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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
CA7: No REP from being videoed by CI one lets in for a drug deal
A video-wired CI came into defendant’s apartment to record him doing a drug deal, and a SW issued based on the recording. Defendant challenged the entry and the recording but not the SW. “Thompson has never challenged the search warrant … Continue reading
techdirt: DHS Official Thinks People Should Have To Give Up Their Anonymity To Use The Internet
techdirt: DHS Official Thinks People Should Have To Give Up Their Anonymity To Use The Internet by Tim Cushing: Apparently, the only way to stop terrorists from hating us for our freedom is to strip away those offensive freedoms. Erik … Continue reading
TN: Where arrest lacked PC, search incident is void
The evidence did not support defendant’s arrest for public intoxication, and the officer actually lacked probable cause. Accordingly, the search incident to the arrest was void. State v. Pippen, 2016 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 57 (Jan. 28, 2016) (dissent here). … Continue reading
D.N.J.: No REP in a rental car where def not an authorized driver and car was way overdue
Defendant was driving a rental car that was so overdue the tags were expired. It was rented by a cousin and the rental car company didn’t know who he was. With the stop, they were called and they wanted the … Continue reading
OH5: Trespassers on an open field had no reasonable expectation of privacy there
The officer on patrol saw a campfire and stopped because it was not an area known for camping. He asked the five people who came in one car if they had permission to be there, and they did not. Two … Continue reading
D.Nev.: “[T]he government does not require probable cause to ‘search’ its own records.”
Assuming defendant had standing to a residence as an overnight guest, the police had specific information linking him to the residence and probable cause for a search warrant. A check of DMV records on him did not require probable cause. … Continue reading
Katz and the “reasonable expectation of privacy” is 48 today
Dec. 18, 1967: Katz v. United States, and the reasonable expectation of privacy decided
D.Md.: Ptf waived REP in bank records
The Right to Financial Privacy Act was passed in response to Miller, but bank customers can waive privacy in their account records during an investigation, aside from process being applied. Bond v. United States Postal Serv. Fed. Credit Union, 2015 … Continue reading
CA11: Cell phone with CP on it was lost in a Wal-mart then abandoned
Defendants lost their cell phone in a Wal-Mart. The person finding the phone looked in it to see if there was identifying information, but there wasn’t. The phone wasn’t password protected. The person handling it found what appeared to be … Continue reading
W.D.Tenn.: Guest in hotel room had reasonable expectation of privacy in room after renter left
Defendant was a guest in a hotel room, and the renter left. Defendant still had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the room. Defendant consented to the search of the room. “Moreover, the court finds Green’s testimony to be unbelievable … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Corp. officer had no standing in search of company website; aside from the fact it’s on the Internet
Defendant had no standing over government search of a corporation’s website without showing that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the place searched. [If it’s on the Internet and open to the world, how is there conceivably any … Continue reading
DC: Jail cell search was for penological purpose, not criminal investigation
The government showed that the jail cell search of defendant was for legitimate penological purposes and not for criminal investigation. Tann v. United States, 2015 D.C. App. LEXIS 533 (Nov. 19, 2015). “The federal courts are not free-range problem solvers”; … Continue reading
LA5: Woman in a man’s hotel room for a tryst has apparent authority to consent to room search
The woman alone in defendant’s motel room to have sex with him had apparent authority to consent to a search. “Additionally, the search appears to have been reasonable under Illinois v. Rodriguez, supra. The police in the present case testified … Continue reading
In Missouri, if a motel operator wants you out, the police can enter and search your room
Police went to a motel to tell the operator that a person in room 114 was associated with a guy arrested in a stolen car just leaving the motel property. The motel operator gave a key to the room to … Continue reading
NY Co. Ct.: Prison inmate pat frisk that includes touching genitals not unreasonable
A pat frisk of a prison inmate that often includes touching the genitals is not unreasonable because of the loss of liberty that comes with incarceration. There is no equal protection claim just because prison visitors don’t go through the … Continue reading
NY4: Warrantless probation search condition based on “alcohol/drug abuse” wasn’t supported by the record
A warrantless probation search condition based on “alcohol/drug abuse” wasn’t supported by the record, and it is struck on appeal. People v. Mead, 2015 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 8395, 2015 NY Slip Op 08304 (4th Dept. Nov. 13, 2015). Alleged … Continue reading
NPR: When Prisoners Email Their Lawyers, It’s Often Not Confidential
NPR: When Prisoners Email Their Lawyers, It’s Often Not Confidential by Joel Rose:
The Hill: Prison phone company denies it recorded private calls
The Hill: Prison phone company denies it recorded private calls by Katie Bo Williams: Prison phone system vendor Securus is denying that it improperly recorded inmates’ calls to their attorneys. According to a bombshell report published Wednesday by The Intercept, … Continue reading
KS: Judge was former ADA who prosecuted def 15 years earlier for fraud; he was “neutral and detached” and could issue SW in murder case unrelated to prior prosecution
(1) The judge issuing the search warrants in this murder case was a former Chief Deputy District Attorney who had prosecuted defendant for financial crimes more than 15 years earlier. That connection was insufficient to show that he was not … Continue reading