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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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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)
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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
OH9: Ordering a person out of a car at gunpoint after a stop is a seizure
Ordering a person out of a car at gunpoint after a stop is a seizure even if based on an alleged furtive movement. The stop was based on a robbery report, and this vehicle was more than a half mile … Continue reading
Cal.1st: Probation condition to reveal all passwords to search phones and social media was overbroad
A juvenile’s probation conditions required that he and his family turn over all passwords to cell phones and social media sites. The condition is overbroad considering what probation seeks to accomplish (seeing if he has stolen iPhones), and it implicates … Continue reading
The Hill: Senators push feds to get warrants for cellphone spying
The Hill: Senators push feds to get warrants for cellphone spying by Julian Hattem: The bipartisan leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee want to expand the government’s commitment to obtaining a warrant before using controversial spying devices that pick up … Continue reading
SC: Abandoning cell phone at a crime scene is a waiver of REP, even if it’s password protected
Leaving a cell phone at the scene of a crime and making no effort to reclaim it is an abandonment. Even having a passcode on the phone doesn’t overcome abandonment, following People v. Daggs, 133 Cal. App. 4th 361, 34 … Continue reading
WaPo: Obama administration explored ways to bypass smartphone encryption
WaPo: Obama administration explored ways to bypass smartphone by Andrea Peterson and Ellen Nakashima: An Obama administration working group has explored four possible approaches tech companies might use that would allow law enforcement to unlock encrypted communications — access that … Continue reading
WaPo: Volokh Conspiracy: Fifth Amendment protects passcode on smartphones, court holds
WaPo: Volokh Conspiracy: Fifth Amendment protects passcode on smartphones, court holds by Orin Kerr:
FL2: PC to arrest included knowledge of evidence on iPhone, so phone could be seized on exigent circumstances
Police had probable cause to arrest defendant for sex offenses with children, and the PC included the fact that his smartphone contained images of the crimes. When he was arrested, there was exigency for seizing his cell phone pending a … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: BOLO not PC, but it is RS; because of gun in car, it was reasonable to handcuff
No case says that a BOLO alone is probable cause, and the collective knowledge must still be considered. In this case, the collective knowledge did not provide probable cause. While the officer had the subjective intent to arrest defendant, that’s … Continue reading
WaPo: Obama faces growing momentum to support widespread encryption
WaPo: Obama faces growing momentum to support widespread encryption by Ellen Nakashima and Andrea Peterson: White House officials have backed away from seeking a legislative fix to deal with the rise of encryption on communication devices, and they are even … Continue reading
Gov’t Technology: Is Your Phone’s GPS Protected by the Fourth Amendment?
Gov’t Technology: Is Your Phone’s GPS Protected by the Fourth Amendment? by the Free Press, Kinston, N.C. In North Carolina, the answer is no.
D.P.R.: Rule 41 provides authority on PC for cell provider to assist in recording calls phone owner has already consented to
The government had permission from a cell phone user to record conversations but needed assistance from the cell phone provider which declined to do it without a court order. First, Title III doesn’t apply because the user’s consent removes the … Continue reading
OH9: A challenge to evidence under the rules of evidence is brought by a motion in limine, not a motion to suppress
A challenge to evidence under the rules of evidence is brought by a motion in limine, not a motion to suppress. That’s for constitutional grounds. State v. Johnson, 2015-Ohio-3449, 2015 Ohio App. LEXIS 3327 (9th Dist. August 26, 2015). One … Continue reading
TX1: Cell phone was properly seized incident to arrest because def was attempting to leave the place of detention
Defendant was stopped after coming out of a bathroom when a 13 year old boy told his mother that a man in the bathroom flashed something shiny at him under the stall wall. When the officer confronted him, he was … Continue reading
Daily Business Review: Employers Need Policies on Searching Worker Smartphones
Daily Business Review: Employers Need Policies on Searching Worker Smartphones by Suhaill Morales: In the wake of NFL quarterback Tom Brady destroying his cell phone in the midst of the NFL Deflategate investigation, the incident took a turn from sports … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Riley doesn’t require SW for parole search of cell phone
Riley doesn’t apply to a parole search of a cell phone because of the defendant waiving his Fourth Amendment rights by accepting parole. United States v. Johnson, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 106925 (N.D.Cal. August 13, 2015). Even though the patdown … Continue reading
VI: Arrest for possession of an unlicensed firearm required knowledge that the defendant had no license, not just that he possessed a firearm
Defendant’s arrest for possession of an unlicensed firearm in the Territory required knowledge that the defendant had no license, not just that he possessed a firearm. Motion to suppress granted. People v. Pryce, 2015 V.I. LEXIS 91 (Super.Ct. July 27, … Continue reading
CA6: Michigan’s state forfeiture law doesn’t deprive due process after an officer seizes money
Officers can issue a notice of forfeiture under Michigan law, and the person subject to the forfeiture has a valid state remedy, and that satisfies due process. “Officer Jones’s testimony is troubling, and municipalities should take care to operate within … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Riley doesn’t apply retroactively on post-conviction review
Riley does not apply retroactively on post-conviction. Defendant pled guilty without raising a cell phone search question, and text message pictures showed him having sex with a minor who was in his car when it was stopped. Stringer v. United … Continue reading