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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 -
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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)
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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) -
“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, Little Rock 
Category Archives: Cell phones
Volokh Conspiracy: In Decryption Cases, Don’t Forget the Fourth Amendment
Volokh Conspiracy: In Decryption Cases, Don’t Forget the Fourth Amendment by Orin Kerr: Requiring a search warrant isn’t everything. But it isn’t nothing.
Volokh Conspiracy: Two New Cases on Decrypting Locked Devices by Orin Kerr
Volokh Conspiracy: Two New Cases on Decrypting Locked Devices by Orin Kerr One on the Fifth Amendment, and one on Miranda. Both correctly decided, I think.
MD: Surreptitious recording of def’s statement on cell phone violated state wiretap act
A parent’s surreptitious recording of defendant on cell phone for use to make a sex offense against him was inadmissible under the state wiretap act. Holmes v. State, 2018 Md. App. LEXIS 310 (Apr. 6, 2018).* First paragraph:
D.Minn.: Statement is suppressed, but def’s giving up passcode to cell phone is not
While defendant’s statement is suppressed, his giving up the passcode to his cell phone is not, so the search of the cell phone was by consent. United States v. Jackson, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55965 (D. Minn. Feb. 27, 2018):
E.D.Va.: CP SW for images “created, modified or stored in any form,” including electronically included a cell phone
A child pornography search warrant for images “created, modified or stored in any form,” including electronically included a cell phone. As to defendant’s Franks challenge, his complaint about hearsay completely fails because whatever the police had, they obtained another person’s … Continue reading
WA: SW for everything on a cell phone was overbroad
Defendant was investigated for sexual exploitation of a child, and the police obtained a search warrant for his phone seeking a “physical dump” of the phone, including everything on the phone: “Images, video, documents, text messages, contacts, audio recordings, call … Continue reading
Ars Technica: Feds pushing new plan for encrypted mobile device unlocks via court order
Ars Technica: Feds pushing new plan for encrypted mobile device unlocks via court order by Cyrus Farivar:
NYTimes: Justice Dept. Revives Push to Mandate a Way to Unlock Phones
NYTimes: Justice Dept. Revives Push to Mandate a Way to Unlock Phones by Charlie Savage: Federal law enforcement officials are renewing a push for a legal mandate that tech companies build tools into smartphones and other devices that would allow … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Court orders target to open computer and phones under All Writs Act; no privilege bars order
Police seized a computer, hard drive, and iPhone that had been encrypted and password protected. The FBI couldn’t get in. The government applies for an order under the All Writs Act. The court finds that the Fifth Amendment testimonial privilege … Continue reading
CA6: A controlled delivery as a part of the PC essentially moots a Franks claim
2255 petitioner’s post-conviction Franks claim fails because there was a controlled delivery that essentially moots it. There was no “substantial preliminary showing” under Franks. COA denied. Fleming v. United States, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 6934 (6th Cir. Mar. 20, 2018). … Continue reading
D.D.C.: SW for WhatsApp account doesn’t require the cell phone number to be valid
The USMJ’s ruling that a cell phone number is also required for a pen register/track and trace order on a WhatsApp account is incorrect. All the government needs is the WhatsApp account number because the cell phone number isn’t even … Continue reading
TechCrunch: Report: Police are now asking Google for data about all mobile devices close to certain crimes
TechCrunch: Report: Police are now asking Google for data about all mobile devices close to certain crimes by Connie Loizos:
CA10: GFE applied to cell phone SW in KS where phone was actually searched in MO
Search incident did not justify seizure of defendant’s cell phone when he was arrested because he’d been separated from the cell phone. The government’s claim that officers seizing the cell phone were proceeding under “direction of” defendant’s PO is rejected … Continue reading
MD: Use of text messaging is not a waiver of REP for spousal privilege
The state obtained text messages by legal process and admitted them at trial, arguing that the Verizon service agreement was a waiver of any reasonable expectation of privacy in third party records. It is not a waiver of spousal privilege … Continue reading
FL5 following FL SCt: Davis GFE doesn’t apply to pre-Riley cell phone searches
On remand from the state supreme court, the Davis good faith exception does not apply in Florida to cell phone searches occurring before because there was no settled law, following Carpenter v. State, 228 So. 3d 535 (Fla. 2017). Burton … 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
CA5: Def’s cell phone apps scan at border was supported by PC
“After discovering kilos of meth in the suitcase Maria Isabel Molina-Isidoro was carrying across the border, customs agents looked at a couple of apps on her cell phone. Molina argues that the evidence found during this warrantless search of her … Continue reading
Forbes: The Feds Can Now (Probably) Unlock Every iPhone Model In Existence
Forbes: The Feds Can Now (Probably) Unlock Every iPhone Model In Existence by Thomas Fox-Brewster: In what appears to be a major breakthrough for law enforcement, and a possible privacy problem for Apple customers, a major U.S. government contractor claims … Continue reading
LA5: Hearsay on driver’s consent admissible at suppression hearing
The trial court found the stop was reasonable for shooting from a car and driver consented based on the testimony of the stopping officer. Defendant’s claim that the driver’s consent was hearsay and inadmissible was rejected. All other exceptions for … Continue reading