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- TX: If electronic search was illegal, it was harmless
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- W.D.Pa.: Def can’t repackage a losing 4A standing claim into a due process claim
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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.
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
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General (many free):
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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
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
OH1: A car listed on the search warrant could be searched away from the premises
“[*P7] Following the issuance of the warrant, RENU agents conducted surveillance on the residence at 3021 Cavanaugh Avenue. According to Deputy Kane, RENU agents would generally wait to execute a search warrant until an occupant left the targeted residence, especially … Continue reading
MD: DUI arrest supports SI for source
A DUI arrest provides probable cause that evidence of intoxication will be found in the vehicle, so a search incident to arrest is justified. Taylor v. State, 2015 Md. App. LEXIS 102 (July 30, 2015). Officers executing a search warrant … Continue reading
NC: SW for a house did not authorize search of a car of a visitor in the driveway [Reversed 12/21/16]
Officers with a search warrant for a house could not search a car of a visitor in the driveway under the warrant. State v. Lowe, 2015 N.C. App. LEXIS 633 (July 21, 2015). Update: Reversed State v. Lowe, 2016 N.C. … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Use of forensic software to search a computer in a child pornography case is not a general rummaging
The use of forensic software to search a computer in a child pornography case does not exceed the scope of search defined in the warrant, and it does not constitute a general rummaging. United States v. Perez, 2015 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
IA: Search of guest’s backpack was reasonable when it wasn’t clear whose it was
Officers did not have actual authority to search a guest’s backpack during a consent search, but it wasn’t clear whose backpack it was, so the search here was lawful. State v. Jackson, 2015 Iowa App. LEXIS 400 (May 6, 2015). … Continue reading
ND: Visitor’s purse could be searched on execution of SW for house for drugs
The affidavit for search warrant named defendant’s house but not his name. The probable cause was for drugs. Once inside, there was a woman visiting. Officers could search her purse as a part of the warrant. [The specification of name … Continue reading
Alabama appellate decisions now free; link changed
Because an Alabama search and seizure case came through today, and they are so seldom seen, I went to their website to see if anything had changed, and it has: opinions are now free, and the link on the state … Continue reading
TN: An RV parked off the property but connected by an electrical cord to the house was subject to search under a warrant for the house
To search vehicles under a search warrant for real property, the vehicles must belong to a person named in the warrant to identify the place or things to be searched. Vehicles belonging to visitors are not subject to search under … Continue reading
D.Alaska: Seizure of a video recording from a child’s bedroom during a drug search warrant was an overseizure and suppressed
The protective sweep of the house before actual arrival of the search warrant was valid because an additional person stuck a head out the window when the officers first knocked, and they had to be sure there wasn’t another. [Since … Continue reading
DE: SW execution in the community-living situation
Defendant lived in a house that several people shared, but it wasn’t apparent to the police who got the search warrant. There were no “barriers” on the inside, other than doors, that suggested separate living quarters, and the “do not … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: PC and scope of search are matters usually decided on the papers without a hearing
If the question is probable cause for and scope of the warrant, a hearing is not really required. Here, the subject matter was contraband untaxed cigarettes moved interstate, and there was a substantial basis for issuing the search warrant. The … Continue reading
IN: Search of a pill bottle incident to an arrest for driving without a DL is found to be unreasonable under the Indiana Constitution [reversed]
Search of a pill bottle incident to an arrest for driving without a license is found to be unreasonable under the Indiana Constitution. Garcia v. State, 2015 Ind. App. LEXIS 50 (February 3, 2015), but reversed: Garcia v. State, 2016 … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Michigan v. Summers applies to homes, not businesses
ICE raided and executed a search warrant on Soccer City in Albuquerque because of suspicion the operators were selling fake IDs. Defendant walked in carrying a box and he was accosted by the ICE agents and asked for his ID, … Continue reading
M.D.Ga.: Def’s probation search of gun safe was with RS of drugs, even if door had to be peeled
Officers had reasonable suspicion for a probation search of defendant’s house, and that included his gun safe. They could have peeled the door but didn’t, and defendant’s giving the combination was essentially moot because the officers could have broken in. … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Omission of items from return not prejudicial; using footnotes in SW affidavit isn’t “hiding” information
First, defendant’s Franks argument fails. The negative information that he complains about not being more prominently displayed was “hidden” in a footnote in the 42 page affidavit. There is nothing that says that there can’t be information in footnotes. Second, … Continue reading
CA6: Exigency supported seizure of animals from pet store, but not its records
Animal control officers seized animals and records from a pet store in Chattanooga for lack of water, food, and proper care. The animal seizure was valid and did not violate any clearly established right. The business record seizure, however, could … Continue reading