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- 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)
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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: Def counsel not ineffective for not filing CSLI motion before Carpenter
Defense counsel can’t be ineffective for not anticipating Carpenter by filing a CSLI motion before it was decided. United States v. Jackson, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 21716 (4th Cir. July 22, 2019). Defendant’s motion to prevent a search of his … Continue reading
OR: “related to controlled substances offenses” in a cell phone SW was not particular
The cell phone search warrant was not sufficiently particular under the state constitution because there were no practical limits in the phrase “related to controlled substances offenses.” State v. Savath, 298 Ore. App. 495 (July 17, 2019):
MA: PC was shown for cell phone search on admission there were timely videos that could help explain
There was probable cause for a search warrant for photos and videos on defendant’s cell phone in a home invasion case based on all the evidence in the case to that point and, pointedly, admission there were videos on the … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Driver’s cell phone search in 2017 NYC truck attack on pedestrians attributed to ISIS was with PC and was particular
The defendant in the 2017 New York City truck attack attributed to ISIS moved to suppress his cell phone search, primarily on the ground that ubiquity of cell phones alone isn’t enough. There was more. The court credits the FBI … Continue reading
Virginia Gazette: Police department searches of social media, cellphone data increasingly common
Virginia Gazette: Police department searches of social media, cellphone data increasingly common by Steve Roberts Jr: According to a Virginia Gazette analysis of 511 search warrants digitized and filed in the Williamsburg-James City County Circuit Court since 2011, there has … Continue reading
Forbes: Apple Publicly Trolls Google Over Controversial Smart City Surveillance Plans
Forbes: Apple Publicly Trolls Google Over Controversial Smart City Surveillance Plans by Zak Doffman:
CA7: Drug stakeout led to stumbling upon CP in plain view
Officers were in a park looking for a drug meet up. They incidentally noticed defendant’s car and his actions suggested he might be doing drugs. They approached him and smelled marijuana coming from the car, but he was in the … Continue reading
CA5: GFE saves search of cell phone seized when not specified in SW
A juvenile probation officer started an investigation into whether girls under his supervision were being pimped out. Substantial evidence was developed that concluded they were. A search warrant was obtained for defendant’s property, and computers were mentioned for seizure but … Continue reading
FL3: A flash drive plugged into a work computer is subject to search as a part of the work computer
Defendant was employed by the Miami-Dade Police Department and worked in the armory. She was suspected of falsifying police reports to get her husband fired from his job. When investigators went to her work computer, her personal flash drive was … Continue reading
S.D.Ill.: No 4A claim for prison lockdown and shakedown for drugs
There is no Fourth Amendment claim available to an inmate at USP Marion for prison wide shakedowns for two days after drugs came in and the prison went into lockdown. Kammeyer v. True, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 107060 (S.D. Ill. … Continue reading
FL1: Recognizing conflict in many courts on compelled password production, court takes a middle ground: state must show what it wants with “reasonable particularity”
“To what extent does the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination protect a suspect in a criminal case from the compelled disclosure of a password to an electronic communications device in the state’s possession? Courts differ in their legal analysis of … Continue reading
Law360: Border Phone Search Questions Continue In Fed. Court
Law360: Border Phone Search Questions Continue In Fed. Court: Can the federal government confiscate, search and retain your cellphone at the border for no reason at all?
D.Ariz.: SW for text messages prior to date of offense suppressed, after date were proper
The issuing magistrate properly issued a search warrant for text messages on defendant’s cell phone for a particular date and thereafter by inference. Prior to that particular date is suppressed for lack of probable cause. United States v. Bowen, 2019 … Continue reading
NACDL Fourth Amendment Center: Compelled Decryption Primer
NACDL Fourth Amendment Center: Compelled Decryption Primer:
N.D.Cal.: 41-day delay from seizure to search of a cell phone wasn’t constitutionally unreasonable on these facts
41-day delay between seizure of cell phone and its search, while not good, wasn’t constitutionally unreasonable under all the circumstances, primarily because defendant was in custody and couldn’t use the phone anyway, so it didn’t intrude on his possessory interests. … Continue reading
NBC: Give up your password or go to jail: Police push legal boundaries to get into cellphones
NBC: Give up your password or go to jail: Police push legal boundaries to get into cellphones by John Schuppe: “The world should know that what they’re doing out here is crazy,” said a man who refused to share his … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: SW for the entire contents of a cell phone isn’t per se overbroad; depends on the crime involved
“The fact that the warrant authorized law enforcement agents to access all the data on the phone does not automatically render it overbroad.” Moreover, defendant doesn’t suggest that the good faith exception does not apply. United States v. Dawkins, 2019 … Continue reading
Cell phones as a “tool of the trade”?
Atlantic: The Collapsing Crime Rates of the ’90s Might Have Been Driven by Cellphones by Alexis C. Madrigal Did technology disrupt the drug game, too?
Observer: NJ Supreme Court Will Determine Whether Cops Can Force You to Unlock Your Mobile Device
Observer: NJ Supreme Court Will Determine Whether Cops Can Force You to Unlock Your Mobile Device by Donald Scarinci: