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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com / The Book
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-25,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 500,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 47,000 posts since 2003 (30,000+ on WordPress as of 12/31/24) -
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Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
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Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
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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
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LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
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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
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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)
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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) -
“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] -
“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
---Pepé Le Pew -
"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: Private search
CA7: No property damage claim from executing SW
Relying on Johnson v. Manitowoc County, 635 F.3d 331 (7th Cir. 2011), plaintiff’s claim for property damage from executing a search warrant is foreclosed. Hadley v. City of South Bend, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 26040 (7th Cir. Oct. 7, 2025). … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Southwest employee wasn’t acting as govt agent in inventorying a suitcase and finding drugs
Defendant tried to retrieve a suitcase from Southwest Airlines in Omaha while not having been on a flight or having a claim check. The suspected bag arrived on the next flight from Phoenix, and it was taken by a SWA … Continue reading
CA1: Video of SW execution sufficiently authenticated for trial
The video of execution of the search warrant was sufficiently authenticated to be admissible at trial despite coming in through a witness other than the one who took it. United States v. Reyes-Rosario, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 16316 (1st Cir. … Continue reading
CA2: Def’s GF using passcode to open his phone in presence of police wasn’t a governmental search
In a child pornography case, defendant’s girlfriend was not acting as an agent of the police when she used his passcode to open his phone in the presence of an officer. United States v. Hines, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 14336 … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Only “some temporal reference” is required to avoid staleness
The affidavit for search warrant shows sufficient references to recent time to show it was not stale. “Put plainly, the Sixth Circuit does not require a search warrant affidavit to include the temporal specificity which Hardaway suggests is necessary. Rather, … Continue reading
D.Alaska: Objection to only part of USMJ’s R&R is waiver of rest
Objection to the USMJ’s probable cause finding but not application of the good faith exception is waiver on the latter. United States v. Baldwin, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 106406 (D. Alaska June 4, 2025). The legality of the protective sweep … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Casting state court’s failure to follow 4A precedent more closely as a due process violation still Stone barred
2254 petitioner’s due process claim that the state court denied due process by not following precedent was barred by Stone. Allen v. Warden, SE. Corr. Inst., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 104131 (S.D. Ohio June 2, 2025). Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Visitor getting high and passing out on couch doesn’t give standing to challenge search of premises
Defendant got high and fell asleep on the couch, and he was there when the raid occurred. He didn’t have standing. United States v. Taylor, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103820 (N.D. Ohio June 2, 2025). The government’s motion to reconsider … Continue reading
CA3: Plain feel of apparent drugs supported seizure from def’s pocket
Defendant doesn’t challenge the stop or the frisk, just the seizure of the baggie of drugs that the officer felt in his “watch pocket.” The officer could tell what it was by its feel. Affirmed. United States v. Williams, 2025 … Continue reading
MS: Police cell phone search as extensive as prior private search was reasonable
The warrantless search of defendant’s cell phone was the same as a private search that already occurred, and it did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Knight v. State, 2025 Miss. LEXIS 51 (Feb. 20, 2025). An NOLA officer seeing an … Continue reading
N.D.Miss.: ER staff’s search of def’s clothes was private search
Defendant was taken to the ER for gunshot wounds. The hospital staff took his clothes and looked in his pockets and then turned them over to the police. This was a private search. United States v. Coleman, 2025 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
DE: After the first SW was overbroad, officers got a second narrower warrant which had an independent source from the first
When the search warrant was found overbroad, a second warrant was issued based on the same information that was far narrower. It was valid because of its independent source. The alleged false statement in the DNA warrant wasn’t. State v. … Continue reading
NY Monroe Co.: The constitution doesn’t apply to citizen’s arrest
In a citizen’s arrest, if the citizen, not a law enforcement officer, violates the constitution or statute, the arrest will not be suppressed for that reason alone. His statement to an officer captured on video will not be suppressed because … Continue reading
KY: Landlord’s maintenance entry with electrician and a LEO because of a feared weapon was reasoanable
Defendant was schizophrenic and he was destroying the wiring in his apartment. The landlord got an electrician and then they brought a police officer because they feared he had a weapon (which he did). The entry by the police was … Continue reading
OH12: No reason why a federal search warrant can’t result in a state prosecution
A federal search warrant produced the drugs in question, and they were not inadmissible for that reason in a state prosecution. State v. Hana, 2024-Ohio-5548, 2024 Ohio App. LEXIS 4234 (12th Dist. Nov. 25, 2024). The trial court found that … Continue reading
D.P.R.: Officer’s construction of traffic law was “ardous” and unreasonable under Heien
The officer’s conclusion defendant violated a U-turn statute was unreasonable, and the motion to suppress is granted. “While mistakes of law based on arduous questions of statutory interpretation may justify an officer’s judgment, a poor study of the law cannot … Continue reading
UT: NCMEC didn’t look at the CP this time, but it had this case, and that’s enough
The fact the hash value of defendant’s material was known to be child pornography, it didn’t matter that NCMEC didn’t view the material before passing it on to the police who did. There was a prior private search. State v. … Continue reading