Archives
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Recent Posts
- CA2: No 4A requirement for SWs being issued with notice to target
- CA6: Denying ptf access to his own bathroom during a search of his house stated 4A claim
- W.D.Mo.: Not exactly following the inventory policy doesn’t make it unreasonable under 4A
- GA: No IAC for not challenging complete cell phone download before search
- DNYUZ: CBP Workers Allegedly Used Government Databases to Spy on Exes, Crushes, and Colleagues
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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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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)
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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: Probation / Parole search
CA9: Police can enter suspect probationer’s parent’s house where she lived looking for her
Police could enter a commonly used residence to look for a probationer they had probable cause to believe committed a violent crime, over the protests of the primary occupant, her mother. They entered over the mother’s objection but didn’t find … Continue reading
CA9: While cell phone privacy interest is substantial, state’s interest in parole searches of cell phones is greater
While the general reasonable expectation of privacy in a cell phone is weighty, it still succumbs to the state’s interest in parole searches of a cell phone to insure compliance with parole requirements. The record also supports consent given by … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Fact POs entered third party’s home to arrest him doesn’t make it unreasonable
POs found defendant parolee at his girlfriend’s house that he was not approved to live in. It was arguable he didn’t have standing, and his reasonable expectation of privacy was reduced there [I think he would have standing as an … Continue reading
D.Me.: Sex offender on parole/probation subject to suspicionless search of computer
Defendant was a sex offender on probation after prison, and he had a search condition. The police and probation had information that he had child pornography on his computer. A probation search of an SD card revealed the child pornography. … Continue reading
PA: POs have authority to search visitors in parolee’s house at time of parole visit with RS
“[P]arole agents have the authority to conduct a protective Terry frisk of non-parolees within the course of executing their statutorily imposed duties, so long as reasonable suspicion supports the agents’ conduct.” Here, POs entered the parolee’s house for a visit … Continue reading
D.Minn.: PO knowing def’s history saw a bulge in def’s pocket, and this was justification for a search
Defendant was on supervised release. The officer “then saw a bulge in Becerra’s pocket that he suspected could be a weapon. [He thus] had probable cause at the time he arrested Becerra to believe that Becerra was violating his supervised … Continue reading
D.Kan.: State law does apply under 4A in parole searches; here, there was a reasonable basis for it
In the Tenth Circuit, the area of state probation and parole search is about the only area where the Fourth Amendment is informed by state law, and state law determines limits on state actors in the first instance, and then … Continue reading
PA: Riley doesn’t apply to parole searches of cell phones
Riley doesn’t apply to parole searches of cell phones. Commonwealth v. Murray, 2017 PA Super 363, 2017 Pa. Super. LEXIS 928 (Nov. 15, 2017):
N.D.Ill.: PO seeing an “unregistered” cell phone was seizure in plain view
Defendant was on supervised release for child pornography and he had a cell phone not listed with US Probation. The phone was seen during a home visit. The PO picked up the phone and turned it on and a picture … Continue reading
Cal.3d: Domestic battery conviction didn’t support cell phone probation search condition
A broad probation electronics search condition for domestic battery was constitutionally overbroad because it doesn’t sufficiently serve the state’s interests compared to the crime of conviction. A cell phone has far too much information on it to make it so … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Suspicionless probation search condition not shown to be on defendant; motion to suppress granted
Defendant did not have a suspicionless search condition on him. “This Court now joins the other courts in this district that have held that an officer must have reasonable suspicion to conduct a search of a probationer, unless the probationer … Continue reading
Cal.1: Def’s lie about his identity to avoid probation search estopped his 4A argument; search valid even if officer didn’t know about probation
Officers believed defendant was involved in a robbery and shot himself. At the ER, defendant lied and gave a false name because he was on probation with a search condition. Defendant’s lie about his identity is an estoppel. He was … Continue reading
DE: Probation absconder didn’t have standing in another person’s property; alternatively, probation absconding is exigency
Defendant was a probation absconder, and he did not have standing to contest a search of another probationer’s camper. Even if defendant did have standing, the probation officers substantially complied with departmental guidelines. Defendant’s presence as an absconder from probation … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Probation search of cell phone was reasonable condition
Search of defendant’s cell phone as a probation search condition was reasonable. United States v. Canady, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 169069 (E.D. Cal. Oct. 12, 2017). The officer did not have reasonable suspicion for a seizure of defendant’s vehicle because … Continue reading
CA11: Parolee has no REP where he stays
Officers had cause for a protective sweep as well as consent from defendant’s girlfriend to search her apartment where he often stayed. A shotgun was in plain view. Defendant also had no standing because he was a parolee. United States … Continue reading
CA6: Search incident permitted for arrest on parole absconder warrant
Search incident to arrest is proper on an arrest on parole absconder warrant. Witzke v. Bradley, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 23965 (6th Cir. Dec. 30, 2016). The officer developed reasonable suspicion to continue the stop to bring in the drug … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Suspicionless parole search of def’s cell phone was reasonable
Defendant was on parole for pimping an underage prostitute out of California, and he had a warrantless search condition on his cell phone. The suspicionless parole search of the phone was reasonable. United States v. Monson, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Search incident on a PV warrant was valid
Search incident to arrest on a DOC warrant was valid. Search incident of his backpack in the car wasn’t valid, but it was by inventory and thus inevitable discovery. United States v. Vang, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 161227 (D. Minn. … Continue reading