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- LATimes: Ex-L.A. County sheriff’s deputy gets prison time for using search warrant for a private client
- Privacy Daily: Chatrie’s Clarification to Fourth Amendment a Win for Privacy, Experts Say
- D.Alaska: Def’s half hour detention was without RS
- CA9: When the PC for SW dissipates, the search must stop; no GFE
- C.D.Cal.: SW for all software in gambling case was overbroad and no GFE
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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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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
CA4: Dog sniff at apt. door here violated no REP
A dog sniff at defendant’s apartment door in a multi-unit complex didn’t violate any reasonable expectation of privacy. (Two unpublished cases in this circuit said that; this one’s published.) United States v. Johnson, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 19648 (4th Cir. … Continue reading
TX14: No REP in electronic monitoring while on pretrial release
Updated: Defendant on electronic monitoring as a bond condition has no reasonable expectation of privacy in the GPS information. Hawkins v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 5601 (Tex. App. – Houston (14th Dist.) July 31, 2025) (substituted opinion posted Feb. … Continue reading
GA: 404(b) adult porn seized in CP case more prejudicial than relevant
Not strictly a Fourth Amendment case, but interesting: Defendant’s place in a child molestation case was searched and adult porn was seized. The porn was admitted over objection as 404(b) evidence, and it was prejudicial and completely inadmissible because it … Continue reading
OH: No REP in single location info entered into a phone app
Defendant’s single location information entered into a phone app that was used to set up a robbery was basic third-party information not protected by Carpenter. State v. Diaw, 2025-Ohio-2323 (July 2, 2025):
OR: Use of a powerful zoom to show covered up marijuana plants violated state constitution
Officers were doing a marijuana flyover looking for another operation and saw what appeared to be a grow operation on defendant’s property. The affidavit for probable cause only said that the officer saw and photographed evidence that could indicate a … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Search incident not invalid even though officer would have just issued citation for possession of MJ
Defendant was parked at an intersection in the Bronx and was consuming marijuana in the car on the street, a state offense. The officer had the authority to conduct a search of the car even though he was likely only … Continue reading
CA11: Using BitTorrent to enter def’s computer peer-to-peer wasn’t an unreasonable search
Using BitTorrent to access defendant’s open child pornography files peer-to-peer on his computer was not a digital trespass and did not violate any reasonable expectation of privacy. United States v. Ewing, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 15437 (11th Cir. June 23, … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Only “some temporal reference” is required to avoid staleness
The affidavit for search warrant shows sufficient references to recent time to show it was not stale. “Put plainly, the Sixth Circuit does not require a search warrant affidavit to include the temporal specificity which Hardaway suggests is necessary. Rather, … Continue reading
D.Md.: Delaying three years to indict after seizure compromised defense enough that speedy trial was violated
Defendant’s backpack was searched in 2017, but he wasn’t indicted until 2020, and his case lingered. The officer’s testimony about the search is hazy and inconclusive enough that the court finds cause to dismiss for a speedy trial violation. The … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: Paying “rent” in drugs is a business transaction didn’t give a REP here
Paying daily “rent” in drugs is a business transaction without standing. “Although Jackson was an overnight guest insofar as he slept on the couch in the living room, he told law enforcement officers in his interview that he paid McCallister … Continue reading
CA9: No warrant required for CI to record def
No warrant was required for the CI to record defendant, following White (1971). United States v. Sudbury, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 13921 (9th Cir. June 6, 2025). The state can’t be compelled to seek to unseal the CI’s testimony for … Continue reading
TX5: No standing in a house where def under a no contact order to stay out
Defendant had no standing to contest the search of a house he was under a no contact order to stay away from. Yet, he was found there. Coggins v. State, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 3587 (Tex. App. – Dallas May … Continue reading
DE: Trial court holds Kansas v. Glover not followed under state constitution
A Delaware trial judge holds that the state constitution, adopted before the Fourth Amendment, provides more protection for motorists than Kansas v. Glover. State v. Coffey, 2025 Del. Super. LEXIS 266 (May 22, 2025). (This will be appealed.) There’s no … Continue reading
TX14: Nexus here established by logical inference
The record supported nexus for search warrants for cell phone apparently used to coordinate between two cars that were driving for an hour in a shopping mall parking lot looking for a robbery target. It was logically the only way … Continue reading
TX: Fraudulently renting hotel room denies a REP
Fraudulently renting a hotel room means no reasonable expectation of privacy in it. And, it didn’t matter that the police didn’t learn that until later. Bluntson v. State, 2025 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 297 (May 7, 2025). At the oral … Continue reading
Reason: Updated draft: The Two Tests of Search Law by Orin S. Kerr
Reason: Updated draft: The Two Tests of Search Law by Orin S. Kerr: I have posted a revised draft of my forthcoming article, The Two Tests of Search Law: What is the Jones Test, and What Does That Say About … Continue reading
W.D.Wis.: Code inspectors looking at ptf’s place from the street didn’t violate any REP
“Przychocki alleges that defendants Kearns, Grimm, and Schill violated her Fourth Amendment rights by surveilling her property from the street to identify code violations. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. A government action is a ‘search’ only … Continue reading
CA9: No REP in data in planted GPS device
Downloading data from a planted GPS device violated no reasonable expectation of privacy. McNeely v. Loeschner, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 9537 (9th Cir. Apr. 22, 2025). The facts of the planted device are below: McNeely v. City of Sparks, 2024 … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Squatters have no REP
Squatters have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the property they’ve appropriated. Lewis v. Blakeslee, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75568 (E.D. Cal. Apr. 21, 2025). In a written order denying an arrest warrant of a male victim of an alleged … Continue reading