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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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FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
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State courts (and some USDC opinions)
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
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Solicitor General's site
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Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
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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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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: § 1983 / Bivens
E.D.Ark.: There is no 4A claim by a dead person
There is no Fourth Amendment claim by a dead person. “Because the investigation failures and denial of access to the Courts are based on facts alleged to have occurred entirely after decedent’s death, Plaintiff cannot assert these claims either on … Continue reading
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
CO: In a civil case, legal justification for a warrantless search is an affirmative defense
“In a case of first impression, a division of the court of appeals holds that legal justification for a warrantless search is an affirmative defense that the defendant must prove in a civil action under section 13-21-131, C.R.S. 2025. The … Continue reading
OH5: SW saved by GFE even if issuing court lacked jurisdiction
The good faith exception applies even if the Common Pleas court lacked jurisdiction to issue a warrant for a Dropbox account in another jurisdiction. State v. Wharton, 2025-Ohio-4485, 2025 Ohio App. LEXIS 3295 (5th Dist. Sep. 25, 2025). Summary judgment … Continue reading
CA11: Officers reasonably concluded that this was one residence without apartments
“At the time the officers swore out and executed the warrant, the officers believed 4279 Violet Circle was a single-family home that Schmitz occupied.” The officers’ investigation for months never indicated that the premises included three efficiency apartments. “In sum, … Continue reading
W.D.Wis.: § 1983 search claim producing $4,000 damages verdict supported $84,690 in attorneys fees
Plaintiff’s § 1983 search claim produced a damages verdict for $500 compensatory and $3500 punitive. The attorney’s fees award of $84,690.00 is granted. Pfalzgraf v. Reisner, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 168405 (W.D. Wis. Aug. 28, 2025). Cracked windshield and tinted … Continue reading
CA6: No REP in LPN
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in license plate information. Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not raising that. Williams v. United States, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 21583 (6th Cir. Aug. 22, 2025). While a sexual assault examination of a … Continue reading
CA8: A state police officer, a part of a federal task force, could lie to cause an arrest to protect a federal witness
“We have decided this question before: ‘whether a St. Paul police officer acted under color of state law when she allegedly lied to protect a federal witness while serving on a federal task force.’ Yassin v. Weyker, 39 F.4th 1086, … Continue reading
CA11: Ptf’s four arrests didn’t lack PC
Plaintiff was arrested four times in nine months, but he doesn’t plausibly allege that the arrests lacked probable cause. Hernandez v. Sheriff of Manatee Cty., 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 17342 (11th Cir. July 14, 2025)*:
CA7: Skeletal 4A claim doesn’t support relief
A caution about pleading in a § 1983 Fourth Amendment case: Plaintiff loses because of his skeletal claims in the complaint. “We express no opinion on whether the officers needed to handcuff Petersen, transport him in a police vehicle to … Continue reading
CA1: Notable Bivens dismissal by its dissent: retired Justice Breyer
A Bivens claim, not specifically a Fourth Amendment claim, fails because of a different context from existing caselaw. The claim fails 2-1. What’s interesting is that retired Justice Breyer was on the panel, and he dissented that the claim should … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: Lack of a SW signature cured by GFE
“Defendant argues that the warrant is facially deficient because the affidavit lacked a signature, a panel of the Eleventh Circuit has considered and rejected this argument. See United States v. Gordon, 686 F. App’x 702, 704 (11th Cir. 2017) (holding … Continue reading
CA7: Cautionary tale in § 1983 case: “this appeal is a mess”
A confusing case presented from both sides, a cautionary tale: “this appeal is a mess.” Cave v. Valenti, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 9405 (7th Cir. Apr. 21, 2025):
CA2: In getting arrest warrant, defenses don’t have to be considered
In a false arrest claim, the officer procuring the warrant doesn’t have to negate plaintiff’s defenses beforehand. Glover v. Onondaga Cty., 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 8436 (2d Cir. Apr. 10, 2025)*:
CA5: Just because Bivens might become a dead letter doesn’t mean that the officers didn’t violate the 4A
Just because Bivens might become a dead letter doesn’t mean that the officers didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. Villarreal v. City of Laredo, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 8241 (5th Cir. Apr. 8, 2025). My words, not the court’s but that’s … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: Suit over NYC DA’s subpoena for possession of a stolen antiquity is dismissed
The defendant here is Alvin Bragg, the District Attorney of New York County, NY (Manhattan). He’s sued in the Central District of California over his office’s investigation into antiquity art theft where plaintiff purchased a statue, the Bronze Male, for … Continue reading
D.Kan.: § 1983 complaint questions state conviction and is barred by Heck
Plaintiff’s 242 paragraph § 1983 complaint calls into question his criminal conviction, so it’s barred by Heck. Turner v. Kansas Court of Appeals, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55052 (D. Kan. Mar. 25, 2025).* “Here, Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment unlawful imprisonment and … Continue reading