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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
PA: Powering on a cell phone was the first of three warrantless searches in violation of Riley
Powering on a cell phone to see the screen was the first of three warrantless searches of defendant’s cell phone, all of which violated the Fourth Amendment. They were not harmless, so reversed. Commonwealth v. Fulton, 2018 Pa. LEXIS 982 … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: Cell phones tool of trade of border smugglers, too
“That drug smuggling operations use cell phones to contact each other, to give direction and instructions, that they use scouts and multiple vehicles to cross drugs, are all well-known strategies. [¶] It is also well-known that smugglers will buy cars … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Def’s admission he hadn’t used phone in a year when he left it where he last lived supported finding abandonment
During a knock-and-talk, defendant admitted that he had not used a particular cell phone in over a year because it had a cracked screen. He was kicked out of a house and he left it behind with other belongings. Based … Continue reading
NY4: Pinging cell phone was harmless error even if a warrant was required
The pinging of defendant’s cell phone to find him was without a warrant. If it was constitutional error, it was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. People v. Moorer, 2018 NY Slip Op 00754, 2018 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 697 (4th … Continue reading
FL4: Exigency required finding def’s cell phone to locate a school bus stop shooter
Exigent circumstances in finding a shooter at a school bus stop necessitated the officers pinging the cell phone to locate the shooter. Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not challenging the search because it would have failed. Barton v. State, 2018 … Continue reading
LA2: No REP in text messages in another person’s cell phone
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in text messages in another person’s cell phone. State v. Young, 2018 La. App. LEXIS 110 (La. App. 2 Cir. Jan. 18, 2018). Defendant was on parole and his parole agreement required he … Continue reading
BBC: Apple health data used in murder trial
BBC: Apple health data used in murder trial:
D.S.D.: General description of a handyman’s tools as “miscellaneous tools” did not make the inventory “defective”
General description of a handyman’s tools as “miscellaneous tools” did not make the inventory “defective.” United States v. Bruce, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7387 (D.S.D. Jan 17, 2018). “Although the affidavit in the instant case could have provided more information … Continue reading
MN: Order to provide a fingerprint to unlock a cell phone is not testimonial and thus not barred by the 5A
An order to provide a fingerprint to unlock a cell phone is not testimonial and thus not barred by the Fifth Amendment. State v. Diamond, 2018 Minn. LEXIS 7 (Jan. 17, 2018):
NE: Having only key to rented car glovebox and not to car itself didn’t give standing
Having a key to the glovebox of a rented car, but not to the car itself, was not a sufficient reasonable expectation of privacy in the rented car to have standing. Defendant couldn’t get into the car without somebody else … Continue reading
Just Security: Customs and Border Protection’s New Policy for Searching Devices Offers Thin Protection
Just Security: Customs and Border Protection’s New Policy for Searching Devices Offers Thin Protection by Carrie DeCell:
NYTimes: Cellphone and Computer Searches at U.S. Border Rise Under Trump
NYTimes: Cellphone and Computer Searches at U.S. Border Rise Under Trump by Ron Nixon:
D.Me.: Getting def to reveal cell phone passcode was 5A claim, not a 4A claim
Defendant’s cell phone was seized with a warrant. Defendant was questioned and he lawyered up, but the officer ignored it and kept asking questions. Finally, defendant gave up the passcode for the phone. This is a Fifth Amendment issue, not … Continue reading
CA8: Denying any knowledge of a car or its contents is abandonment of a cell phone found inside it; cell phones subject to abandonment
Defendant was believed connected to a shooting involving a Buick. He was taken back to the Buick after arrest, and he denied all knowledge of the Buick. Inside was found a cell phone that the police seized and obtained a … Continue reading
MD: Third person added to a jail call after the warning of recording didn’t violate state wiretap law
Adding a third person to a jail call after the initial recording was played saying that calls were recorded was not a wilful interception of that person’s call under the state wiretap act. The only other state to deal with … Continue reading
NYTimes: Privacy Complaints Mount Over Phone Searches at U.S. Border Since 2011
NYTimes: Privacy Complaints Mount Over Phone Searches at U.S. Border Since 2011 by Charlie Savage and Ron Nixon: Grievances over lost privacy run through a trove of roughly 250 complaints by people whose laptops and phones were searched without a … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Def’s putting cell phone in daughter’s backpack so she could play with it was not a waiver of REP
Defendant regularly stayed with his grandmother until a few weeks before the search, and by the time of search it was more intermittent. Still, he had standing in her house because he had clothes there and still stayed there. He … Continue reading
Just Security: Warrantless Border Searches: The officer ‘searched through every email and intimate photos of my wife’
Just Security: Warrantless Border Searches: The officer ‘searched through every email and intimate photos of my wife’ by Carrie DeCell:
A.F.Ct.Crim.App.: AFOSI form that said cell phone consent search would be done in 3 days wasn’t constitutionally binding
An AFOSI form states that a cell phone search has to occur within three days of their acquiring the phone. The court in the past has suggested that form change because it’s unreasonable to expect that it can be done … Continue reading
NY3: Failure to search cell phone within the time limits on the warrant after timely seizure required suppression
Defendant’s cell phone was seized under a search warrant but the search did not occur for two months. The cell phone search violated state law because the search did not occur within the ten days required by the rule and … Continue reading