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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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General (many free):
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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
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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
BLT: Fourth Circuit Grapples With Privacy of Cell Tower Data
BLT: Fourth Circuit Grapples With Privacy of Cell Tower Data by Mike Scarcella: Maryland’s top federal prosecutor argued in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that cellphone users have no privacy expectation in the records that wireless … Continue reading
D.Conn.: CSLI not good enough to place def at particular location for entry to arrest
Using cell site location data to locate the defendant, the fact the phone put him at a particular address wasn’t sufficient to show that he was actually inside or that it was his residence under Steagald. The government had no … Continue reading
The Hill: The ‘dirtboxes’ of the US Marshals Service
The Hill: The ‘dirtboxes’ of the US Marshals Service by Peter Toren: Recent reports about the United States Marshals Service’s use of planes to collect location data from cell phones of suspects through devices known as “dirtboxes” — but which … Continue reading
CA9: Cell phone is not a “container” under the automobile exception
In a cell phone search case submitted pre-Riley, the Ninth Circuit applies Riley and also holds that the proffered exigencies of the automobile exception and search incident do not apply to a search of the photographs and text messages on … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Warrantless PO’s search of cell phone with reasonable suspicion was reasonable
Warrantless search of a sex offense probationer’s cell phone by state PO on reasonable suspicion he was arranging a liaison with a 15 year old was reasonable under Riley and Knights read together. United States v. Dahl, 2014 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
OH12: Def had no standing to contest pinging wife’s cell phone even though police were looking for him
Defendant was a suspected heroin dealer taking his family on runs to Boston to get the heroin. When defendant left, they went to his house and did a trash pull and got his wife’s cell phone number from a bill … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Cell phone PC and particularity; GFE applies to cell phone warrant execution
Defendant was a guard at Riker’s Island prison complex, and he was arrested in a drug conspiracy. When a cell phone is removed from a person at the time of arrest and a search warrant is sought, the government doesn’t … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: 30 day cell phone GPS tracking order requires PC and particularity
A 30 day cell phone GPS tracking order requires probable cause and particularity; otherwise it is a general warrant. Intercepted calls, however, led to a search warrant for his house. The search of the house has a different basis, and … Continue reading
Three Aaron Hernandez cell phone and house search cases on Lexis today; cell phone turned over to lawyers not immune from search (Updated)
Commonwealth v. Hernandez, 2014 Mass. Super. LEXIS 144 (Super. Ct. Bristol August 26, 2014) (“Because the Commonwealth failed to sustain its burden of proof that the cell phones and iPads were in plain view, that their incriminating character was immediately … Continue reading
The Hill: DOJ wants Apple to help unlock iPhones
The Hill: DOJ wants Apple to help unlock iPhones by Cory Bennett: The Department of Justice is harkening back to an 18th-century federal law to get access to encrypted iPhones, according to court documents published Monday by ArsTechnica.
The Hill: How to stop NSA from snooping on you
The Hill: How to stop NSA from snooping on you by Cory Bennett: The first thing to know about securing your phone is that you can’t secure your phone.
WBAL: ACLU alleges police use of Stringray violates 4th Amendment
WBAL: ACLU alleges police use of Stringray violates 4th Amendment by David Collins (with video) The Baltimore Sun: Stringray used to pinpoint suspect’s location by Justin Fenton: ACLU joins Md. federal case over cellphone tracking
WaPo: Maker of smartphone spying app pleads guilty in federal court
WaPo: Maker of smartphone spying app pleads guilty in federal court by Matt Zapotosky: The maker of a smartphone app once marketed to help catch cheating lovers by listening in on phone calls and tracking locations was ordered Tuesday to … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: “No harm, no foul” on no exclusion for illegal cell phone search mentioned
An officer involved in the case conducted an illegal warrantless, albeit limited, search of defendant’s cell phone, realized it was wrong, and then stopped and didn’t tell the case agent or anyone else what he’d done. Later, he “came clean” … Continue reading
WA: Probation search of iPod without RS was unconstitutional
A probation search of an iPod without a warrant was improper under state law. The statute doesn’t help the court, but the department’s rules do, and they limit searches to a potential offense being investigated and this was not. Thus, … Continue reading
The Hill: [NC] Judge unseals info on secret cellphone spying
The Hill: Judge unseals info on secret cellphone spying by Cory Bennett: A judge Friday unsealed a trove of court documents that could shed light on a secret cellphone tracking program used by police nationwide. The judge in Charlotte, N.C., … Continue reading
WaPo: Phone tracking: From your address to, now, your altitude
WaPo: Phone tracking: From your address to, now, your altitude by Craig Timberg: Cellphone tracking is about to go vertical as the location-services industry, prodded by the U.S. government, solves the riddle of what experts call ‘the z vector.’ Soon … Continue reading