July 2026 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Archives
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Recent Posts
- 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 -
Latest Slip Opinions:
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Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
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State courts (and some USDC opinions)
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
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General (many free):
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Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
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
Privacy Foundation
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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: Emergency / exigency
KS: Exigency permitted officers to enter home when DUI suspect needed to go inside
Defendant was detained in his driveway for DUI and potential violation of an order of protection, which were both jailable offenses. He wanted to go inside to put his kids to bed, and it was not unreasonable for officers to … Continue reading
IN: Seizure of clothes from professed crime victim was reasonable; turned out he was the suspect
When defendant’s clothes were seized by the police at the hospital, it was because he said he was a crime victim. When the police figured out he was lying and he was the shooter, they got a search warrant to … Continue reading
MA: Exigency for warrantless pursuit entry still applied 90 minutes after a murder
Warrantless police entry to arrest was with probable cause and exigent circumstances, although it was 90 minutes after a shooting. It was close enough to the shooting that the delay in getting a warrant could lead to flight or destruction … Continue reading
MI: Hot pursuit of suspected robber justified warrantless entry
Police received a call about a cash register till tapping theft or robbery, and defendant was identified as a suspect. He fled into an apartment building, and he was pursued. Police believed he broke into an apartment in flight. The … Continue reading
CA7: Warrantless entry to seize a mental health patient 9 hrs after Dr’s call wasn’t exigent, but qualified immunity applies
A police entry to seize a person and her guns 9 hours after a doctor’s call she was a danger to herself or others was kind of “exigent,” but nevertheless treated as a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Still, qualified … Continue reading
ND: Officer created exigency didn’t require suppression where there was independent source
Officers created their own exigency by sticking a foot in a motel room door, but the court finds the independent source doctrine saves the search because they already had enough information in the submission for the search warrant independent of … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Exigent circumstances entry and search has to be limited by the exigency
An exigent circumstances entry and search has to be limited by the exigency, and this one was. (In this case, there was a hearing on a motion to suppress in state court before, and then the case was indicted federally, … Continue reading
IN: A person has a right to refuse to answer a knock-and-talk; refusal not exigent circumstances
A person has a right to refuse to answer a knock-and-talk, and that refusal isn’t exigent circumstances. Here, the police came to the juvenile’s house because of a noise complaint, found a store shopping cart in the back of a … Continue reading
KS: Once emergency ended, entry should have too
An entry under the emergency doctrine where an unresponsive person needed no aid improperly evolved into a criminal investigation. Suppressed. Kansas cases should align with Brigham City, but the search here was still excessive. State v. Neighbors, 2014 Kan. LEXIS … Continue reading
TN: Opening car door of person asleep in car in parking lot was unreasonable
Because Tennessee hasn’t yet recognized a community caretaking search, an officer opening a car door of somebody apparently asleep behind the wheel at night in a parking lot was unreasonable. There was no report of a “person in peril” or … Continue reading
CA6: No standing in a carjacked car; EMS didn’t seize passed out suspect
Defendant had no standing in a stolen car. He carjacked it five days earlier, and he was found unconscious in it sitting at the gas pumps of a convenience store. EMS arrived, and he revived. He wasn’t really “seized” by … Continue reading
WA: Being an MMJ patient doesn’t negate PC for SW for grow operation
Whether the target of a search is a medical marijuana patient is an affirmative defense at trial. Therefore, it doesn’t factor into the probable cause determination. State v. Reis, 2014 Wash. App. LEXIS 759 (March 31, 2014). Defendant was arrested … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: Court applies Jardines to entry to curtilage on 911 call and finds it reasonable
The officer responding to a 911 call of a shirtless man in dreds swinging a stick in February could enter defendant’s gate to talk to him. Inside the gate, it appeared defendant was seriously high on something and had white … Continue reading
MA: Emergency aid exception applies to animals in distress
The emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement applies to life-threatening emergencies involving animals. The legislature has made it clear that animal abuse is against the law. “In addition to promoting life-saving measures, the ability to render such assistance vindicates … Continue reading
TN: 911 shooting call was exigency that included EMTs and CSIs
911 call about a shooting at 1:23 am, and “He’s in here” when they arrive justifies an emergency entry. [Certainly sounds like consent, too.] The real issue, however, is whether that also includes EMTs who follow and CSIs, and the … Continue reading