November 2025 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Archives
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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 -
Latest Slip Opinions:
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S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
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Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
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Eighth Circuit
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Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
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LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
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General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
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)
ACLU on privacy
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
Section 1983 Blog -
"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
N.D.Cal.: Def’s probation cell phone search was justified
Because of defendant’s arrest, his probation officers had a great interest in searching his cell phone as a probation search. His arrest showed that he likely wasn’t complying with the law. United States v. Harding, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 119276 … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: CSLI information captured by Stingray would be unreasonable under 4A except defs had no standing in burner phones they disassociated themselves from
Use of a Stingray to capture defendants’ cell phone location information in real time was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment [without much discussion], but the defendants lack standing to complain. The mere fact the government referred to the phones as … Continue reading
TX14: Text messages between def and murder victim and possession of victim’s phone was PC for cell phone SW
Text messages between a murder victim and the defendant just before the murder supported probable cause to search defendant’s cell phone. Defendant was found with the victim’s car and cell phone after the murder. Walker v. State, 2016 Tex. App. … Continue reading
CA2: Govt proved exigency for warrantless pinging of cell phone to locate def after a murder
The government proved a legitimate good faith belief that defendant was dangerous and needed to be apprehended immediately after he was linked to a body found in Vermont. Therefore, warrantless pinging of his cell phone to locate him was reasonable. … Continue reading
WA: While cell phones are certainly “private affairs,” there’s no special abandonment rule for cell phones
Cell phones are the “private affairs” of Washingtonians under their state constitution, merely stating the obvious, but they can be abandoned like anything else, and the court declines to adopt a cell phone exception to abandonment. State v. Samalia, 2016 … Continue reading
GA: Police calling 911 from cell phone left in cab did not involve an expectation of privacy [clearly wrong reason; right result]
Defendant fled a taxicab to avoid the fare but left his cell phone behind. The police used the phone to call 911 to capture his name, phone number, and other 911 information. This wasn’t a search, and it was governed … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Warrantless use of stingray device by DEA was unreasonable search
The warrantless use of a cell site simulator to capture information about defendant’s cell phone was a violation of the Fourth Amendment and suppressed. “Thus, even though the DEA believed that the use of the cell-site simulator would reveal the … Continue reading
NJLJ: Federal Judge Holds Christie’s Phone Data Off-Limits in Bridgegate Case
NJLJ: Federal Judge Holds Christie’s Phone Data Off-Limits in Bridgegate Case by Charles Toutant: The federal judge hearing the Bridgegate criminal case has granted Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s motion to quash a subpoena by defense lawyers who sought to examine … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Seizure of cell phone incident to arrest was valid
“Here, the seizure of Fulton’s cell phone during his arrest fell squarely within the exception articulated in Chimel and Robinson as a seizure incident to arrest.” United States v. Fulton, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 83014 (S.D.Tex. June 23, 2016). The … Continue reading
DE: Cell phone is a tool of the drug trade for SW purposes
Probable cause was shown on the four corners of the affidavit for the search warrant. Citing a 2001 U.S. district court case, “[t]he Wiseman court [158 F.Supp.2d 1242, 1249 (D.Kan.2001)] stated that ‘it had become common knowledge in the courts … Continue reading
WaPo: The Volokh Conspiracy; Applying the Fourth Amendment to placing calls from a locked phone to identify its owner
WaPo: The Volokh Conspiracy: Applying the Fourth Amendment to placing calls from a locked phone to identify its owner by Orin Kerr:
CA6: Officers doing a knock-and-talk for meth were confronted with an emergency justifying entry
Officers responded to a noise complaint and ran into a guy outside who said he was there to buy methamphetamine. They went to the door and smelled meth being manufactured. Nobody answered. They went around to the back to see … Continue reading
CA1: Seizure of a cell phone to get a SW was proper; frisk of jacket for weapon was, too
Officers suspected defendant of sex trafficking, and Detroit PD called the Portland ME PD to report he was there, likely with a young girl. He was known to them as a prior sex trafficker. They found him at a hotel … Continue reading
MA: Cell phone SW was issued without PC, but it was harmless error in light of DNA
Massachusetts requires a warrant for CSLI after a certain date, and retroactivity depends on whether the issue was raised at trial. Here, the issue hadn’t been raised at trial from a 2011 crime although the case was on direct review … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: Riley does not apply to a search of a cell phone at the border
Riley does not apply to a search of a cell phone at the border. Calling it “investigatory” doesn’t add anything to the argument. “[A]n entire body of jurisprudence has been built around border searches, and the specific lexicon used by … Continue reading
The Hill: NSA: We couldn’t have hacked the San Bernadino iPhone
The Hill: NSA: We couldn’t have hacked the San Bernadino iPhone by Joe Uchill: “We don’t do every phone, every variation of phone,” said an agency deputy director.