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- 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)
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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
LA: No REP in a contraband cell phone found in a jail
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a contraband cell phone found in a jail. Riley provides no protection in a jail cell phone. State v. Kisack, 2017 La. LEXIS 2314 (Oct. 18, 2017). A traffic stop was based … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Pinging cell phone to locate def after arrest warrant issued didn’t implicate 4A
Pinging defendant’s cell phone to locate him after an arrest warrant issued didn’t implicate the Fourth Amendment. There was also exigency from fear for safety of the CI and of destruction of evidence. United States v. Sauceda, 2017 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
OH1: Warrantless search of def’s cell phone in kidnapping investigation was reasonable and justified by exigency
The warrantless search of defendant’s apartment, his person, and his cell phone was justified by exigent circumstances under the Fourth Amendment because the still-missing kidnapping victim’s life was in danger. The police reasonably believed that his phone had been used … Continue reading
Cal.App., LA: Accepting deferred entry of judgment denies a statutory right to appeal denial of suppression motion
Having accepted deferred entry of judgment to resolve his criminal case, defendant had no statutory right to appeal the denial of his suppression motion. People v. Cortez, 2017 Cal. App. LEXIS 891 (App.Div. Los Angeles Sept. 14, 2017). The search … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Compelling persons to provide fingerprints to unlock Apple devices doesn’t violation the self-incrimination clause of the Fifth Amendment
An order compelling persons to provide fingerprints to unlock Apple devices doesn’t violation the self-incrimination clause of the Fifth Amendment. In re Search Warrant Application for [Name Redacted by the Court], 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 169384 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 18, … Continue reading
Westlaw Insider: The Fourth Amendment in a Digital Age
Westlaw Insider: The Fourth Amendment in a Digital Age:
OH12: SW for text messages on a cell phone was not overbroad where it was limited to messages from one person
Defendant was a police officer who was suspected of sexual battery of a student ride along. There were text messages, and a search warrant was obtained for his cell phone. The lack of a time frame for the text messages … Continue reading
OH12: SW for text messages on cell phone was particular when limited to one person’s messages
Defendant was a police officer who was suspected of sexual battery of a student ride along. There were text messages, and a search warrant was obtained for his cell phone. The lack of a time frame for the text messages … Continue reading
WaPo: Georgia sheriff, deputies indicted after body searches of 900 high school students
WaPo: Georgia sheriff, deputies indicted after body searches of 900 high school students by Kyle Swenson: The sound system squawked at 8 a.m., just as the school day was revving up at Worth County High School. The campus was now … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Suspicionless parole search of def’s cell phone was reasonable
Defendant was on parole for pimping an underage prostitute out of California, and he had a warrantless search condition on his cell phone. The suspicionless parole search of the phone was reasonable. United States v. Monson, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
N.D.Fla.: Car on private property subject to automobile exception; 28 day delay in SW for cell phones unreasonable
Defendant’s car was subject to the automobile exception even though it was parked on private property. Waiting 28 days to get a search warrant for cell phones made the search unreasonable. United States v. Civil, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 158377 … Continue reading
TX14: Def had no standing in cell phone he gave to his girlfriend
Defendant had no standing in a cell phone that he gave to his girlfriend and referred to as her cell phone. It was stolen from her and searched to locate the possible owner, and the phone had video of defendant … Continue reading
DC: Using Stingray to track a cell phone is a 4A search because it extracts cell phone numbers from phones
The use of a Stingray device by the police to track a cell phone is a search governed by the Fourth Amendment. Stingrays “[f]orce the person’s cellphone to identify itself and reveal its exact location. It is in this sense … Continue reading
CA3: Def lacked standing to challenge search of co-def cell phone
Defendant lacked standing to challenge the search of a cell phone taken off a co-defendant that didn’t belong him. Besides, the search of that cell phone was valid. United States v. Brewer, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 18003 (3d Cir. Sept. … Continue reading
Just Security: We Need to Know More About Government Searches of Traveler’s Electronic Devices
Just Security: We Need to Know More About Government Searches of Traveler’s Electronic Devices by Carrie DeCell:
Cal.4: Probation search of “property, personal effects” reasonably includes a cell phone and its data
A probation search of “property, personal effects” reasonably includes a cell phone and its data. There are no limits on what “personal effects” means in the search condition paperwork. And, this was misdemeanor probation, and the search of the phone … Continue reading
DC Cir.: The mere fact a person has a cell phone isn’t PC to search it; must be PC evidence would be found
“Most of us nowadays carry a cell phone. And our phones frequently contain information chronicling our daily lives—where we go, whom we see, what we say to our friends, and the like. When a person is suspected of a crime, … Continue reading
ABAJ: Traveling out of the country? Lawyers should consider using ‘burner’ devices
ABAJ: Traveling out of the country? Lawyers should consider using ‘burner’ devices by Debra Cassens Weiss:
CA8: Halfway house resident’s cell phone subject to suspicionless search
Defendant’s cell phone was subject to search when he resided at a residential reentry program after release from an FCI. Child porn was found on the phone. Defendant’s reliance on Riley’s warrant requirement is misplaced. Yes, this is a cell … Continue reading
How to Respond to Cops Who Want Your Passwords
How to Respond to Cops Who Want Your Passwords by Stephanie Lacambra of EFF (Prezi presentation)