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- Reason: Border Agents Search Phones Without Warrants. This Case Asks the Supreme Court if That’s Constitutional
- The Economist: Why licence-plate readers are angering Americans
- N.D.Cal.: Typo in list of crimes being investigated in affidavit for SW could be overlooked
- MN: Risk of destruction of evidence was exigency for seizure of cell phone
- CA4: Use of a cell-site simulator to locate def was a search under the 4A
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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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Section 1983 Blog -
"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: Consent
MD: False information in cold case arrest warrant suppresses statement made on arrest
17-year-old information from an admittedly unreliable CI who had the information two-three years before telling in 2008 coupled with a false statement in an affidavit for warrant about an identification that was just wrong did not provide probable cause for … Continue reading →
D.D.C.: Even joint venture search in Dominican Republic of a Venezuelan citizen doesn’t violate 4A
Defendant is charged with hostage taking in the Dominican Republic. Trial starts next week. He is a citizen of Venezuela in the Dominican Republic, and the search there did not violate his Fourth Amendment rights since he had no connection … Continue reading →
CA5: No excessive force without a seizure; here, ptf told to “get back”
“At no point was D.J. prevented from leaving the scene—rather, he was repeatedly asked to do so, to ‘get back’ and move away while Deputy Moring was securing the perimeter. True, he was prevented from further approaching Perkins and Deputy … Continue reading →
CA6: Recently discovered alleged Franks violation not sufficient for successor habeas petition
Even if there was a recently discovered Franks violation in the underlying search warrant affidavit that produced evidence against defendant, that doesn’t satisfy the standard for a successor habeas petition. In re Rooks, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 31471 (6th Cir. … Continue reading →
ND: It was unreasonable for police to think landowner who rented bedroom to another could consent to its search
Defendant stayed in a bedroom in another’s house, and he paid rent. It was unreasonable for officers to conclude that the homeowner could consent to search of the room. Also, the door to the room was closed when the police … Continue reading →
CT: IAC in cell phone search decided on lack of prejudice, not the merits
Defendant was convicted of accessory to murder. He claimed trial counsel was ineffective for not moving to suppress the 2013 search of his cell phone. Police sought a warrant for the phone, and the DA prepared it. While the papers … Continue reading →
NC: Officer who made illegal entry was not discharging “official duty” when he was assaulted
“As a warrant was required for the officers to lawfully enter the home, and no warrant had been issued when the officers entered the home and encountered Defendant, the officers’ entry into the home was unlawful. Thus, the State failed … Continue reading →
D.Mass.: Plea agreement foreclosed return of property
Defendant’s plea agreement foreclosed his Rule 41(g) motion for return of property. United States v. Spencer, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 206257 (D. Mass. Nov. 17, 2023). Defendant’s motion to reconsider denial of his motion to suppress the timeliness of his … Continue reading →
D.S.D.: Casual visitor who was not an overnight guest lacked standing
Defendant was not an overnight guest and was a casual visitor to the premises who lacked standing [heavily relying on a pre-Carter case of mine from 1985 where there was no standing]. United States v. Quigley, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading →
Cal.3d: Falsely telling def that officers wouldn’t tow his car if he consented to a search made the consent involuntary
Falsely telling defendant that officers wouldn’t tow his car if he consented to a search made the consent involuntary. Here, the officer’s statement as to the law was false. Boitez v. Superior Court, 2023 Cal. App. LEXIS 859 (3d Dist. … Continue reading →
WI: Failure to respond to City’s letter to inspect rat-infested property was implied consent
The city wrote by certified mail to the owner of rat-infested property apparently abandoned since he hadn’t come from home in California since before Covid. State law allows inspections if requested and permitted. The owner never responded. His Fourth Amendment … Continue reading →
GA: SW for things that were not controlled substances entitles target to return of the property
The search warrant here was for delta-8,9,10-THC but 8 and 10 are not controlled substances. Lacking probable cause for them, the search target is entitled to return of its property. Elements Distribution v. State, 2023 Ga. App. LEXIS 535 (Nov. … Continue reading →
NE: Reliability of Google Translate app for use to get consent to search not preserved below
Consent to search granted by a non-English speaking suspect via Google Translate app was not properly preserved for appeal as to the accuracy of the translation. “While Hernandez’ counsel objected to the admission of the evidence obtained from the search … Continue reading →
KY: State could refer at trial to SW for DNA, but it couldn’t say def refused consent
It was not error to permit the state to inquire that a search warrant was used to get defendant’s DNA, as long as there was no reference to his refusal of consent. Finch v. Commonwealth, 2023 Ky. LEXIS 302 (Oct. … Continue reading →
D.Colo.: No REP CI won’t record you
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy against a CI recording him, so defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not challenging it. United States v. Andasola, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 190985 (D. Colo. Oct. 24, 2023).* The officer had reasonable suspicion … Continue reading →
CA11: Mandamus not remedy to overcome waived 2255
Petitioner waived his 2255 and can’t raise his Fourth Amendment ineffective assistance of counsel claim by mandamus. In re Morgan, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 28330 (11th Cir. Oct. 24, 2023). The sheriff solicited nude pictures of a person that became … Continue reading →
CA6: 911 calls about dangerous situation satisfied Navarette
The information from 911 callers was detailed and explained a dangerous situation, and reasonable suspicion existed under Navarette. United States v. Duplessis, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 27980 (6th Cir. Oct. 19, 2023).* “Here, Jordan asked whether Hammond would mind if … Continue reading →
DE: Def consented to search of his cell phone in an effort to prove his alibi
Defendant consented to search of his cell phone in an effort to prove his alibi. Blackwood v. State, 2023 Del. LEXIS 328 (Oct. 11, 2023). Defendant’s guilty plea wasn’t a conditional plea, so the search issue was waived. If he … Continue reading →
OH7: Def didn’t impliedly consent to officer’s entry into hotel room when def was getting his ID
The officer encountered defendant in the hotel lobby. He asked for defendant’s ID, and defendant said he had to go to his room to get it. The officer asked if he could accompany him to the room. The officer’s entry … Continue reading →
N.D.Cal.: Motion to suppress based on state court issuing judge lacking jurisdiction saved by GFE even if true
Defendant’s motion to suppress based on the state court judge issuing the warrant lacking jurisdiction is denied on the merits and by the good faith exception. United States v. Bailey, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 179249 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 4, 2023). … Continue reading →