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- Cal.6: Robbery scheme that hadn’t yet resulted in gunfire wasn’t exigency for real time ping
- 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
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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)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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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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
CO: While defendant was not an authorized driver of a rental car, she had standing in her own packages in the car
Although defendant was not an authorized driver of the rental car stopped by police for a traffic violation, defendant had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the gift-wrapped packages in that car, which she continually asserted were hers and were … Continue reading
OH9: Officers walking up on both sides of a parked vehicle wasn’t a “stop”
Two officers walked up on an already parked vehicle, one on each side. The officer testified that he’d be “pretty upset” if the defendant drove off, but he was actually free to leave. Therefore, it was not a stop, and … Continue reading
GA: The mere presence of some papers of the defendant in the place searched doesn’t confer standing
The mere presence of some papers of the defendant in the place searched doesn’t confer standing. There was no testimony that he was otherwise connected to the property as owner, lessee, or guest. “The mere presence of miscellaneous papers bearing … Continue reading
CA7: Def’s car with his phone in it parked repeatedly outside a house supported PC to search that place
The repeated presence of defendant’s car and cell phone at the place searched under the warrant added to the probable cause that that was a place where evidence could be found. It wasn’t misleading to the USMJ to not tell … Continue reading
CA7: A defendant violating parole doesn’t lack all standing just because he crosses a state line violating his parole
A defendant violating parole doesn’t lack all standing just because he crosses a state line violating his parole. United States v. Walton, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 15570 (7th Cir. August 13, 2014):
E.D.Mich.: Standing shown in a borrowed rental car
Standing found under the totality of the circumstances in a borrowed rented car, but then the defendant looses on the merits because there was probable cause. United States v. Warren, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 111690 (E.D. Mich. August 13, 2014): … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: Passenger had standing: girlfriend’s car, and they were on vacation together
Defendant’s girlfriend owned the car, and they were traveling together on vacation. Given all the facts, this passenger had standing and a reasonable expectation of privacy that society would recognize and could exclude others from the car. United States v. … Continue reading
CA6: No RS for a frisk; gov’t waived standing in DC and can’t argue it on appeal
There was a basis for the stop, but there was none for a frisk, and the district court erred in concluding otherwise. Also, the government waive a standing argument in the district court and it can’t raise it on appeal. … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Police observation of a controlled buy is justification for a traffic stop
Police observation of a controlled buy is justification for a traffic stop. United States v. Cooper, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105617 (N.D. Cal. July 31, 2014).* D.C. helped set up defendant’s computer system, and defendant was downloading child pornography. The … Continue reading
D.N.J.: Merely holding a camera bag getting into a car doesn’t give standing when the car was later stopped without some ownership interest
Defendant was seen holding a blue camera bag as he entered a car that was later stopped. Holding the bag then doesn’t give standing because he later did not assert an ownership interest in it. United States v. Valle-Irizarry, 2014 … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Drug and firearm SW turned up surveillance system; looking at images on camera was reasonable; CP found
Officers had a drug and firearms search warrant, and found a surveillance system inside with a “control room.” They looked on the camera screen and immediately saw child pornography. They obtained a second warrant for that. The view of the … Continue reading
CA11: Defendant lacked standing on the curtilage of a house he was often a guest in when he was fleeing police and stopped in front yard
Defendant was riding a bicycle on the wrong side of the street, and the police recognized him from prior investigations, so they followed and attempted to stop him. He pedelled faster and went to house and entered a gate to … Continue reading
OH9: Mistake of law on where car needed to stop justified suppressing the stop
Officer’s mistake of law that a driver had to stop only at a stop line and not before made the stop unreasonable. State v. Drushal, 2014-Ohio-3088, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS 3020 (9th Dist. July 14, 2014).* [Will Heien v. North … Continue reading