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- USA Today: Cell phone SW for cause of crash
- Treatise on sale to 11/1
- 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
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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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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
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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: Standing
CA11: Not calling def at suppression hearing was [a founded] strategy decision
Defense counsel’s decision not to call the defendant or other witnesses at a suppression hearing was a strategy decision not subject to second guessing except in extraordinary circumstances. Defense counsel concluded they lacked credibility. Here, defendant testified at trial to … Continue reading
D.Conn.: No per se standing in a cell phone seized off your person; prove it’s yours
Defendant made no attempt to show standing in the cell phone of another person that was lawfully seized incident to his arrest and in his pocket. He needed his own testimony or that of another to establish it. United States … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: CSLI obtained 7 years before Carpenter was in good faith
Defendant was tried in 2011. He was scheduled to be sentenced in 2018. He filed a motion to reopen the suppression hearing of his CSLI obtained under the SCA because of Carpenter. Denied; good faith exception applies. United States v. … Continue reading
LA1: Changing suppression issue on appeal from lack of PC to arrest to an unreasonable search is waiver of the issue
Defendant’s motion changed from probable cause to arrest to whether there was an unreasonable search and seizure between the suppression hearing and the appeal. Thus, the issue for appeal wasn’t presented to the trial court, so it’s not preserved for … Continue reading
Cal.4th: Retroactive conversion of felony MJ conviction to civil infraction didn’t require lawfully collected DNA be purged from database
California’s retroactive conversion of personal use felony marijuana convictions to civil infractions does not warrant removal of defendant’s DNA from the system. People v. Laird, 2018 Cal. App. LEXIS 841 (4th Dist. Aug. 30, 2018), ordered published Sep. 21, 2018. … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Def who shipped FedEx packages under an alias had no standing to contest a search in transit since it was impossible for him to claim them
Defendant shipped packages by Federal Express using his deceased brother’s name as an alias. He had no standing to contest the search of the packages at the Greensboro NC hub. He had no ability to retrieve the packages in transit … Continue reading
PA: The automobile exception doesn’t apply in def’s own driveway; PA SCt held that before Collins
The police had a defective search warrant to bring them to defendant’s house to search the car in the driveway. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held the year before Collins v. Virginia that the automobile exception didn’t apply in one’s driveway, … Continue reading
TN: Homeless urban camper trespassing in taking over another homeless camp tent had no standing
Defendant found an abandoned tent in a homeless campsite. The owner of the property was complaining to the police about homeless living there. “The record reflects that the Defendant and the others happened upon the tent and began using it … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Def has to show standing, and he can’t rely on affidavit for SW to do it
Defendant moved to suppress a Facebook search warrant for an account ostensibly in his name. A total of ten Facebook warrants were issued. Defendant did not file an affidavit claiming the Facebook account was his, and he cannot rely on … Continue reading
SC: GPS on a probationer has to be properly authenticated, and PO isn’t the way
Defendant was accused of robbing a Zaxby’s restaurant with a probationer wearing a GPS monitor. The probationer pled. Defendant went to trial, and the probation officer was used to authenticate the GPS information. It was inadequate. However, the court applies … Continue reading
NC: CI merely located defendant; officers already had PC, so no disclosure of CI’s identity
Officers merely used the CI to locate the defendant, not for the probable cause to search, so no reason to disclose the CI is shown. State v. Heard, 2018 N.C. App. LEXIS 828 (Aug. 24, 2018). The dash cam video … Continue reading
D.Conn.: Def didn’t provide an affidavit of his standing, but his offer of proof and then actual proof showed it
Defendant claimed for trial that while he was a visitor at the premises searched under the warrant, he still had standing because he was a guest there and a paying tenant at times. He didn’t provide an affidavit, but he … Continue reading
CA9: Entry in violation of an order of protection denies def standing
A person on premises in violation of an order of protection, even with an invitation, has no standing to challenge police action there. As long ago as 1979, the Ninth Circuit held it was frivolous for a trespasser to argue … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Disavowal of ownership of residence didn’t deny def standing; he still had some interest in house he was in
Although defendant disavowed his control over the residence, the court finds he has standing anyway because he clearly stayed there and moved about the home like he belonged there: “Although defendant repeatedly stated that he did not live at the … Continue reading
CA3: The govt’s mere attribution of a cell phone to def doesn’t give him standing
Defendant couldn’t show standing in the cell phones that were searched. “ On appeal, Gatson points to the Government’s attribution of Phone 1 to him as evidence of his standing to make a claim. However, this attribution by the Government … Continue reading
CA3 applies Davis GFE to Byrd on remand, and he loses
On remand from Byrd v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1518, 200 L. Ed. 2d 805 (May 14, 2018), the Third Circuit applies the good faith exception to standing because the law at the time in the circuit was that … Continue reading
D.Md.: Regular visitor with run of the house who never spent the night didn’t have standing
Defendant was a regular visitor at the place searched, but he did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in it. He was a regular social visitor about once a week for three years and had free run of the … Continue reading
M.D.Tenn.: Def’s continual distancing himself in pleadings and at hearing from the cell phone at issue shows no standing
Defendant went to great lengths to distance himself from telephone 3 that was tracked in the suppression motion and hearing. Therefore, he has no standing to challenge the collection of CSLI on it. Carpenter and Byrd do not, as defendant … Continue reading
CA4: Def who pled standing gets benefit of Byrd for standing in his rental car but loses on RS
Defendant preserved his Byrd argument that he had standing in the rental car, and he gets the benefit of it. On the merits, the officer had reasonable suspicion: Swisher Sweets cigars, sandwich bags without associated stuff, and just sprayed with … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Pre-Carpenter CSLI obtained without search warrant is admissible under GFE
Pre-Carpenter CSLI obtained without search warrant is admissible under Davis good faith exception. United States v. Hearst, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 126005 (N.D. Ga. July 3, 2018), adopted 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 125791 (N.D. Ga. July 27, 2018). The search … Continue reading