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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)
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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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"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: Automobile exception
CA3: No time requirement of when a bag seized from a vehicle under the automobile exception may be searched
There is no temporal requirement of when a bag seized from a vehicle under the automobile exception may be searched. Here, the government waived the argument that a fugitive for FTA in federal court after conviction never has standing while … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: 2012 download of cell phone two hours after arrest not search incident; Davis inapplicable
Two defendants, two cell phones searched in March 2012. One on parole, one not. The parole search of the cell phone is valid. The other, however, wasn’t a search incident of the cell phone; it was downloaded two hours after … Continue reading
CA11: Tasering armed man out of a tree where he broke his back entitled to QI
Plaintiff was drunk in a tree with a gun after an altercation at a party. The police came and he refused to some down. He was Tasered twice, the second time falling headfirst eight feet and becoming a paraplegic. The … Continue reading
NMI: Search of cigarette pack reasonable in SI to look for weapon
Defendant was on a moped with another, and they were stopped at a sobriety checkpoint. The registration was years out of date, and they were directed aside for a more intense review. Defendant’s cigarette pack aroused suspicion because of the … Continue reading
W.D.Wis.: Parole absconder hiding in hotel room of another had no standing
Defendant was a guest of a guest in a hotel room, and he was an absconder from supervision and had committed a new crime and was on the run. The question of guest standing is discussed at length, and there’s … Continue reading
NM: Stop for waving a gun permits search of trunk
Officers received a call of a person pointing a long gun from a car, and they found the car and stopped it. The stop permitted a search of the trunk as well under the automobile exception. State v. Leticia T., … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: At least some limited privacy interests in a car
While this person lost his suppression motion, at least the court recognized there is some privacy interest in an automobile. United States v. Long, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75588 n.2 (W.D. Mo. May 15, 2014): The stop of an individual … Continue reading
KY: Shot fired from car in flight reason for search of car; no violation of Gant
Officers could perform a search incident of defendant’s vehicle because a shot was fired from it in flight. This was not a violation of Gant. The search could also be justified by inventory. Hinchey v. Commonwealth, 2014 Ky. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
OR: Search of home requires more than just PC; there must be a warrant or warrant exception
Defendant argued the search of her bedroom was without consent, therefore invalid. The trial court found probable cause and sustained the search. Reversed: Without an exception to the warrant requirement, the search was invalid, and the state argues none. State … Continue reading
PA declines to have broader state constitutional rights under the automobile exception
Pennsylvania declines to have broader state constitutional rights under the automobile exception. (No sign it was going to before.) Commonwealth v. Gary, 2014 Pa. LEXIS 1119 (April 29, 2014) (concurrence; dissent):
KY: Search incident to arrest could precede the arrest
The CI here was getting calls from the defendant about defendant selling him drugs, so he called the police to set him up. He was wired and took marked money. The seizure of the pill bottle off defendant was with … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Court doesn’t believe officer smelled marijuana; car search of computer and cell phone suppressed
The district judge disbelieves that the officer smelled marijuana, and suppresses the search of defendant’s car. The officer felt something was up but couldn’t articulate it. Inevitable discovery by inventory fails because there was no true inventory–no inventory was produced. … Continue reading
FL1: No standing in disclaimed cell phone seized from own house
Defendant didn’t have standing to contest the seizure of cell phones she expressly disclaimed ownership in just because they were taken out of her house. State v. Fosmire, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 5739 (Fla. 1st DCA April 22, 2014).* Defense … Continue reading
CT declines to require warrant for closed containers under automobile exception
CT declines to require separate warrant requirement for containers under the automobile exception under its state constitution. Virtually all states are in accord under their state constitutions. State v. Williams, 2014 Conn. LEXIS 104 (April 29, 2014):