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- TX3: DUI blood draw while in restraint chair not 4A unreasonable
- TX1: Def has a duty to make his record on PC and the SW; missing affidavit was on him
- N.D.Ala.: SW not invalid because issuing judge previously represented the target
- The Guardian: ‘We should be worried’: report sheds light on ICE’s booming arsenal of hi-tech surveillance tools
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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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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)
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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: Cell phones
CA4: Police could warrantlessly seize CSLI for cell phone abandoned in flight from the police
Defendant consciously was abandoning his property as he was trying to elude police who were chasing him on foot. He tossed everything, including his cell phone. Getting the CSLI for the abandoned phone without a warrant was reasonable, too. United … Continue reading
NY1: Execution of SW on cell phone in police custody in 30 days not unreasonable
Defendant’s cell phones were already in the possession of the police, and the search warrant was deemed by its own language as executed on issuance. The actual search, however, took 30 days, and that wasn’t unreasonable. People v. Ruffin, 2019 … Continue reading
The Federalist: The Feds Don’t Need To Tell You Or Get A Warrant To Collect Your Emails And Phone Records
The Federalist: The Feds Don’t Need To Tell You Or Get A Warrant To Collect Your Emails And Phone Records by Leslie McAdoo Gordon.
N.D.Ill.: Compelled use of biometrics to open a cell phone doesn’t violate 4A or 5A
“[T]his Court holds that compelling an individual to scan their biometrics, and in particular their fingerprints, to unlock a smartphone device neither violates the Fourth nor Fifth Amendment. Accordingly, the Court has signed and authorized the government’s warrant, including the … Continue reading
CA4: Individualized suspicion is now required for border searches of electronic devices but it wasn’t in May 2015, so the GFE applies
Warrantless forensic searches of defendant’s devices in May of 2015 lacked the required nexus to the recognized historic rationales justifying the border search exception to the warrant requirement. Officers had probable cause to suspect that defendant had previously committed grave … Continue reading
NYTimes: Imagine Being on Trial. With Exonerating Evidence Trapped on Your Phone.
NYTimes: Imagine Being on Trial. With Exonerating Evidence Trapped on Your Phone. by Kashmir Hill (“Public defenders lack access to gadgets and software that could keep their clients out of jail.”)
S.D.N.Y.: SW for files on cell phone also permitted data extraction
The search warrant for files and things on defendant’s phone permitted full extraction. United States v. Sepulveda, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 192363 (S.D. N.Y. Nov. 5, 2019). Defendant’s online comments that amounted to a terroristic threat against law enforcement officers … Continue reading
MI S.Ct. grants review in interesting cell phone search issue, particularly whether PC and search in a prior case applies to a later case
The Michigan Supreme Court grants leave to appeal, appoints the State Appellate Defender Office, and directs the following cell phone search questions be briefed in People v. Hughes, 2019 Mich. LEXIS 2094 (Nov. 1, 2019):*
S.D.Ga.: Def was a passenger in a car and his cell phone was seized and subjected to search with a warrant; the seizure was lawful
Defendant challenged only the seizure of his cell phone from a car he was a passenger in, and not its later search with a warrant. The search warrant makes all the difference, even assuming he had standing, which he likely … Continue reading
TN: Illegal warrantless search of cell phone was harmless error on this record
This is a second appeal from the Vanderbilt dorm rape cases. (The first is here.) The search warrant for defendant’s room and person allowed for seizure of his cell phone, but it wasn’t there. The police found it later and … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Violation of an ATF regulation during administrative search of an FFL doesn’t justify suppression without a 4A violation
Defendant had a federal firearms dealer license and he was subjected to an inspection. Firearms dealers, of course, are closely regulated businesses. After the motion to suppress was denied, he decided that ATF regulations were violated. The court concludes, based … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: SW for cell phone includes its SD card, just as a computer SW includes the hard drive
A search warrant for a cell phone includes the SD card in it, just the same as a computer search warrant authorizes the search of the hard drive: “Such reasoning is analogous to the instant matter. For one, a micro … Continue reading
GA: Downloading entire cell phone in rape case where time line and text messages were only issues wasn’t prejudicial
Defendants were arrested for kidnapping and raping an unconscious woman they took out of a Savannah nightclub, and they were caught in the act when a bystander called the police. Police seized one cell phone after the interrogation and got … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Order to use biometric information to unlock a device is testimonial and barred by 5A
A USMJ in the N.D.Cal. holds that the use of a court order to compel any biometric information (fingerprint, facial recognition, eye scan) is testimonial and violates the Fifth Amendment. United States v. Sealed Warrant, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 147836 … Continue reading
NYT: Opinion: The Loophole That Turns Your Apps Into Spies
NYT: Opinion: The Loophole That Turns Your Apps Into Spies by Charlie Warzel (“Just by downloading an app, you’re potentially exposing sensitive data to dozens of technology companies, ad networks, data brokers and aggregators.”)
Cal.1: An electronic device probation search condition is reasonable to aid rehabilitation; but here it needs to be narrower
An electronic search condition for this juvenile involved in car burglaries was reasonable in its inception, but it had to be narrowed. The court finds an electronic search condition reasonable because of the inordinate amount of time he spends on … Continue reading
TN: Defense counsel’s failure to predict Riley wasn’t IAC
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not raising Riley before it was decided, and the case was tried just before Riley. Once Riley was issued, defense counsel tried to get it into the case by a motion for new trial. Other … Continue reading
PCMag: ICE Buys Smartphone Hacking Tech From Cellebrite
PCMag: ICE Buys Smartphone Hacking Tech From Cellebrite by Michael Kan (“Cellebrite is best known for helping governments access data on locked cell phones. In June, ICE awarded it a contract worth up to $35 million, according to a federal … Continue reading