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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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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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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
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)
ACLU on privacy
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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
New Law Review Article: Juries and the Criminal Constitution
Juries and the Criminal Constitution, Meghan J. Ryan, 65 Ala. L. Rev. 849 (2014). Abstract: Judges are regularly deciding criminal constitutional issues based on changing societal values. For example, they are determining whether police officer conduct has violated society’s “reasonable … Continue reading
New law review article: Katz Has Only One Step: The Irrelevance of Subjective Expectations
Katz Has Only One Step: The Irrelevance of Subjective Expectations, Orin S. Kerr, University of Chicago Law Review, Forthcoming. Abstract: This Article argues that the “subjective expectation of privacy” test is a phantom doctrine. The test exists on paper but … Continue reading
CA3: Use of MoocherHunter to isolate unauthorized wifi signal usage did not violate privacy
Using MoocherHunter software to see who was using another person’s wifi internet connection to download child pornography was not a search. After officers established that the signal was strongest from defendant’s apartment, they got a search warrant for his apartment … Continue reading
CA11: In a case of first impression, “cell site location information is within the subscriber’s reasonable expectation of privacy.”
In an interesting and thorough analysis, the Eleventh Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Sentelle of the D.C. Circuit sitting by designation, “hold[s] that cell site location information is within the subscriber’s reasonable expectation of privacy.” The court also discussed, … Continue reading
OH2: Search of defendant’s cell phone case during patdown not shown with RS
The search of defendant’s cell phone case felt during a patdown could not reasonably be shown to be a weapon or contraband that would justify it. The officer was predisposed because she testified she assumed everybody was armed. State v. … Continue reading
examiner.com: Florida Gubernatorial candidate challenging facial recognition DL records
examiner.com: Florida Gubernatorial candidate shows up in court by Adrian Wyllie. He’s challenging the REAL ID Act of 2005 which requires facial recognition imagery: Libertarian Party of Florida Gubernatorial candidate Adrian Wyllie was in court yesterday morning, June 4, 2014, … Continue reading
WaPo: Another federal judge rules on legality of NSA surveillance
WaPo: Another federal judge rules on legality of NSA surveillance by Orin Kerr: The opinion is Smith v. Obama from Judge Winmill of the District of Idaho. Judge Winmill concludes that the NSA program complies with the Fourth Amendment as … Continue reading
NYT: N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images
NYT: N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images by James Risen and Laura Poitras: The National Security Agency’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown as it has used new software to exploit images in emails, text messages, social … Continue reading
IN: Seizure of clothes from professed crime victim was reasonable; turned out he was the suspect
When defendant’s clothes were seized by the police at the hospital, it was because he said he was a crime victim. When the police figured out he was lying and he was the shooter, they got a search warrant to … Continue reading
WaPo: E-mail privacy hasn’t been updated in 28 years. This could be the bill to do it.
WaPo: E-mail privacy hasn’t been updated in 28 years. This could be the bill to do it. by Brian Fung: Thanks to a law that was written before “Robocop,” law enforcement agencies are allowed to poke around inside your e-mail … Continue reading
Politico: The Founding Fathers Would Have Protected Your Smartphone
Politico: The Founding Fathers Would Have Protected Your Smartphone by Sen. Rand Paul and Sen. Chris Coons: Privacy is a core American value. For 235 years, the Fourth Amendment has protected us from unwarranted searches of our personal belongings. All … Continue reading
NPR: Can Cop-Worn Cameras Restore Faith In New Orleans Police?
NPR: Can Cop-Worn Cameras Restore Faith In New Orleans Police? by Martin Kaste: Body-worn video cameras are quickly becoming standard-issue for American police, especially at departments in the process of reform. And in New Orleans, the troubled police department is … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Jones doesn’t create a REP in a computer with peer to peer software that lets the police in
“Several courts have rejected the application of Jones to the investigation of file sharing programs,” United States v. Brashear, Criminal No. 4:11-CR-0062, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 163865, 2013 WL 6065326, at *3 (M.D. Pa. Nov. 18, 2013) (citations omitted), and … Continue reading
WaPo: Despite court rulings, people are still getting arrested for recording on-duty cops
WaPo: Despite court rulings, people are still getting arrested for recording on-duty cops by Radley Balko The latest incident comes from Massachusetts. And, since the courts are uniform on this, there will be no qualified immunity for such an arrest.
N.D.Ga.: The reality of Gates-Leon: Showing no PC is an uphill battle
Recognizing the reality of Gates-Leon: “the Defendant challenges whether the Magistrate Judge should have issued the warrant at all based on the information presented in the agent’s affidavit. This argument faces difficult legal standards, which the Defendant cannot meet. His … Continue reading
Drone news–NPR
NPR: Regulating Domestic Drones to Protect Privacy and Public Safety, The Diane Rehm Show, One Hour: Drones are now used across the U.S. to monitor crops, inspect power lines, and shoot commercials. But the near-collision of a drone and a … Continue reading
WaPo: Editorial: Putting cameras on police officers is an idea whose time has come
WaPo: Editorial: Putting cameras on police officers is an idea whose time has come: Having successfully deployed cameras in patrol cars, a number of police departments, including the District’s, are now studying whether body-mounted minicams–attached to an officer’s lapel, for … Continue reading