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- CA6: State officer’s arrest for violation of federal MJ law likely wouldn’t violate 4A
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- VI: Smell of MJ no longer PC in VI since legalization
- Reason: 3 Charlotte Cops Resign After Group Chat Reveals Competition To Arrest the Most Black People
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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
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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
D.Mass.: Four-month delay in searching lawfully seized cell phone here not unreasonable
Four month delay in searching cell phones after lawfully seizing them was not unreasonable. “Defendant relies primarily on United States v. Smith, a Second Circuit case. … There, in assessing whether a thirty-one day delay between police seizing a tablet … Continue reading
D.Minn.: While def was a passenger in a van, it was transporting his stuff, so he had standing
Defendant was a passenger in a van owned by a family member and transporting his stuff. He had standing to challenge the stop and detention. The stop was admittedly valid, and the extension of 15 minutes was based on reasonable … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: The fact officers planned to stop def doesn’t mean they weren’t credible when they said he committed a traffic violation to justify it
Just because officers planned to stop defendant if they had a traffic offense to justify it doesn’t mean that they weren’t credible when they testified there was a traffic violation. United States v. Murphy, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 189184 (S.D. … Continue reading
WA: Arrest and search for a probation violation of a conviction that could have been sealed but wasn’t yet was valid
While defendant’s drug conviction could have been sealed and thus not supported his probation violation arrest, it hadn’t been yet, and the arrest was still valid. State v. Balles, 2024 Wash. App. LEXIS 1937 (Sep. 27, 2024). “Having reviewed [the … Continue reading
N.D.Tex.: GFE applies, but PC, too
The affidavit for the warrant here is more than “bare bones” so the good faith exception applies. “Even if the good-faith exception did not apply, the warrant is still valid because it is supported by probable cause.” United States v. … Continue reading
D.Minn.: “Cars on the property” was particular enough for SW
“Cars on the property” was particular enough for the search warrant for defendant’s property. United States v. Stucky, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 166040 (D. Minn. Sep. 16, 2024). Plaintiff inmate stated enough to proceed that he was subjected to harassing … Continue reading
TX2: Overnight guest staying with a registered hotel guest has standing over the room
“[A]n overnight guest of a registered hotel guest shares the registered guest’s reasonable expectation of privacy in the hotel room and thus has standing to contest the search.” Fitzgerald v. State, 2024 Tex. App. LEXIS 6161 n.11 (Tex. App. — … Continue reading
N.D.Miss.: Def’s arguments against the PC showing in the SW go more toward a trial defense, not PC
Probable cause and good faith arguments about three images of child pornography in the affidavit out of 121 total, were more toward a defense of the charge and do not undermine probable cause. United States v. Murphy, 2024 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
CA4: Dist.Ct.’s denial of injunction against taint team search protocol not appealable
The target of a search sought District Court intervention over a taint team’s search protocol, and it denied an injunction. There was no appellate jurisdiction to take that issue up. In re Search Warrants Issued February 18, 2022 (United States … Continue reading
IL: Invited guest in home can refuse contact with police at door without violating law
As an invited guest into the home, defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy and right to refuse contact with the police at the door without violating the law. People v. Jones, 2024 IL App (1st) 221555, 2024 Ill. App. … Continue reading
CA11: No standing in geofence warrant for girlfriend’s cell phone location
Defendant lacks standing to challenge a geofence warrant directed at his girlfriend’s cell phone. “Davis lacks Fourth Amendment standing to challenge the geofence warrant because the search did not disclose any information about the data on his own electronic device, … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Def had standing to challenge inventory but not the stop
“In sum, the Court finds that the failure to comply with each of these clearly-written standardized procedures contributes to a finding that the purported inventory search was improperly conducted.” Also, defendant didn’t have standing to challenge the stop of the … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Def didn’t show he was driving overdue rented car with anyone’s permission
Defendant had no standing in the rented car he was driving. It was rented by another person, and it had not been timely returned. He didn’t show that he was driving with anyone’s permission. United States v. Manning, 2024 U.S. … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: No standing in ALPR info of car def didn’t drive
Defendant’s motion to suppress automated license plate reader (ALPR) data on the family car that he didn’t drive is denied for lack of standing. Also, the holder of the information was a third-party contractor. United States v. Butler, 2024 U.S. … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Passenger putting something under the seat shows no REP
A passenger putting something under the seat when in a car manifests no reasonable expectation of privacy and thus no standing. United States v. Dunnell, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124927 (D. Mass. July 16, 2024). (Apparently one needs to keep … Continue reading
CA11: No co-conspirator standing in two cars
Here there were two vehicles stopped. Defendant was a passenger in one, and he had no standing in either merely being a co-conspirator to a drug operation. United States v. Lewis, 2024 U.S. App. LEXIS 16803 (11th Cir. July 10, … Continue reading
IN: No standing to challenge arrest of another person
Defendant had no standing to contest the arrest of another person that led to his arrest under either the Fourth Amendment or the state constitution. Zuniga v. State, 2024 Ind. App. LEXIS 196 (July 8, 2024). “Next, Windham says that … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Driving another person’s car some other times doesn’t give standing
Merely driving another person’s car some doesn’t give standing. “Defendant (like the defendants in Rakas) has neither a property nor possessory interest in the vehicle and thus lacks standing to challenge the search of it. He did not have a … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: State knock-and-announce statute, if it applies at all, doesn’t confer standing on an alleged guest
Plaintiff said she was an overnight guest at the house searched and thus had standing, except that was never proved. “None of those facts are present here, as there is no record evidence showing that James had personal belongings in … Continue reading