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- FL: Violation of knock-and-announce statute doesn’t require exclusion
- 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)
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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
D.Minn.: Govt showed nexus to def’s cell phones in vehicle involved in a shooting
Defendant’s vehicle was factually connected to a shooting incident, and that gave probable cause to search it under the automobile exception. There was nexus to defendant’s cell phones found in the vehicle to get a separate search warrant for them. … Continue reading
NYT: iPhone FaceTime Bug That Allows Spying Was Flagged to Apple Over a Week Ago
NYT: iPhone FaceTime Bug That Allows Spying Was Flagged to Apple Over a Week Ago by Nicole Perlroth: SAN FRANCISCO — On Jan. 19, Grant Thompson, a 14-year-old in Arizona, made an unexpected discovery: Using FaceTime, Apple’s video chatting software, … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: SW for data off phone isn’t governed by Carpenter
Where the search warrant sought information off defendant’s telephone, Carpenter is not implicated. It was also pre-Carpenter. There was also an order for CSLI in 2015, and that was not barred by Carpenter. United States v. Evans, 2018 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
Volokh Conspiracy: Search Warrants and Compelled Biometric Access to Phones
Volokh Conspiracy: Search Warrants and Compelled Biometric Access to Phones by Orin Kerr: A new ruling, and some (mostly critical) thoughts.
TN: 2012 cell phone search had to be evaluated by law at that time on PCR
Defendant’s post-conviction claim on the 2012 search of his cell phone fails because it wouldn’t have been granted back then. Blunkall v. State, 2019 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 11 (Jan. 4, 2019).* The CI’s information was significantly corroborated by observations … Continue reading
Tech Advocate: Can Schools Search Students’ Personal Devices
Tech Advocate: Can Schools Search Students’ Personal Devices by Matthew Lynch:
CA4: Once def knew he was target of a child porn investigation, exigency for seizure of cell phones was apparent
In interviewing the defendant about possible possession of child pornography, his answers created exigent circumstances for seizure of his cell phone because he was well aware of what he was accused of and could then destroy evidence. The two day … Continue reading
CA7: Cell phone SW that permitted viewing all files of phone was not too “general”
A search warrant for the entire contents of a cell phone was particular and not a general warrant considering that the warrant sought evidence of “criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon” or related to drug dealing. United States v. Bishop, … Continue reading
LA: False statement in affidavit passed from another officer was harmless on PC question
The statement the officer used in the affidavit came from another officer. At worst it was negligent and not an intentional misrepresentation. No matter what, however, it doesn’t undermine the probable cause, so the motion was properly denied. State v. … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: No standing in a wiretapped contraband cell phone in prison
Defendant’s calls on a contraband cell phone in jail were wiretapped. He doesn’t even have standing because the phone was unlawful. “The cases concerning the precise question at issue—a prisoner’s ability to challenge the introduction of intercepted communications from his … Continue reading
TX1: No REP in a contraband cell phone in a halfway house
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a contraband cell phone possessed by a sex offender in a halfway house. The phone was subject to search like any other personal property, and defendant had a prohibition against possession of … Continue reading
MD: Phone call recorded on cell phone that was searched not protected by state wiretap act
Defendant recorded a drug transaction on his cell phone. When his phone was seized and then searched during his arrest, the recording was found. It was legitimately seized, and the defendant can’t claim the state wiretap act protected him as … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: There was a reasonable inference def’s house had his cell phones
The search warrant for cell phones was based on a reasonable inference that they’d be found in defendant’s house, and the search of his house and person were justified. “Herein, it was reasonable for the magistrate to infer that the … Continue reading
M.D.Tenn.: The affidavit for SW of def’s cell phone was mostly “boilerplate,” but added enough to get over the PC threshold
Because of evidence in plain view (drugs and a gun) after a traffic accident and all of defendant’s prior drug arrests, it was not unreasonable for officers to seize defendant’s Tracfone incident to arrest. The affidavit to search the cell … Continue reading
NJ: Cell phone password not 5A privileged on this record
Defendant’s forced disclosure of his iPhone password didn’t violate the Fifth Amendment because his knowledge of that information was a foregone conclusion on this record. State v. Andrews, 2018 N.J. Super. LEXIS 159 (Nov. 15, 2018):
CA7: Message on cell phone screen when phone was seized could be testified to by officer
Defendant claimed he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the screen of his cell phone because it was in his pocket up until he was arrested. When the phone was removed from his pocket, a message appeared on the … Continue reading
E.D.La.: Probation search of a cell phone is permitted under the search condition for searching “personal effects”
A probation search of a cell phone is permitted under a provision in the search condition for searching “personal effects.” United States v. Ard, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 187125 (E.D. La. Nov. 1, 2018). There’s no evidence that NCMEC’s search … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Officers called to noise complaint could ask for ID even though noise had stopped
Officers investigating a noise complaint ended up talking to defendant in a parked car. They could ask for his DL despite the noise having abated. While that was going on, one officer could see marijuana hidden under the edge of … Continue reading