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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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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)
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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
D.C.Cir.: Omission of robbery victim’s failure to ID def didn’t cut either way in Franks analysis; PC still existed
Omission of a non-identification of defendant as a robber was not material for Franks. “Even viewing the omitted non-identification as a material omission, probable cause for the search did not rise or fall on the identification of Dorman as the … Continue reading
M.D.N.C.: SW for stolen tractor lawn mower didn’t support plain view in house of firearm
A search warrant for a stolen tractor lawn mower didn’t support a plain view in defendant’s house for alleged illegal firearms because they aren’t per se unlawful to possess. They could have been registered. United States v. White, 2017 U.S. … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Def’s matching citizen informant’s description and location was RS, and his flight was PC
The detailed description given by a 911 calling citizen informant was reasonable suspicion when defendant was seen matching the description. When police approached him, defendant ran, and that was probable cause. United States v. King, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88514 … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: Misstatement of crack v. powder cocaine wasn’t Franks violation
In a 2255 case, it wasn’t ineffective assistance for defense counsel to fail to make a Franks challenge to a misstatement of crack v. powder cocaine in a search warrant application. United States v. Moyer, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 79279 … Continue reading
MI: Taking ptf’s photo and prints after a valid arrest did not violate 4A
The taking of plaintiff’s photograph and fingerprints after an apparently valid arrest was not a clearly established violation of the Fourth Amendment where he was innocent of a crime. Plaintiff did not contest his arrest, but he contended that the … Continue reading
CA1: Misstatement Alpha-PVP was in package instead of Alpha-PHP was not material nor in bad faith
The affidavit for search warrant was based on a customs search of a package destined for delivery in Maine that the contents was Alpha-PVP, which is how it looked and field tested as MDMA. Later lab analysis showed it was … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: The Franks doctrine applies only to factual misstatements, not legal conclusions
Following United States v. Barnes, 126 F. Supp. 3d 735, 740 (E.D. La. 2015), the Franks doctrine applies only to factual misstatements, not legal conclusions. United States v. Tabares, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 186540 (N.D.Ga. June 3, 2016), adopted, 2017 … Continue reading
D.S.C.: Motorcycle owner’s GPS tracked to def’s backyard; no Franks violation in the SW affidavit because it was really backyard
The owner of a motorcycle had a GPS tracker on it, and he reported to the police that it was pinging at defendant’s address. Defendant’s claim that the affidavit for the search warrant for defendant’s address violated Franks because the … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: SW materials not yet releasable because investigation is ongoing; defense can get it later
The search warrant materials in this case are not released yet because the case is still pretrial and there is investigative and CI information that shouldn’t be disclosed yet. “In evaluating a common law claim of access to judicial documents, … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Omission from affidavit that 5 prior searches of def’s home found nothing wasn’t material where PC was shown yet again
Omission from the affidavit for search warrant that five prior searches at defendant’s residence for drugs had proved fruitless was not material where there was a separate showing of probable cause for this search warrant. The good faith exception also … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Evidence that officer condoned CI planting evidence survives MSJ
Plaintiff had enough evidence of CI misconduct in planting evidence and police turning a blind eye toward it to survive summary judgment. Santiago v. Lafferty, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49177 (D. Mass. March 31, 2017):
IL: Franks falsity applies to the officer, not the CI; also, the CI testified before the issuing magistrate, and that bolsters credibility
“The deliberate falsity or reckless disregard of the truth applies only to the affiant—here, Officer Ramirez—and not to any nongovernmental informant like Rodriguez. … What is more, we note that both Officer Ramirez and Rodriguez appeared before the issuing judge, … Continue reading
D.Del.: Evasiveness during a public intox arrest justified Terry frisk
Defendant was arrested for public intox and he became evasive including a request that his name not be run for warrants. That justified a Terry frisk. United States v. King, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40213 (D. Del. March 21, 2017).* … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Def satisfies Franks burden to get a hearing because nexus in affidavit for SW is weak
Defendant satisfies the Franks preliminary showing of false or misleading statements about alleged victims to get a Franks hearing. The nexus requirement of the affidavit is just barely met, and the hearing could undermine the probable cause showing. United States … Continue reading
CA10: Considering info omitted from SW affidavit, there was still PC and outcome wouldn’t change
There was probable cause for plaintiff’s arrest based on a co-conspirators statement. Omitted information was considered by the district court on the probable cause question, and this court agrees it wouldn’t change anything. Claeys v. Mohr, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: No Franks hearing: The omitted would only have added to PC
Defendant isn’t entitled to a Franks hearing: “The addition of the omitted information to the search warrant application would not have detracted from the probable cause and may very well have strengthened the probable cause stated in the affidavit.” United … Continue reading
CA5: Ptf loses on his civil Franks claim because of a lack of materiality to PC
The affidavit for arrest warrant failed to include information that would undermine the credibility of the police informant, but the court finds that the omission was not material and there was other information that supported probable cause. Therefore, the officer … Continue reading
CA6: Franks challenges subject to clearly erroneous standard of review; here, materiality not shown
The District Court’s findings under Franks are subject to the clear error standard of review. Here, the officer learned a new fact between the wiretap application and the search warrant application, and there is some surface appeal to apply Franks. … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Franks challenge requires proffer by affidavit, not merely representations by counsel
Franks challenge requires an offer of proof by affidavit. Representations of counsel aren’t enough. United States v. Houston, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 558 (M.D.Fla. Jan. 4, 2017). After dealing with all the allegations:
CA6: Where affidavit for SW referenced defendant’s arrests it was true: no duty to investigate how they came out
In the PC showing for a search warrant, the affiant doesn’t have to investigate every arrest of the defendant shown in a records check to determine outcomes that there was no convictions. The affiant didn’t assert convictions. At the suppression … Continue reading