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- GA: Raising particularity in half of one sentence of argument isn’t a presentation of the issue
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- GA: No case says SW required to ask for cell phone password
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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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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
Privacy Foundation
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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: Scope of search
IA: SW for premises includes whole house, and bedroom of a visitor with a separate REP is still subject to search
Defendant was staying at the house of another when a search warrant for the premises was executed. He argued that his particular bedroom wasn’t subject to search under the warrant because he had a separate expectation of privacy in the … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Affidavit’s misidentifying homeowner wasn’t material to the PC to search
Misidentifying the homeowner in the affidavit for the warrant isn’t material because a search warrant runs against the place and the evidence inside. “The identity of the supposedly-misidentified person is irrelevant to the finding of probable cause to search the … Continue reading
OH6: Home surveillance DVR not within “computer hardware and software” in home SW
A home surveillance DVR was not reasonably included within the search warrant for drug transction records or “computer [or] related computer hardware and software.” State v. Williamson, 2019-Ohio-241, 2019 Ohio App. LEXIS 245 (6th Dist. Jan. 25, 2019) [*P23] Here, … Continue reading
IA: PC for car search includes purse found in it
Probable cause for search of a car includes a woman’s purse found in the car. State v. Swenson, 2019 Iowa App. LEXIS 36 (Jan. 9, 2019). A dog sniff of a car doesn’t require reasonable suspicion or probable cause something … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: SW for CP permitted search of entire dwelling; it wasn’t apparent to officers def had a roommate
Defendant’s email and IP address connected him to receipt of child pornography. The search warrant for his entire home for child pornography was valid even though defendant had a roommate. There’s no constitutional requirement for police to go to great … Continue reading
TX4: Visitor’s property searched during SW for premises is governed by possession test: was the person in actual possession at the time?
Texas follows the possession test for searches of personal belongings of visitors found during a search of premises. Thus, defendant’s purse was not in her actual personal possession at the time of the entry and searches, so it was not … Continue reading
MD: Phone call recorded on cell phone that was searched not protected by state wiretap act
Defendant recorded a drug transaction on his cell phone. When his phone was seized and then searched during his arrest, the recording was found. It was legitimately seized, and the defendant can’t claim the state wiretap act protected him as … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: There was a reasonable inference def’s house had his cell phones
The search warrant for cell phones was based on a reasonable inference that they’d be found in defendant’s house, and the search of his house and person were justified. “Herein, it was reasonable for the magistrate to infer that the … Continue reading
NJ: SW for financial crimes on a computer didn’t authorize opening .jpegs
A search warrant for financial crimes on a computer didn’t authorize opening picture files. Child pornography was found. The lack of sophistication of the searching officer is no excuse. State v. Harris, 2018 N.J. Super. LEXIS 160 (Nov. 15, 2018). … Continue reading
OH11: No RS that a cigarette case contained a weapon to justify opening it
Opening a small metal box that was apparently a cigarette case was unreasonable because there was no reasonable suspicion that it contained a weapon. State v. Luther, 2018-Ohio-4568, 2018 Ohio App. LEXIS 4887 (11th Dist. Nov. 13, 2018). Defendant’s guilty … Continue reading
NY3: Def’s admission he had MJ justified search of car; when it turned up empty, then a search of his person
Defendant admitted possession of marijuana during a traffic stop. After the car turned up empty, there was then probable cause for a search of his person. People v. Roulhac, 2018 NY Slip Op 07367, 2018 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 7357 … Continue reading
MN: Another’s outside storage unit at an apartment building found because its key was found during a search of the apt couldn’t be searched under apt SW
An apartment of another was searched under a warrant, and a key to a storage unit was found. The storage unit was nearby but not in the apartment, and it was in defendant’s name. Searching the storage unit in another … Continue reading
CA10: You can’t tell the court it needs to apply the independent source case law a certain way and then complain on appeal that it did what you asked
This case started with hotel housekeeping coming in to clean a room and seeing obvious drug paraphernalia. The police were called, and they were shown. A search warrant was prepared showing probable cause to connect defendants to the room by … Continue reading
D.Conn.: A safe could be searched under SW in a homicide case; logical place for weapon or ammunition
There was probable cause to search a safe found in defendant’s house for evidence in a murder case because the firearms, ammunition, clothing, or electronic devices could be there. United States v. Fable, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 129527 (D. Conn. … Continue reading