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- MD: While protective sweep information made it into SW affidavit, there was PC without it
- N.D.Ga.: A Customs forensic search of a cell phone away from the border was still a border search
- CA6: State officer’s arrest for violation of federal MJ law likely wouldn’t violate 4A
- D.N.M.: Shared driveway outside of fence and gate was not curtilage
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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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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
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)
ACLU on privacy
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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: Standing
N.D.Iowa: Use of fictitious name on package doesn’t deny standing
A person using a fictitious name to send or receive a package still has standing in the package, collecting cases on both sides. In this case, there was reasonable suspicion to divert the package in transit. United States v. Yodprasit, … Continue reading
TX14: Client had standing to object to seizure of her files from her attorney’s office for his misapplication of her fee into trust account
A search warrant was executed on a divorce lawyer’s office for some client files after a $75,000 retainer was paid into the IOLTA account which had a -$49,000 balance. The district court erred in holding the client had no standing … Continue reading
TX8: Def has no standing to complain of writ of attachment on a witness
“[W]e conclude that Fernandez made no showing at trial of an invasion of his own rights to establish he had standing to complain of the State’s use of the writ of attachment to secure the attendance for trial of complaining … Continue reading
CA1: Def lacked standing to challenge search of a shed actually done under authority of bail condition
Defendant was stopped by officers with “beyond” reasonable suspicion he was dealing drugs. The stop was not unreasonably long, and defendant incriminated himself pre-Miranda. Defendant lacked standing to challenge the search of a shed. The justification for the search was … Continue reading
OH: Lack of RS for stop or knowledge of an arrest warrant denies state reliance on Strieff for outstanding warrant
Defendant was sitting in a car near a drug house doing nothing wrong. Police accosted him under the pretext there might be a warrant for him. It turned out there was. Even applying Strieff, the court concludes that Strieff was … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Furtive movement as car was stopping was RS
Defendant’s furtive movement as car stopped was reasonable suspicion. United States v. Young, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21367 (W.D. Mo. Jan. 22, 2020). Comparing numbers from search warrant obtained text and call history and CSLI for defendant’s phone provided probable … Continue reading
OH8: Trial strategy was that the drugs weren’t def’s; a motion to suppress would have to argue standing; no IAC
Pursuing a motion to suppress would have been contrary to trial strategy that it wasn’t his stuff. “In overruling the first assignment of error, on ineffective assistance of trial counsel for failing to move to suppress, this court noted that … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Brendlin standing of a passenger to challenge a stop doesn’t translate into standing to also challenge the search
Brendlin standing of a passenger to challenge a stop doesn’t translate into standing to also challenge the search. Defendant still has to show a reasonable expectation of privacy in the vehicle. “The Defendant attempts to establish standing by arguing that, … Continue reading
CO: State can assert new grounds to support search after remand
After a remand, the state is free to raise new grounds to support the search. People v. Tallent, 2020 COA 14, 2020 Colo. App. LEXIS 127 (Jan. 30, 2020). “A bare assertion of authorization from a third party along with … Continue reading
CA9: 4A standing isn’t jurisdictional, so it doesn’t have to be decided
Standing for Fourth Amendment purposes is not jurisdictional, so the court can consider the merits instead. United States v. Spadafore, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 2922 (9th Cir. Jan. 28, 2020). The legality of the search warrant for defendant’s car is … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Def lacked standing in apts he owned and rented to relatives
Defendant lacked standing to contest the search of an apartment building he owned but rented the units out to relatives. The CI, however, puts the defendant in one of the apartments with cocaine and a firearm ten days before the … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: Def had no standing to complain of illegal “arrest” of a corporation
Defendant has no standing to complain of the alleged illegal arrest of a corporation, even if it could be. United States v. Cargill, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9581 (N.D.Ala. Jan. 21, 2020). “All together, the Defendant’s resemblance to Jose Corpus, … Continue reading
OH6: Effort to distance oneself from place searched led to lack of standing
Appellant’s challenge to the search warrant was to one in the trial court and then tried to expand the issue on appeal. Moreover, she tried to distance herself from the places to be searched to the point she had no … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Example of distancing the client from drugs but maintaining standing
Like walking a tightrope: United States v. Thorne, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4291 (D.D.C. Jan. 10, 2020):
CA8: Unauthorized driver of a rental car, a person close to the renter, wasn’t strawman and had standing
Defendant was in a rental car but wasn’t an authorized driver. Nothing suggests a strawman situation, and defendant and the renter had a longstanding relationship. The court finds standing and refuses to entertain overruling prior authority because it isn’t inconsistent … Continue reading
OH: State has burden to plead lack of standing in response to a motion to suppress and can’t remain silent without waiving
When defendant files a motion to suppress and the state questions standing, it has the burden of going forward to at least raise the issue so defendant can meet it. Without doing so in the trial court, the state waives … Continue reading
CA8 has a pole camera case involving the front door but finds it harmless, if even a 4A violation
Defendant in a child pornography case had a pole camera set up across the street from his house to see who was going in. He challenges the surveillance, but the court finds, if error, it’s harmless on the record as … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Officers came to the door with PC but no warrant; def’s shutting door and moving around inside led officers to believe he was destroying evidence, and entry was justified
When officers came to the door with probable cause for the presence of marijuana, defendant’s shutting the door and moving about inside for up to 90 seconds created apprehension that he was destroying evidence. Also, there was at least reasonable … Continue reading