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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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Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
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S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
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General (many free):
LexisWeb
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Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
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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
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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: Arrest or entry on arrest
IL: Arrest on a CPD “investigative alert” unreasonable
The use of an CPD “investigative alert” to arrest defendant was unreasonable and a violation of the Fourth Amendment (but harmless on the totality). People v. Smith, 2022 IL App (1st) 190691, 2022 Ill. App. LEXIS 329 (July 18, 2022). … Continue reading
CA7: Bail hearing doesn’t have to be in 48 hours if a PC determination was
There is no hard rule that a bail hearing has to happen within 48 hours of arrest. PC finding, yes; bail, no. “[P]recedent dictates that only a probable-cause determination must be held within forty-eight hours. The constitutionally required timing of … Continue reading
NY Bronx: REP in one’s apartment building mailbox
Defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his mailbox in an apartment building from unreasonable searches. A search warrant was sought through the Bronx DA, but they were short staffed and recommended the officers get landlord consent. That was … Continue reading
WA: A detainee’s racial and ethnic factors are a part of “all the circumstances” in determining a seizure under state constitution
Under the state constitution, whether a person is “seized” must consider the person’s racial and ethnic factors that influence their perceptions. State v. Sum, 2022 Wash. LEXIS 317 (June 9, 2022):
New article: Unintentional Destruction: Torres v. Madrid, in Defining a Fourth Amendment Seizure of the Person as a Common Law Arrest, Turned Terry v. Ohio into Collateral Damage,
George M. Dery III, Unintentional Destruction: Torres v. Madrid, in Defining a Fourth Amendment Seizure of the Person as a Common Law Arrest, Turned Terry v. Ohio into Collateral Damage, 49 Hastings Const. L.Q. 83 (2022), Abstract:
D.Ariz.: Nighttime search rule doesn’t bar nighttime arrest warrant execution
As to arrest warrants, Rule 41 and 21 U.S.C. § 879 aren’t clear on whether a nighttime entry is barred for execution of an arrest warrant. (Tie goes to the government on reasonableness.) A violation of knock-and-announce doesn’t invoke the … Continue reading
PA: Hot pursuit justified officer crossing jurisdictional lines
Hot pursuit justified an officer in one jurisdiction following defendants into another one after a robbery report on their car. Commonwealth v. Hobel, 2022 PA Super 86, 2022 Pa. Super. LEXIS 202 (May 10, 2022) (decided under state statute). “A … Continue reading
CT: John Doe DNA arrest warrant based on touch DNA is too general to satisfy the particularity requirement
A John Doe DNA arrest warrant based on touch DNA is too general to satisfy the particularity requirement. State v. Terrance Police, 2022 Conn. LEXIS 123 (May 10, 2022):
E.D.Tenn.: USDJ doesn’t second guess USMJ’s credibility determinations in the R&R
USDJ doesn’t second guess USMJ’s credibility determinations in the R&R on a motion to suppress. United States v. Bowman, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69156 (E.D.Tenn. Apr. 14, 2022).* A bag left outdoors at an apartment complex for more than a … Continue reading
CNS: St. Louis County defends wanted alert system at Eighth Circuit
CNS: St. Louis County defends wanted alert system at Eighth Circuit (“The system allows police officers to issue alerts for suspects based on their own probable cause without having a judge sign off on a warrant.”)
OH: Material witness warrant requires PC
“Based on the language in the [Fourth Amendment] and Ohio Constitutions, we now hold that material witnesses are entitled to these basic, fundamental rights and therefore agree with the Eighth District that the state’s request for a warrant to detain … Continue reading
SCOTUS: Thompson v. Clark
Thompson v. Clark, 2022 U.S. LEXIS 1885 (Apr. 4, 2022) (ScotusBlog: “Larry Thompson’s showing that his criminal prosecution ended without a conviction satisfies the requirement to demonstrate a favorable termination of a criminal prosecution in a Fourth Amendment claim under … Continue reading
CA7: Def’s detention during protective sweep looking for another was unreasonable
Defendant’s detention in an apartment building during a protective sweep for a fugitive that clearly wasn’t him was unreasonable. The district court’s denial of the motion to suppress is reversed. United States v. Segoviano, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 8771 (7th … Continue reading
CA6: Misidentification and 24 days in jail for wrong man not shown to be pattern for city liability
“‘Benny’ Lopez of Traverse City sold heroin to a confidential informant working with the Traverse Narcotics Team in northern Michigan. ‘Benjamin’ Lopez of Grand Rapids did not. Yet officers arrested Benjamin, not Benny, for this crime. The wrong Lopez languished … Continue reading
D.C.Cir.: Admin. law: 4A claims must be brought at agency level first
In an action before the Board for Correction of Naval Records, the service member had to raise his Fourth Amendment claim before the agency or it is waived, which is what happened here. McPherson v. Del Toro, Sec’y of the … Continue reading
CA2: Swearing to arrest warrant at direction of a prosecutor does not confer prosecutorial immunity
“Long-standing precedent makes clear that swearing to an arrest warrant affidavit and executing an arrest are traditional police functions, and performing such functions at the direction of a prosecutor does not transform them into prosecutorial acts protected by absolute immunity.” … Continue reading
PA: Warrantless entry to arrest for DUI here was unreasonable; no exigency
A warrantless entry into defendant’s house because he’d been driving drunk was unreasonable. “Considering all the foregoing, we do not believe the Roland factors weigh in favor of an exigency here. Police were investigating a suspected drunk driver and nothing … Continue reading
D.Neb.: State officer’s jurisdiction is not a 4A question
State officers outside their jurisdiction making an arrest is not alone a Fourth Amendment violation. Virginia v. Moore. United States v. Blair, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47833 (D.Neb. Mar. 17, 2022).* Defendant found to have consented to a search after … Continue reading
CA6: Suicide note created exigency for welfare check
Defendant’s alleged suicide note created exigency for warrantless entry. “Prior to Remillard’s trial, several Ohio courts had held that exigent circumstances permit a police officer’s warrantless entry into a home to conduct a wellness check on a suicidal individual if … Continue reading