October 2026 S M T W T F S 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Archives
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Recent Posts
- WaPo: Florida county discovers mysterious Flock cameras with no obvious owner
- D.Or.: “a person’s mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not, without more, give rise to probable cause to search that person.” Ybarra
- E.D.Cal.: Ptf doesn’t sufficiently allege access to private medical information violated 4A
- 404 Media: Surveillance Company Wants to Add Facial Recognition to Flock Cameras
- Reason: AI Facial Recognition Didn’t Put This Tennessee Grandma in Jail for 6 Months. Bad Policing Did.
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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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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 -
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 $ -
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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)
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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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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)
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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
NY4: Search of cell phone for texts led to SW; not inevitable discovery because SW sought because of illegal search
Defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights in his cell phone text messages were violated by the police searching them without a warrant. The fact they got a warrant later didn’t help them because that was the only reason to search the phone, … Continue reading
WI: Probation condition against possession of a computer gives the PO power to search one found
Defendant had arson and sex offender convictions, and a term of probation was no computers without approval. They found a computer with live modems at his house, and he denied that the big computer worked, but he had a laptop. … Continue reading
NY1: Pawnbrokers have been heavily regulated for a century; rules for information storage are reasonable
Pawnbrokers have been a heavily regulated industry for over a century. NYC’s requirement of provision of certain information in digital format is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment (compare California Bankers Assn. v. Schultz) and the limited administrative searches are reasonable. … Continue reading
CA4: Drugs on an occupant of a vehicle supports a search of the trunk and other compartments
Drugs on an occupant of a vehicle supports a search of the trunk and other compartments. United States v. Brown, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 1720 (4th Cir. Jan. 31, 2017). Defendant appeals a supervised release search term that does not … Continue reading
Law Review: Fourth Amendment Rights of Probationers: The Lack of Explicit Probation Conditions and Warrantless Searches
Fourth Amendment Rights of Probationers: The Lack of Explicit Probation Conditions and Warrantless Searches by Taylor S. Rothman at University of Chicago Legal Forum.
CA8: Supervised release term of “random inspections of his computer’s internet and email usage history” reasonably justified search of def’s computer
Supervised release term of “random inspections of his computer’s internet and email usage history” reasonably justified search of defendant’s computer. United States v. McCoy, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 1695 (8th Cir. Jan. 31, 2017):
Cal.6th: Broad electronic search probation condition was justified by the crime
The defendant juvenile took pictures of his having sex with a girl he was in school with and then he blackmailed her. He was found delinquent under the juvenile law for possession of child pornography and extortion. The broad probation … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Girlfriend’s misstatement about presence of other persons in house during probation search justified protective sweep
“[O]fficers went to Mr. Owens’ residence to conduct a probationary check. After knocking on the door, officers were told by Mr. Owens’ girlfriend, Ms. Haqq, that he was not present and that she was the only adult at the residence. … Continue reading
FL2: Protective sweep of curtilage unreasonable; CI’s tip of obvious details to any observer not corroborated
The trial court erred in denying defendant’s motion to suppress under the protective sweep exception to the warrant requirement because the trial court’s finding that the detective’s intrusion onto the curtilage was justified for officer safety was not supported by … Continue reading
WA: There must be a nexus between the scope of a parole search and what is being looked for
“¶17 We agree with [State v. Jardinez, 184 Wn. App. 518, 338 P.3d 292 (2014)] that the [Sentencing Guidelines] Commission’s comment is strong evidence that the legislature intended that there must be a nexus between the suspected violation and the … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: CI with good track record isn’t less believable because she had a relationship with the def which “soured”
The CI in this case had a track record. Then she was involved with defendant, and then she set defendant up, too. The fact their relationship “soured” didn’t undermine her credibility on the question of probable cause. United States v. … Continue reading
PA holds state constitution requires exclusionary rule applies to parole and probation revocation proceedings
PA holds state constitution requires exclusionary rule applies to parole and probation revocation proceedings. The court engages in a lengthy and sensitive analysis. Commonwealth v. Arter, 2016 Pa. LEXIS 2916 (Dec. 28, 2016):
E.D.N.Y.: 791 days of GPS tracking of a parolee to catch others in a DTO was [somehow] not unreasonable
In a really strange case, a GPS monitor to track curfew violations of a parolee was left on for 791 days. The parole officers and then other officers watched where he was going to attempt to crack a drug trafficking … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Software to monitor computer usage of person on supervised release not unreasonable if necessary in the first place
Defendant was under court ordered computer monitoring as a condition of his supervised release, and software was installed on his computer and then his cell phone to monitor his text messages and internet searches. Seventh Circuit precedent forecloses defendant’s argument … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Post-release supervision home search before dawn wasn’t reasonable
Defendant was subject to home post-release supervision visits conducted at reasonable times. This one was 6:00-6:15 am when sunrise was nearly 7 am. This was effectively a nighttime search of his house and was thus unreasonable. Suppressed. United States v. … Continue reading
PA: An unannounced home visit of a probationer doesn’t require RS
Defendant was on probation, and the unannounced probation home visit resulted in a plain view of cocaine that was admissible in evidence. The home visits were provided for in the probation agreement, and they did not have to be based … Continue reading
AZ: No state const’l right to RS for a parole search; good policy reasons for suspicionless parole searches
In a wide ranging opinion on parole searches, the Arizona court holds that there is no Fourth Amendment or state constitutional requirement of reasonable suspicion for a parole search. There are good policy reasons for suspicionless searches. State v. Adair, … Continue reading
VT: Probation officer’s home visit is not a search
A probation officer’s home visit is not a search. Levitt v. State, 2016 VT 60, ¶ 32. State v. Albarelli, 2016 VT 119, 2016 Vt. LEXIS 121 (Nov. 18, 2016). The DUI roadblock in this case was established in accord … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: The exclusionary rule doesn’t [hardly ever] apply to violations of supervised release
The exclusionary rule does not apply to violations of supervised release, but it might be possible if the deterrence rationale could still apply sometimes, just not here. “Thus, just like in Scott, applying the rule would inhibit the government’s ability … Continue reading