Archives
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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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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: Consent
NC: Not plain error for officer to read from SW affidavit at trial
The officer’s reading from the search warrant affidavit at trial because it contained hearsay may have been error, but it wasn’t plain error. Defendant was free to cross-examine on all of that to mitigate prejudice [if he could]. State v. … Continue reading →
E.D.Cal.: Contraband cell phone in prison can be wiretapped outside of Title III
Because there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a prison or in a cell phone in prison, a contraband cell phone can be wiretapped without a Title III warrant. United States v. Bash, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180680 (E.D. … Continue reading →
SC: Request for consent with “do you mind” met with “I do but …” not voluntary. Also no RS for continuing stop.
“Here, even after accepting the trial court’s factual findings as we must do since they are supported by some evidence, we conclude that Hall lacked reasonable suspicion as a matter of law pursuant to de novo review.” As to consent, … Continue reading →
IN: After federal court suppressed search, feds hand case off to state; no preclusive effect from federal suppression
Under dual sovereignty, the federal court’s suppression of evidence in defendant’s federal criminal case had no preclusive effect on a following state court prosecution. The identity of the parties was different. On the merits, the state court concludes there was … Continue reading →
IA: Federal reverse silver platter of anticipatory SW was valid
Defendant was the target of an anticipatory federal search warrant for drugs. The federal government instead let the state prosecute. The Iowa constitution, however, does not permit anticipatory search warrants. Defense counsel didn’t raise the state constitutional issue before trial. … Continue reading →
IA: Shots fired call where officers heard of a man slumped over a railing and saw cars struck by bullets was exigent circumstances for entry
The community caretaking function justified the warrantless entry here into defendant’s apartment. Officers responded to a shots fired call at an apartment complex, saw bullet damage to cars, and had a report of a person slumped over a balcony railing. … Continue reading →
CAAF: Loaning your cell phone to another doesn’t grant common authority to consent to a search
Defendant loaned his phone to another service member who accidentally discovered child pornography on it. The person the phone was loaned to had no common authority to consent to a search it. United States v. Black, 2022 CAAF LEXIS 614 … Continue reading →
CA9: Stepping back and allowing officers to enter is consent to enter
“Given Lege’s affirmative consent and the fact that he stepped back and appeared to welcome Oster into his apartment, a reasonable officer would have concluded that he had consent to enter the apartment, …, and the district court properly concluded … Continue reading →
W.D.Mich.: PC shown vehicle was involved in string of robberies for GPS tracking
Probable cause supported the warrant to install a GPS tracking device on defendant’s vehicle. The government showed probable cause to believe it and he were involved in a series of cash store robberies. United States v. Rolling, 2022 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading →
W.D.Mo.: 26 day delay in getting cell phone SW wasn’t unreasonable
A 26 day delay between seizure of a cell phone and issuance of a search warrant for it was not constitutionally unreasonable. Defendant’s motion for return of the phone is deferred until the trial is over. United States v. Brown, … Continue reading →
FL2: Civil contempt for not providing cell phone passcode affirmed; 4A issue not yet ripe because no charges yet filed
“Finding no merit in any of Marvin Harris’ arguments, we affirm the order below holding him in indirect civil contempt for refusing to provide the passcode to access his iPhone in connection with a search warrant.” He has yet to … Continue reading →
D.Mass.: No suppression remedy for no-knock violation, even if it happened that way
The government had sufficient justification for a no-knock warrant knowing defendant had three guns in the house. And, even if it didn’t, Michigan v. Hudson shows there’s no suppression remedy. United States v. Dexter, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 133497 (D. … Continue reading →
D.Mont.: 4A controls search and seizure, not the Indian Civil Rights Act
This search is governed by the Fourth Amendment, not the Indian Civil Rights Act. United States v. Porche, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130552 (D. Mont. July 21, 2022). The record supports the district court’s conclusion defendant wasn’t impaired when he … Continue reading →
E.D.Tenn.: Lack of forensic testing of drug from controlled buy is not a Franks issue
“Lack of scientific corroboration” defendant delivered a controlled substance is not a Franks violation. United States v. Moore, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 111382 (E.D. Tenn. June 23, 2022).* “Here, under the totality of the circumstances, the Court finds that a … Continue reading →
S.D.Ohio: Def was seized by blocking his car in, even if officers didn’t intend it
Defendant’s vehicle was blocked in by a police car, and a reasonable person would only believe he’d been seized whether the officers believed it or not. This was not justified by reasonable suspicion. His consent was thus not voluntary. “None … Continue reading →
CA2: FAA information about movements of airplane gave DEA RS for stop on tarmac
The FAA’s information about the movements of defendant’s single engine airplane gave the DEA reasonable suspicion to stop it on the tarmac. Then officers developed probable cause. United States v. Bodnar, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 17035 (2d Cir. June 21, … Continue reading →
CA5: Def’s actions showed he consented to entry into house
The evidence supports the district court’s conclusion defendant consented to the second entry of his home. His actions and turning to lead officers into his house showed consent. United States v. Lozano, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 16894 (5th Cir. June … Continue reading →
NY3: SW two months after shooting was not stale where police were still investigating
The victim was shot in July 2016. In August, the police got a search warrant for his place and found nothing connecting him to it. In September, they got a second search warrant for a second place and found guns, … Continue reading →
WY: State failed to show implied consent to enter home
A sheriff’s deputy showed up at defendant’s house to talk to her. He encountered her husband outside. The husband went in to get his wife, and the officer followed into the mudroom. There was no implied consent for the officer … Continue reading →
CA8: Apparent authority to consent applies to effects
Apparent authority to consent applies to effects. The officer had reason to believe that the other female occupant of the car had apparent authority to consent to a search of what was listed in the report as a “man bag,” … Continue reading →