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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 -
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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S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
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General (many free):
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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
Electronic Frontier Foundation
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: Standing
S.D.Fla.: Officer’s presence on driveway didn’t violate curtilage
Defendant showed a reasonable expectation of privacy in his grandmother’s house because he’d been living there for years, got mail there, and had been arrested there at least twice before: It was his residence. The driveway of the house was … Continue reading
FL: Def’s girlfriend had full access to his place to remove a knife she told police about
Defendant’s girlfriend retrieved a knife for the police and brought it out. She spent five nights a week there, and she happened to see it on this trip when she went in to let the dog out. She had complete … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: A cursory search of a cell phone of a person arrested for importation of drugs was permissible under the border search exception
A cursory search of a cell phone of a person arrested for importation of drugs was permissible under the border search exception. This was no deep forensic evaluation. Defendant also showed standing in the cell phone in his possession. “Specifically, … Continue reading
MO: Driver had standing because passenger was owner of car
Defendant was driving his girlfriend’s car, and she was the passenger. Stopped for a traffic offense, the officer found a warrant from another town, but advised that they didn’t want him arrested on it. The paperwork on the car was … Continue reading
TX: Common law and HIPAA creates a privacy interest in medical records; but GJ subpoena good enough
A hospital patient (here suspected of DUI) has a privacy interest in his medical records sufficient to give standing to challenge their acquisition by the state, but prior to HIPAA under state case law and bolstered by HIPAA. But, the … Continue reading
FL5: Def showed standing in duffle bag in car he was a passenger in
The trial court denied the motion to suppress without a hearing, and the state concedes error. Defendant showed enough standing in at least the search of his own bag in the car to get a hearing on the legality of … Continue reading
MS: Denial of privacy interest in shed behind rented mobile home meant no standing there
In a knock-and-talk, defendant denied any interest in a shed behind her mobile home. While the police were outside, she’d delivered a box to her boyfriend there. She consented to a search of the mobile home. That denial denies her … Continue reading
NY4: Driver has no standing in search of passenger’s person
Defendant has no standing to contest the search of the person of the passenger in his car. People v. Gibson, 2016 NY Slip Op 02193, 2016 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 2171 (4th Dept. March 25, 2016). There was justification for … Continue reading
TX1: Def carries burden of proof on standing; a mere footnote in a motion to suppress wasn’t enough
As a passenger, defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in computers found in the car because he did not attempt to prove they were his. The motion to suppress said they were his but he put on no proof. … Continue reading
NE: Def didn’t have standing in her husband’s cell phone when they lived apart
Defendant had no standing in photographs on her husband’s cell phone. They’d lived apart for five months, had separate accounts, and his was password protected. She had no right to it or the ability to exclude others; therefore, no standing. … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Def invited in by homeowners’ daughter without their knowledge had standing
Defendant had standing in the homeowner’s house where he’d been invited in by the daughter and spent the night many times. The protective sweep here was objectively reasonable. United States v. Nelson, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 28209 (D.Kan. March 3, … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Being a mere drug handler in a drug house doesn’t give standing
Defendant lacked standing in the place searched because he lived elsewhere, and he was there helping run drugs through the house. United States v. Espindola-Pineda, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24489 (E.D.N.C. Feb. 3, 2016), adopted 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24488 … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Corporate officer had no standing in corporation’s website police essentially hacked into
Defendant ran pmxrefinery.com which was under investigation for fraudulent invoices. The police contacted the website’s designer who volunteered the log-in credentials to the police without even being asked because she, too, suspected he was up to no good. Getting into … Continue reading
OH12: Having a key to mom’s apt doesn’t give son standing when he didn’t live there
Defendant kept drugs in his mother’s apartment, but he wasn’t her tenant nor was he an overnight guest. [Essentially he used her place as a stash house.] The mere fact he had a key to her apartment didn’t give him … Continue reading
FL4: State failed to prove inventory policy; def had standing in his own suitcase, albeit not the car
Defendant was neither the owner nor driver of the car he was riding in which had his suitcase in the trunk. He didn’t have standing as to a search of the car, but he did have standing as to the … Continue reading
PA: Whether the trash search leading to the search warrant was really on Wednesday not Thursday not material
Defendant’s trash was on an alleyway where all the other residents of that street put their trash, so it wasn’t on the curtilage. Based on the trash search, a warrant was sought for the house, but there was a mistake … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Request for a Franks hearing obviated by def’s lack of standing in place searched
To get a Franks hearing, it’s necessary to make an offer of proof, and defendant failed to do so. Defendant does not get a Franks hearing here because he also didn’t show that he’d have standing to make the challenge … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Motion to suppress denied for lack of proffer on standing
Defendant’s motion to suppress was denied because he didn’t even suggest in his papers he had standing in the vehicle he was only a passenger in. United States v. Londonio, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8472 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 13, 2016). There … Continue reading