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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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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: Emergency / exigency
E.D.Ky.: It was reasonable for officers to open a car door when the driver was parked and unresponsive
Defendant’s car was parked on a Waffle House parking lot from 2-5 am with the headlights on, and it was reasonable for officers to check on the car. Inside was defendant who didn’t respond to them, and it was reasonable … Continue reading
MT: Knock-and-talk led to forced entry based on exigency of officers being made
A Montana DTF was tipped off to defendant bringing a cache of heroin to a motel to distribute. Officers set up surveillance and recognized local drug dealers coming and going. They called for uniformed backup and attempted a knock-and-talk which … Continue reading
VA: Fear of suicide attempt objectively justified warrantless entry as facts developed
Officers had an objectively reasonable basis for an entry and sweep under the emergency aid exception. Defendant was reportedly suicidal, wasn’t communicating at first, and then strange sounds were coming from where he was. “Based on these troubling circumstances, the … Continue reading
LA: No PC for warrantless entry and security cameras are not exigency
“Here, the trial court made credibility determinations based on the testimony of multiple officers involved in defendant’s arrest and found that officers lacked probable cause to search defendant’s residence. Furthermore, observation that defendant’s home had security cameras failed to amount … Continue reading
CA9: Protective sweep of house after medical emergency at front door unjustified
Officers responded to a medical emergency at the entryway of defendant’s house. They ended up conducting a protective sweep for which there was no justification whatsoever. The firearm found in the protective sweep is suppressed. United States v. Gonzalez-Martin, 2020 … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Email SW signed on SignNow app valid
An email search warrant signed by the issuing judge on a tablet with the SignNow app was valid. United States v. Lantzy, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50057 (E.D. Mich. Mar. 24, 2020). “We conclude that the circumstances here were such … Continue reading
NM: “Is there anything on your person that I should know about?” is subject to Quarles public safety exception
A question about anything on defendant’s person was subject to Quarles public safety exception. “While Defendant was in custody, but before he was advised of his Miranda rights, an officer asked him, ‘Is there anything on your person that I … Continue reading
WY: 911 hang-up call from def’s girlfriend and def answered call back volunteering he’d never hit her, with other information, justified warrantless entry
Defendant’s girlfriend made a 911 hang-up call. When 911 called back, defendant answered the phone and volunteered he’d never hit her when she didn’t speak on the first call. Defendant was known to the police to have firearms and possible … Continue reading
Cal.4d1: Leaving the engine running to one’s car outside house for 30 minutes isn’t exigent circumstances
A neighbor called the police because defendant left his vehicle outside with the engine running for 30 minutes. This did not indicate an emergency justifying a warrantless entry into his casita. There were drugs in plain view. People v. Smith, … Continue reading
MN: Return of digital copies of attorney’s files seized by SW was only issue and now moot; legality of SW comes later
The attorney here was the target of a search warrant for all her files where the attorney was the suspect, not a client. That distinguishes O’Connor. The parties, the client interveners, and amici have briefed all kinds of constitutional arguments … Continue reading
OH3: Arrest of drug offender coming home outside his house led to officers hearing “scurrying about” inside, and that justified warrantless entry
One man under investigation for drug crimes was arrested outside a house when officers went there waiting for him to arrive. On the arrest, officers heard others inside “scurrying around” [how?]. This created exigency and justified a warrantless entry into … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: The clear potential for violence in a volatile domestic disturbance was a continuing exigency
The clear potential for violence in a volatile domestic disturbance was exigency. “As is evident from the video, the exigency did not terminate due to the passage of time or as a result of [Off.] Sosenko’s attempts to manage the … Continue reading
IA: Possible presence of runaway 14 yo not exigency for warrantless entry
A runaway child was not an exigency justifying a warrantless entry into defendant’s home. “Today we must decide if a police officer may enter a third party’s residence without a search warrant based on a verbal request from the Iowa … Continue reading
D.N.M.: A “manpower shortage” for seizure of possible evidence isn’t exigency without PC
Defendant consented to a search of his car and his hotel room, but not to a search of his guitar case in the room. Thinking there might be drugs there, the officer seized the guitar case to preserve the potential … Continue reading
NH: When an overdose call is made to 911, it isn’t unreasonable for a police officer to enter with EMTs or the FD
When an overdose call is made to 911, it isn’t unreasonable for a police officer to enter with EMTs or the fire department. State v. Eldridge, 2020 N.H. LEXIS 18 (Feb. 19. 2020):
CA1: No exigency for warrantless entry on a DV complaint even with a known gun in the house, and unconnected to the complaint
PR police were called to a DV situation involving a police officer as a suspect. The officer’s firearm did not factor into the DV complaint, and the argument wasn’t even face-to-face. The mere fact of a gun in the house … Continue reading
NJ: State failed to show exigency for warrantless phone records search
Under New Jersey statute and constitution, cell phone records and CSLI required a showing of probable cause and a court order since 2010. Exigent circumstances were a recognized exception, and the state failed to show exigency here. State v. Manning, … Continue reading