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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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State courts (and some USDC opinions)
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
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Solicitor General's site
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Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
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General (many free):
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www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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)
ACLU on privacy
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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, Colorado Springs. 
Category Archives: Excessive force
N.D.Ill.: ICE may be seeking to cause confrontations as an excuse to use force
Chicago Headline Club v. Noem, No. 25 C 12173 (N.D. Ill. Nov. 20, 2025) (233 pages). Just as to driving:
NBC: Top military lawyer raised legal concerns about boat strikes
NBC: Top military lawyer raised legal concerns about boat strikes by Gordon Lubold, Courtney Kube and Dan De Luce (“The lawyer at U.S. Southern Command, which oversees the operations against alleged drug-smuggling boats near Venezuela, disagreed that the strikes are … Continue reading
LA: Communal parking area at a “trailer park” was not curtilage
Defendant’s car in a “trailer park” communal parking area near his place was not on his “curtilage.” The court of appeals erred in finding it was curtilage. State v. Charles, 2025 La. LEXIS 1624 (Nov. 19, 2025). “Here, the renewed … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: SW for cell phone at border after warrantless search was reasonable
CBP seized and searched defendant’s cell phones at the border under existing authority. After subsequent case law called that into question, the government sought a search warrant for the phones disclosing all the facts. The subsequent warrant was valid. United … Continue reading
MS: Forensic search of computer in a county other than where SW was served violates no law
The fact a forensic search of defendant’s computer was done in a county other than where the search warrant for its seizure was executed doesn’t violate any law. Fields v. State, 2025 Miss. App. LEXIS 430 (Nov. 4, 2025). The … Continue reading
D.P.R.: No suppression hearing required when there’s no factual dispute
You don’t get a hearing on a motion to suppress without showing a factual dispute to be resolved. United States v. Figueroa-Figueroa, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 218467 (D.P.R. Nov. 4, 2025). “A claim that a law enforcement official used excessive … Continue reading
NPR: As strikes on alleged drug boats grow, so do questions about their legality and goal
NPR: As strikes on alleged drug boats grow, so do questions about their legality and goal byFranco Ordoñez & Ryan Lucas (“The Trump administration has yet to provide public evidence to support its assertions that the individuals on the boats … Continue reading
Reason: The Constitution Does Not Allow the President To Unilaterally Blow Suspected Drug Smugglers to Smithereens
Reason: The Constitution Does Not Allow the President To Unilaterally Blow Suspected Drug Smugglers to Smithereens by Sen. Rand Paul (“Somewhere off the coast of Venezuela, a speedboat with 11 people on board is blown to smithereens. Vice President J.D. … Continue reading
D.Alaska: Sharing cell phone gives standing
Defendant shared the iPhone of another person, so he had standing to contest its search. United States v. Powers, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 192621 (D. Alaska Sep. 30, 2025). Defendants don’t get qualified immunity. The jury could conclude that more … Continue reading
OH5: Alleged jurisdictional defect in warrant issuance didn’t undermine PC; no dispute as to that
Alleged defects in which court should or could issue this particular warrant was subject to the good faith exception. There was no contention that the affidavit for warrant lacked probable cause. State v. Wharton, 2025-Ohio-4485 (5th Dist. Sep. 25, 2025). … Continue reading
Atlanta Black Star: ‘Eight Rounds After I Was on the Ground’: Texas Cops at the Wrong Home Opened Fire on Man Even After He Surrendered
Atlanta Black Star: ‘Eight Rounds After I Was on the Ground’: Texas Cops at the Wrong Home Opened Fire on Man Even After He Surrendered by Carlos Miller (“Another police blunder led to the shooting of a man in Texas … Continue reading
IA: RS for this DUI stop was the gait of def walking toward his car
Reasonable suspicion for this DUI stop was the gait of defendant walking toward his car. State v. Nockels, 2025 Iowa App. LEXIS 812 (Sep. 17, 2025). Plaintiff was hurt during police response to a domestic dispute. “Hoover filed this suit … Continue reading
E.D.Ark.: Parole search waiver included curtilage of house
Plaintiff’s parole search waiver for his house includes his curtilage. Kennedy v. White Cty., 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 180862 (E.D. Ark. Sep. 16, 2025). Admission of a photograph of defendant’s house taken from off the property did not violate the … Continue reading
CA3: Cell phone owner voluntarily gave up passcode
Having voluntarily given up her cell phone passcode, she can’t suppress its contents. United States v. Curry, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 23865 (3d Cir. Sep. 16, 2025). Past detention for alleged unlawful reasons doesn’t give Art. III standing for possible … Continue reading
W.D.Wis.: § 1983 search claim producing $4,000 damages verdict supported $84,690 in attorneys fees
Plaintiff’s § 1983 search claim produced a damages verdict for $500 compensatory and $3500 punitive. The attorney’s fees award of $84,690.00 is granted. Pfalzgraf v. Reisner, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 168405 (W.D. Wis. Aug. 28, 2025). Cracked windshield and tinted … Continue reading
LATimes: Immigration agent fires shots at vehicle with people inside in San Bernardino operation
LATimes: Immigration agent fires shots at vehicle with people inside in San Bernardino operation by Brittny Mejia. The officers claim shooting at the vehicle was in self-defense:
MS: The CIs were co-conspirators and eyewitnesses and could be credited
The three informants were co-conspirators, eyewitnesses, and participants in the crime, and their information could be credited for search warrant. Taylor v. State, 2025 Miss. App. LEXIS 292 (Aug. 12, 2025). Defendant’s 2255 re-raises his Fourth Amendment claim already rejected. … Continue reading
Louisville Courier Journal: Ex-LMPD detective Brett Hankison sentenced to 33 months in prison
Louisville Courier Journal: Ex-LMPD detective Brett Hankison sentenced to 33 months in prison by Josh Wood (“A federal judge sentenced former Louisville Police detective Brett Hankison to 33 months in prison for the shots he fired during the fatal 2020 … Continue reading
S.D.Ill.: Being a cash courier doesn’t establish standing
Giving a substantial amount of cash to a courier to take it from Arizona to Maryland doesn’t create standing. United States v. $549,860.00 in United States Currency, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 131436 (S.D. Ill. July 10, 2025). Defendant’s place was … Continue reading