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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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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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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)
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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: Informant hearsay
CA8: Stop of car apparently leaving scene of crime was valid
There was reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop based on the fact the vehicle matched the description of one leaving the scene of a robbery by time and proximity, too. United States v. Daniel, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 8504 (8th Cir. … Continue reading
CA3: Controlled buy moots Franks challenge to CI
The CI’s story was confirmed by two controlled buys. The Franks challenge to the CI fails as to whether it was corroborated or completely immaterial because of the controlled buys. United States v. Carney, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 8116 (3d … Continue reading
NY1: Cross-exam of police officers’ alleged deficient investigation opened door to CI’s information
Defendant’s cross-examination of officers on the alleged lack of quality of their investigation opened the door to why they were there, the CI’s story. The trial court mitigated the prejudice by a limiting instruction. People v. Brown, 2018 NY Slip … Continue reading
TN: Uncorroborated anonymous tip insufficient
The anonymous tip in this case was not corroborated, and it was insufficient even under the Tennessee Supreme Court’s 2017 adoption of Gates and rejection of Aguilar-Spinelli. State v. Dibrell, 2018 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 224 (Mar. 26, 2018). There … Continue reading
OH8: A pill bottle search wasn’t plain view during execution of SW for firearms
The police had a search warrant for firearms, and, during execution of the warrant, the officers looked in a pill bottle. The state’s plain view argument is unavailing because it wasn’t immediately apparent to the officers. “We further find little … Continue reading
OH8: Trash pull helped corroborate informant hearsay
The police received informant hearsay, and sought to corroborate it, and a trash pull did it. State v. Rieves, 2018-Ohio-955, 2018 Ohio App. LEXIS 1021 (8th Dist. Mar. 15, 2018). The town’s housing inspection scheme is reasonable under the Fourth … Continue reading
PA: SW papers issued by GJ retain secrecy and aren’t open
The search warrant issued by a state grand jury are still entitled to grand jury secrecy, compared to other judicial records. The court followed In re Gwinnett Cty. Grand Jury, 284 Ga. 510, 668 S.E.2d 682 (2008). In re 2014 … Continue reading
OH11: Def’s vehicle and occupants matching description of bank robbery getaway car and suspects was RS
Defendant’s vehicle matched the description of a bank robbery suspect’s truck in terms of the color, size, make, and model, and the defendant matched the suspect’s description in terms of his gender, race, and clothing. That was reasonable suspicion. State … Continue reading
MA: CSLI warrant based on unsupported hearsay suppressed
The 2008 CSLI warrant here was based on a “conclusory statement” of witness statements being credible and “bereft of the factual details required to establish probable cause.” It had to be suppressed. (Based on Fourth Amendment and state constitution.) Commonwealth … Continue reading
CA10: Three CIs corroborated each other and were independently corroborated
The affidavit for the arrest warrant was based on three CIs who corroborated each other and which were independently corroborated by the police. A Franks challenge was included that a prior search resulted in finding drugs that were not mentioned … Continue reading
LA3: Once parolee found in possession of MJ, search of his hotel room was justified
Defendant was arrested for possession of marijuana so the search of his wallet was justified as a search incident. As a parolee, his hotel room was his “residence” for purposes of a parole search. State v. Warren, 2018 La. App. … Continue reading
CA6: Nexus to cell phones shown through investigation plus def was using his when arrested
Nexus was shown to defendant’s cell phone because the affidavit in support of the search warrant for the phone showed that the gang had used cell phones to communicate and defendant was using his phone when arrested and he’d already … Continue reading
NY3: In camera CI reliability hearing established it
“Based on our in camera review of the transcript of the Darden hearing, we are satisfied that County Court properly determined that the CIs existed and provided reliable and timely information that justified a finding that probable cause existed to … Continue reading
OR: Def disavowed consent issue in trial court, so he couldn’t argue it on appeal
Defendant disavowed the argument made on appeal in the trial court, and you just can’t do that. “Defendant failed to preserve his argument because he failed to provide the trial court with an objection, let alone ‘an explanation of his … Continue reading
D.Utah: The REP is reduced on the curtilage of a duplex
Defendant was found to have abandoned property on the common area of the duplex. The privacy of the curtilage is reduced when there are others on the joint property of a duplex. United States v. Lucero, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
S.D.Ala.: That ID’ing informant “may reveal” information helpful to the defense isn’t good enough
The potential that the informant “may reveal” information helpful to the defense isn’t good enough to get the informant’s identification. United States v. Reed, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25448 (S.D. Ala. Feb. 16, 2018). The entry was based on observation … Continue reading
CA7: Controlled buy corroborated CI
“Although the factors [on CI reliability] go both ways, on balance they support the CI’s reliability. Most significantly, the deputies corroborated the CI’s story with their own investigation by conducting surveillance and executing a controlled buy.” United States v. Haynes, … Continue reading
GA: Hot pursuit of a traffic stop over jurisdictional lines not unlawful
Officer’s hot pursuit of a traffic offender into a different state jurisdiction didn’t void the stop. In addition, it was reasonable for the officer to time the stop for more level ground. State v. Charles, 2018 Ga. App. LEXIS 51 … Continue reading