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- CA11: Yahoo not a govt actor in scanning emails for CSAM
- Treatise 25% off through 7/8
- SCOTUS: Geofence warrants governed by Carpenter and are a search; remanded for resolution of issues (interesting take on third party doctrine, too)
- The Guardian: ‘It’s dangerous and it’s going to erode trust’: redesign of US government websites stokes surveillance fears
- W.D.N.Y.: Possibility of co-conspirators in mass murder justified emergency disclosure request to Apple, Verizon, and Facebook
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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)
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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
M.D.Fla.: Def was a potential suspect in a series of robberies, and he gave cause for an exigent circumstances into a hotel room after he kicked in the door; plain view sustained
An Hispanic male wearing somewhat distinctive clothing committed four robberies around Tampa. Surveillance video put a vehicle at one of the robberies, and officers found it and surveilled it at a motel parking lot. A couple was around the vehicle … Continue reading
WI: Exigency permitted warrantless blood draw of apparent heroin OD, even though he was given antidote
Officers and paramedics were called by friends to a man not breathing in a house. Defendant was found and it had signs of a drug overdose. His blood was drawn to test it, and he was given an injection of … Continue reading
IA: 911 hang up call justified a police walk through even though occupants said everything was fine
Police received a 911 hang up call, and an officer was dispatched. Outside the home, the smell of burning marijuana was strong. The officer came to the door, was assured everything was alright, but he said he had to check … Continue reading
ME: Four failed breath tests in 90 min was exigency for warrantless blood draw
The state showed exigent circumstances for a warrantless blood draw. The officer took defendant to a nearby police station where he had after hours access to get a breath sample, but the machine wasn’t working and he didn’t know it. … Continue reading
TN: Crime scene investigators arrived right behind the police to a shooting call; crime scene search was reasonable under Mincey
Police received a call to a shooting, and people at the scene were shouting “Officer Shaffer pulled into the driveway and blocked the car so that it could not leave. The driver of the car stopped, got out, and yelled … Continue reading
OH6: A 911 call of gunshots in an apartment and blood seen on a man’s shirt was exigency
A 911 call of gunshots in an apartment and blood seen on a man’s shirt was exigency. “In this case, the facts establish that Toledo police officers responded to a 911 call wherein the caller said that someone was yelling … Continue reading
TN: Crime scene personnel permitted to enter under initial exigency of a beating with a crowbar
Crime scene personnel were responding to the initial call of a potential murder in the house, and they were all permitted in by the initial exigency. State v. Hutchison, 2016 Tenn. LEXIS 1 (Jan. 14, 2016):
OH12: A 911 butt call linked to defendant’s address justifies a police response to the house to at least check
A 911 butt call linked to defendant’s address justifies a police response to the house to at least check on the call. It’s the same as a 911 hangup call which also justifies a response. State v. Jones, 2016-Ohio-67, 2016 … Continue reading
CA11: Hot pursuit permitted entry onto curtilage
The officer here was in hot pursuit of a car suspected of being the car taken in a carjacking. Finding it in the driveway of a house, the officer could enter the curtilage to ask about it. United States v. … Continue reading
OR: Hyperventilating def was exigency for dispensing with blood draw warrant as time wore on
Because the warrant process [despite Oregon’s use of telephonic warrants] would take 2½ hours, there was exigency for defendant’s blood draw in the hospital. Moreover, defendant was hyperventilating when he was stopped, and they didn’t know whether he was faking … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Emergency entry on domestic call was unjustified where caller was outside uninjured
On a domestic battery call, when the police arrived one person was outside, having run out yelling “psycho” and the other was standing in the window of a bedroom. Police entry into the apartment was not justified by exigency because … Continue reading
Cal.5th: Schmerber applies pre-McNeely and def’s statement he was withdrawing from meth was exigency for a blood draw
Schmerber not McNeely was the law at the time of the blood draw here, and Davis means that Schmerber applies. Here, defendant said to a nurse he was withdrawing from methamphetamine and that reasonably was exigency. People v. Jimenez, 2015 … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: Fifth Amendment “public safety exception” creates exigency for protective sweep for weapon in hands of felon
The Fifth Amendment “public safety exception” for statements about firearms can also create exigent circumstances for a protective sweep for the gun. Defendant had a second degree murder warrant issued for him in 2015 for a 2008 murder in Buffalo. … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Entry in a homicide investigation was by consent; def was seen and he ducked into a bedroom, and exigency permitted bedroom entry
“Here, both probable cause and exigent circumstances justified the First Search. At the time law enforcement arrived at the house, police had probable cause to arrest Joseph for homicide and armed robbery based upon the surviving victim’s and co-defendant’s identification … Continue reading
NY2: When def was removed from apartment building without gun he carried in, reentry to retrieve it was unreasonable
Officer saw defendant in the middle of the street talking irately on his cell phone. They approached and he ran. When he was running, they could see a gun in his belt. They followed to his apartment. The ESU was … Continue reading
TX2: Passenger puking in car was not an exigent circumstance; she was not in danger
The fact defendant’s passenger had puked in the car was not an exigency requiring police action. There was no evidence she was a danger to herself or others. They were already near hospitals. Byram v. State, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS … Continue reading