Archives
-
Recent Posts
- 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
-
Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
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)
-
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)
-
“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
M.D.Fla.: Borrower of a car has standing to challenge its search
Following cases from other circuits, since this circuit hasn’t ruled, the borrower of a car has standing to challenge its search. The traffic stop was justified, and reasonable suspicion developed thereafter. United States v. Baker, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73856 … Continue reading
CA3: Social guest without belongings on premises for day lacked standing; leaving open standing question for better facts later
Defendant was on the premises of another when the search occurred, but he was a social guest at the moment, and not an overnight guest with stuff there. The case law grants higher standing to an overnight guest. While it … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Def’s failure to respond to gov’t’s questioning his standing was waiver
Defendant has the burden of establishing standing. At the hearing, the government contested standing, and defendant didn’t respond or brief it. Therefore, standing was waived. United States v. Tolbert, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71047 (N.D.Ga. April 30, 2015).* Probable cause … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Distancing oneself from ownership and control over the vehicle searched “effectively has eviscerated his ability to challenge the warrantless search of it.”
Defendant’s distancing himself from ownership and control of the vehicle searched by the government “effectively has eviscerated his ability to challenge the warrantless search of it.” He has no standing to suppress what his wife had. United States v. King, … Continue reading
D.Utah: Defendant doctor who sold 95% of practice had no standing in the records of the clinic
The search warrant here was for medical records of a clinic and in storage. The defendant doctor who filed the motion to suppress sold the clinic and kept a 5% share. Records were in storage, too. The court concludes that … Continue reading
NJ: No per se rule on no standing in a stolen vehicle; knowledge required
The court declines to adopt a per se rule that occupying a stolen vehicle means no standing. The defendant’s knowledge is integral to that question, and the case is remanded for that finding. State v. Taylor, 2015 N.J. Super. LEXIS … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Giving cell phone to another for use in drug deals is waiver of reasonable expectation of privacy
Giving one’s cell phone over to another to use for drug dealing was a loss of any reasonable expectation of privacy in it. United States v. Brewer, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 62260 (M.D.Pa. May 12, 2015):
CA3: Three connected cases
When the officer went to an apartment in response to a shots fired call, and defendant came running out knocking the officer over, that was reasonable suspicion to detain him. The crack in his hand was dropped. United States v. … Continue reading
D.Md.: When a business is in receivership, the receiver is the one with standing
Defendant lacked standing because the receiver of the business was the only one with standing. United States v. Cohen, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60840 (D. Md. May 7, 2015) (Treatise § 12.52 n.1). A drug dog’s alert on the passenger … Continue reading
TX7: Riley applied to cell phone search incident where it came down between trial and appeal
Search incident cannot support a cell phone search under Riley. Riley came down between trial and appeal, so it applies here because the issue was preserved. Carter v. State, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 4271 (Tex. App. – Amarillo April 27, … Continue reading
D.Mass.: USPS tracks persons tracking suspicious packages by their IP addresses
This mere bailee didn’t have any right to control the package that was shipped, and he thus didn’t have standing to challenge its search, at least recognizing that some bailees might with better facts. More importantly, the government tracked the … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: Merely hiding something in a car doesn’t create standing
Defendant was accused of breaking into USPS mailboxes and stealing mail. He failed to show standing in the car he was stopped in. He claimed to own it, having just bought it from a guy whose name he didn’t know, … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: There is standing in a borrowed cell phone; no justification here for search
Defendant’s denial of ownership of a cell phone in his car was not determinative of his standing to challenge its search. Actually, he was loaned the phone because his was broken, and he was legitimately in possession. The question posed … Continue reading
NC: If def was an innocent owner of a stolen cell phone, he’d have standing; remanded because no findings on that
Defendant had a cell phone removed from him in a search incident that was searched without a warrant. It was determined that the phone was stolen. Defendant asserted an innocent owner defense that the trial court did not resolve, and, … Continue reading
OH12: If you’re home with meth out back, don’t leave the TV on loud and ignore the knock-and-talk
The officer goes to the front door to do a knock-and-talk about methamphetamine production and the front window was open and the TV was on “really loud.” When nobody answered the door, it was reasonable to go to the back … Continue reading
ID erroneously puts burden of proof on driver in DL suspension cases to prove stop was not valid
In DL suspensions in Idaho, the burden is on the driver to show a lack of justification for the stop, not on the state to prove that it was valid. “The hearing officer properly concluded that Wernecke failed to prove … Continue reading
D.Utah: A commercial vehicle inspector without state arrest authority could still detain under the Fourth Amendment
Defendant stopped his truck at a weigh station, and a computer check was run on him. It turned out there was an order of protection between him and his passenger, a minor. The commercial vehicle inspector could detain him under … Continue reading
CT: No guest standing in grow operation shown by defendant’s slim connection to property
Defendant did not show his own reasonable expectation of privacy in a grow operation he was arrested at in Northeast Connecticut out in the woods. The property belonged to another person, and defendant lived two hours away. There was some … Continue reading
KS: Social guest has standing in curtilage, not following N.D.Okla
Curtilage is defined by either or both the Dunn factors and Jardines. Here, the residential property was fairly large, and the backyard was found to be curtilage in the trial court but the court of appeals disagreed in an unpublished … Continue reading