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Recent Posts
- CA2: No 4A requirement for SWs being issued with notice to target
- CA6: Denying ptf access to his own bathroom during a search of his house stated 4A claim
- W.D.Mo.: Not exactly following the inventory policy doesn’t make it unreasonable under 4A
- GA: No IAC for not challenging complete cell phone download before search
- DNYUZ: CBP Workers Allegedly Used Government Databases to Spy on Exes, Crushes, and Colleagues
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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)
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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: Consent
CA4: Search of unlocked van with door ajar left overnight on bank parking lot with visible assault rifle was reasonable under community caretaking function
A bank employee saw a van parked on the bank’s lot that had been there overnight. Officers responded and saw an assault rifle in the passenger compartment. “Around 12:30 [p.m.], without knocking or announcing their presence, Lambert and Wagner pulled … Continue reading →
IN: Drug dog’s half sitting alert was still reliable
“In contrast, here the State established that Maverick was a certified drug sniffing dog with a history of reliability. Maverick’s behavior, even without a full final response of sitting, was sufficient to indicate that he had detected the odors of … Continue reading →
CA1: Vertical collective knowledge applied; horizontal doesn’t have to be decided
Vertical collective knowledge clearly applies where an officer directed another to make a stop. Therefore, the bounds of horizontal collective knowledge doesn’t matter here. United States v. Balser, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 15060 (1st Cir. June 16, 2023) (a good … Continue reading →
KY: The conditions of parole factor into reasonableness of a parole search
Defendant did not properly preserve his state constitutional claim that warrantless parole searches should be more protective of a suspect’s rights than the Fourth Amendment. On the Fourth Amendment claim, the search complied with Samson and Knights. The conditions of … Continue reading →
NY Kings Co.: State can rely on circumstantial evidence to support CIs
“The district attorney can rely on circumstantial evidence to demonstrate an adequate basis of knowledge for the information conveyed …. But not in this case. The mere fact that the Warrants Squad arrested Lewis at the target location does not … Continue reading →
CA2: Is the SW description for electronic data “the best that could reasonably be expected under the circumstances”
In a warrant for electronic data, “the Fourth Amendment does not demand ‘a perfect description of the data to be searched and seized.’ … Rather, ‘some ambiguity’ is permitted ‘so long as law enforcement agents have done the best that … Continue reading →
WA: Driver couldn’t consent to search of passenger’s backpacks
Defendant was in a car that was stopped for a traffic offense. He had warrants and he tried to flee the scene, but didn’t get far. In the car were his backpacks. The driver consented to a search of the … Continue reading →
GA: Cell phone call SW was limited and not overbroad
The warrant for the cell phone’s call data was limited in time and reasonable. “Because, using a practical margin of flexibility, the date ranges in the search warrants were as specific as the circumstances and nature of the activity under … Continue reading →
CA11: Drug dog arriving before warning ticket done did not extend stop
Where the drug dog arrived before the warning ticket was finished, the stop was not unlawfully extended. United States v. Gutierrez, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 12811 (11th Cir. May 24, 2023). Child protection officers obtained consent to enter plaintiff’s home. … Continue reading →
CA11: Without a factual dispute, there’s no requirement of a suppression hearing
The suppression “hearing” was a five-minute discussion of the law, and there were no factual disputes presented. Therefore, “defendant need not be present for any ‘conference or hearing on a question of law.’ Fed. R. Crim. P. 43(b)(3).” United States … Continue reading →
W.D.Pa.: Lack of a proper chain of custody is not a ground for a motion to suppress
Alleged lack of a proper chain of custody is not a ground for a motion to suppress. United States v. Pollard, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88536 (W.D. Pa. May 19, 2023). Defendant’s Fourth Amendment issues on appeal are not the … Continue reading →
NY Albany Co.: Overbroad location data search remedied by narrowing to two hours
The search warrant for defendant’s location data for the week before and week after the crime was overbroad. The court instead allows the state to use the hour before and hour after. People v. Williams, 2023 NY Slip Op 23137, … Continue reading →
W.D.Mich.: Prison CAT scan for contraband was reasonable
A prison CAT scan for contraband was less intrusive than a strip or body cavity search, so it was reasonable. Pouncy v. Bush, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 78217 (W.D. Mich. May 4, 2023). Reasonable suspicion for a traffic violation to … Continue reading →
NJ: Common authority to search a storage unit doesn’t necessarily include authority to search bags within
After a search warrant produced nothing, the domestic battery complainant had common authority to consent to a search of a storage trailer to seize weapons, but not to search the bags that the weapons were found in. “A third party’s … Continue reading →
D.Kan.: “Indicia of ownership” in a SW not overbroad
Inclusion of “indicia of ownership” of the place searched doesn’t show the warrant was not particular. United States v. Anderson, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73033 (D. Kan. Apr. 26, 2023). Defendant was stopped for a traffic violation, although there was … Continue reading →
D.Nev.: GFE does not save GPS tracking of additional driver of vehicle
Rubin, a regular driver of defendant’s pickup had standing to challenge a tracking warrant put on it. The issuing judge, however, appears only to have authorized the tracking of Morgan’s use. The court declines to apply the good faith exception. … Continue reading →
CA7: Renting a condo under an assumed name to avoid arrest doesn’t show no REP; landlord could not consent
Defendant rented a condo in Atlanta, deceiving the landlord by using an assumed name. The landlord consented to a search. The landlord had no power to consent to a search. People rent hotel rooms and apartments and even buy houses … Continue reading →
FL2: Def’s mental health seizure was unreasonable under state law; his search incident thus was unreasonable
Defendant’s mental health seizure didn’t comply with state law and was unreasonable. There was no face-to-face meeting to evaluate his condition required by law. His girlfriend had reported that he was sending suicidal text messages. K.M. v. State, 2023 Fla. … Continue reading →
Cal.2: Geofence warrant was a bit overbroad, but GFE still applies
A geofence warrant was sought in 2019 for Google which provided several subject phones in the vicinity of a murder. The court finds the warrant was not particular enough, but applies the good faith exception because geofence warrants were so … Continue reading →
Cal.4: Misdemeanants stated claim that DNA testing of them was a violation of state right of privacy
Plaintiffs stated a claim that the Orange County program for collection of DNA from misdemeanants violated their right to privacy. There may be instances were a misdemeanor may be a “serious crime” but in general, no. The trial court erred … Continue reading →