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- VA: Search incident between def’s shorts and underwear was reasonable
- Reason: Border Cops Seize Nurse’s Phone Filled With Psychiatric Patient Information
- MI: Handcuffing uncooperative def at scene of accident wasn’t unreasonable
- S.D.Ga.: Def’s car in driveway next to sidewalk was not on curtilage
- S.D.Ind.: Post search database search of occupants of a place didn’t show SW affidavit was false at time it issued
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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 $ -
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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)
ACLU on privacy
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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: Franks doctrine
M.D.Fla.: A records preservation request to cell phone providers was not a seizure
A records preservation letter sent to cell phone providers was not a seizure, let alone an unreasonable one. The records were later secured by search warrant. United States v. Zwiefelhofer, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 134679 (M.D. Fla. Aug. 2, 2023). … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: A place probationer spent some nights wasn’t his official residence for probation search
Probation staff and the government failed to prove that the place searched under a probation search condition was defendant’s place. He was permitted to stay with relatives on occasion but those were not his residences. The search is suppressed. United … Continue reading
CA6: Arrest paperwork delay here violated Riverside 48 hour rule
Officers’ apparent delays in processing paperwork on an arrest which resulted in plaintiff spending an extra two days in jail without any kind of probable cause finding violated clearly established law. Here, the prosecutor wouldn’t act without their paperwork. “It … Continue reading
CA3: The search exceeding the scope of a warrant justified suppression
The search exceeding the scope of a warrant justified suppression: “But here, the benefit of suppression is neither marginal nor nonexistent. The agents exceeded the scope of authority conferred by the warrant when they either ignored or disregarded the risk … Continue reading
W.D.Tenn.: Violation of police dept. vehicle chase policy doesn’t equate to a violation of the 4A
An alleged violation of department policy on police chases doesn’t equal a Fourth Amendment violation. United States v. Moore, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130238 (W.D. Tenn. July 27, 2023). Speeding and erratic driving justified the stop, and alcohol was seen … Continue reading
Cal.3: PC to search passenger compartment for gun didn’t extend to the trunk
Officers had probable cause to search defendant’s passenger compartment for a firearm. When the gun wasn’t found there, the officer searched the trunk, finding it. The probable cause, however, did not extend to the trunk. People v. Leal, 2023 Cal. … Continue reading
DE: SW issuing magistrate not barred from hearing suppression motion
The suppression hearing judge is not disqualified just because he or she considered the affidavit and issued the search warrant. Willis v. State, 2023 Del. LEXIS 238 (July 24, 2023). Setting inaccuracies in the search warrant affidavit aside, there was … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Civilly committed have no REP in common computer files
The plaintiff is confined in the Texas Civil Commitment Center. He has no privacy interest in the files he’s saved on TCCC common computers for his cases. Rogers v. McLane, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125554 n. 11 (N.D. Tex. June … Continue reading
MI: Omission def was a CI was not material where SW was based on possession and sale of drugs
“Agent Merle’s failure to reveal that Brown was a CI for DTF was not a material omission. As discussed previously, the warrant affidavit was based on Brown’s possession and sale of illegal drugs, which did not fall within the scope … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Unsubstantiated rumor not RS
Defendant’s stop for being involved in a shooting which was based on nothing more than an unsubstantiated rumor from an unsupported CI and the victim that he was involved was without reasonable suspicion. United States v. Cobbs, 2023 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
CA5: No REP in a video recorded by another of def committing a crime
While one can have a reasonable expectation of privacy in something he doesn’t own (as in bailment or contract), here it was a video recorded by another of him possessing firearms. He had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the … Continue reading
NY3: Where no information anyone else could be inside, no justification for protective sweep after def’s arrest
The police had no information even suggesting that another person was in the premises, and a protective sweep after defendant was arrested was unjustified. People v. Hadlock, 2023 NY Slip Op 03819, 2023 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3839 (3d Dept. … Continue reading
E.D.La.: Leaving the wrong SW at the scene of the search is not a ground to suppress
Leaving the wrong search warrant at the scene of the search is not a ground to suppress. United States v. Major, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 116569 (E.D. La. July 7, 2023). The CI had no track record, but his story … Continue reading
TX1: 911 call about a suspected kidnapping led to a stop found valid under Naverette
A 911 call about a suspected kidnapping led to a stop found valid under Naverette. Small v. State, 2023 Tex. App. LEXIS 4610 (Tex. App. – Houston (1st Dist.) June 29, 2023)* (unpublished) “These events establish probable cause, especially when … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: “If six law enforcement officers testify credibly to a story that doesn’t make sense, is the Court bound to accept that testimony?” Yes.
“If six law enforcement officers testify credibly to a story that doesn’t make sense, is the Court bound to accept that testimony? That’s the question facing the Court on Defendant’s motion to suppress. Because the Court has no basis to … Continue reading
GA: Refusal to consent to taking a DNA swab in a rape investigation is admissible at trial
Defendant’s refusal to consent to taking a DNA swab in a rape investigation is admissible at trial. Post-arrest cheek swabs do not violate the Fourth Amendment because they are accepted police booking and jailing procedures, similar to fingerprinting and photographing. … Continue reading
NJ: Smell of mj in the passenger compartment doesn’t justify search of trunk or engine compartment
Where the officer smelled marijuana in the passenger compartment and searched for it finding nothing, a search of the engine compartment and trunk was excessive under the automobile exception. From the syllabus : “Expanding the search to the engine compartment … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: Address alone isn’t enough to confer standing in a mailed package; name on it has to be yours
Defendant wasn’t shown as an addressee of this package, but it was sent to his address. That alone doesn’t give him standing. United States v. Roberts, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 107828 (M.D. Ala. May 18, 2023), adopted, 2023 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
CA10: 2255 petitioner learned after guilty plea A-C communications were recorded in jail; no relief from plea because no effect shown
2255 petitioner was in pretrial incarceration in the private jail in Leavenworth which notoriously recorded conversations between attorneys and clients. He pled guilty with the standard 2255 waiver. This violation of his rights does not survive the waiver, and he … Continue reading