading
The Intercept: Seattle’s sanitation workers can no longer pry through trash without a warrant
The Intercept: Seattle’s sanitation workers can no longer pry through trash without a warrant by Cyrus Farivar: A Washington county judge has ruled that the city of Seattle’s warrantless searches of garbage violated the state’s constitution. In her 14-page order, … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: No REP in records of company in receivership
The owner of a company put into receivership has no reasonable expectation of privacy in the business records, and the receiver can give them all to the government without violating the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Avery, 2016 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
CA2: RCMP was merely giving information to CBP and not on a joint venture
Defendant was prosecuted for alien smuggling in Northern New York. CBP received information from the RCMP about a vehicle stopped in a rural area near the border, and Border Patrol picked up defendant. “Put simply, the interaction between the U.S. … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: “Strawman” car rental resulted in no reasonable expectation of privacy
Defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a rental car that was rented by another, defendant had a suspended license, it was, for all appearance, a strawman rental, and it was overdue. This was not a case … Continue reading
W.D.La.: No reasonable expectation of privacy in a stolen car
“Barnes, as the possessor of a stolen vehicle, had no legitimate expectation of privacy in the vehicle. His challenge to the search fails on this ground alone. [¶] In addition, it should be noted that, even if Barnes did have … Continue reading
WaPo: Court: No First Amendment right to videorecord police unless you are challenging the police at the time
WaPo: Court: No First Amendment right to videorecord police unless you are challenging the police at the time by Eugene Volokh:
NH: No REP in house an order of protection says stay away from
Defendant was in his girlfriend’s house in violation of an order of protection, and she called the police. They came and arrested him. “We find persuasive two cases relied upon by the State in which courts held that, because a … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: No reasonable expectation of privacy in jail calls
Defendant’s motion to quash subpoenas for his jail telephone calls is denied. He was on notice by the inmate handbook and notices by the phone and during the calls, sometimes twice, that the calls would be recorded. United States v. … Continue reading
The Recorder: Judge Questions FBI Agent Who Planted Courthouse Bugs
The Recorder: Judge Questions FBI Agent Who Planted Courthouse Bugs by Ross Todd: U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer must decide whether warrantless recording devices amounted to improper eavesdropping.
CA2: Nonpayment of hotel rent result in loss of REP in the room
Defense counsel couldn’t be ineffective for not raising that a motel operator couldn’t consent to a search of his room after defendant was locked out for nonpayment of rent. That’s established law. Bruno v. Superintendent, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 2075 … Continue reading
CA6: Ten weeks of pole camera surveillance on rural property no Fourth Amendment violation
The Sixth Circuit distinguishes Anderson-Bagshaw and holds ten weeks of pole camera surveillance on rural property violated no reasonable expectation of privacy. “Rocky Houston appeals his conviction of being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 … Continue reading