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- VA: Body cam video of valid arrest would not be suppressed
- NM: Trial court’s finding of consent is reversed because the court engaged in its own internet investigation beyond what the parties provided
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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 -
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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: Independent source
E.D.Mo.: Federal SW for cell phone after private search then state SW was on independent source
Defendant’s cell phone was first the subject of a private search, and then a police search. The police search exceeded the scope of the private search, and that led to a state issued search warrant. The state search warrant was … Continue reading
D.Kan.: Appellate counsel’s declining to appeal “including but not limited to” in the search warrant was not IAC
Appellate counsel’s declining to appeal the use of the phrase “including but not limited to” in the search warrant was not unreasonable because, as defendant admits, it does not per se lead to unreasonable searches. United States v. Ransom, 2018 … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: Manafort storage building search sustained: Employee with free access had apparent authority to consent to entry
The FBI reasonably relied on a person with apparent authority to consent to an entry into a storage locker to look around. The consenter had free access to the storage room as an employee, and the employer-employee relationship can permit … Continue reading
LA5: Knock-and-talk cannot be used to create exigency
Officers came to defendant’s house because a couple of drug suspects had visited him. The officers’ knock-and-talk didn’t gain them entry into the house, and a knock-and-talk can’t be used to create exigent circumstances. A protective sweep was unjustified because … Continue reading
CA9: Prior illegal entry into home doesn’t void subsequent SW if observations removed from SW affidavit
Assuming, without deciding, the warrantless entry into defendant’s home was invalid, there still was probable cause for issuance of the search warrant based on the remainder of the affidavit, excising the product of the prior entry. Inclusion of information from … Continue reading
GA: Def’s cell phone was seized and downloaded w/o a warrant, but the download wasn’t searched until a SW was obtained; search valid under independent source
Defendant’s cell phone was seized and downloaded, but the download wasn’t searched without a search warrant. The court doesn’t even have to decide whether exigent circumstances permitted the download because the police had seized it lawfully and they have plenty … Continue reading
CA2: If excising the tainted information from the affidavit still leaves PC, the search stands
“When an application for a search warrant includes both tainted and untainted evidence, ‘the warrant may be upheld if the untainted evidence, standing alone, establishes probable cause.’” Excising the challenged information here still yields probable cause on the totality. United … Continue reading
CA9: Unreasonable detention of those present when SW executed not shown
“The district court also did not err in granting summary judgment in favor of the individual defendants on Strong and Byers’ claims that the detention violated their Fourth Amendment rights. Officers may detain all persons present when a warrant is … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: No standing to complain of CSLI for somebody else’s phone
Defendants have no standing to challenge the seizure of CSLI on telephone numbers they don’t complain are theirs. United States v. Pizarro, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60539 (S.D. N.Y. Apr. 10, 2018).* Police seizure of an SD card was by … Continue reading
CA11: Ten officers for a “knock and talk” violated Jardines, but it wasn’t the cause of the search of the house
Ten officers approaching defendant’s house for a “knock-and-talk” violated Jardines, but that doesn’t matter because it didn’t lead to the discovery of evidence. Defendant didn’t see them, and he opened the door in response to the knock. Then the officer … Continue reading
WA: Second SW for records already produced was independent source; exclusionary rule won’t be applied
Verizon produced phone records under a court order, that later was determined to be invalid. A second order was issued for the same records. Verizon didn’t produce those records the second time because the first had been produced and they … Continue reading
CA3: SW issued after alleged illegal entry was based on independent source and valid
“[W]hen police search a home pursuant to a warrant obtained after a warrantless search, evidence obtained pursuant to the warrant need not be suppressed so long as: (1) a neutral magistrate would still have issued the warrant ‘even if not … Continue reading
LA1: Look in mailbox to confirm def’s address was after they’d confirmed his apartment; not unreasonable
In the course of a homicide investigation, the victim was shown to have last talked to defendant on his cell phone just before his murder. That led to getting his picture to show to a witness who ID’d him as … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Def was handcuffed and in police car, so search incident didn’t apply; it was inevitable, however, inventory would happen
Defendant’s arrest led to a search incident of luggage, but he was handcuffed and in a police car. So, the search incident doctrine can’t apply, but an inventory would have inevitably occurred, so that provides an independent basis for the … Continue reading
CA6: “A king or a criminal may assert a violation of the Fourth Amendment.” But def loses on the merits
Defendant spent two weeks living in the apartment of another. “A king or a criminal may assert a violation of the Fourth Amendment.” He had a bedroom to himself. “The district court erred in finding that Allen did not have … Continue reading
CA9: Officer’s peek into backpack seeing cocaine before getting SW didn’t taint the search; plenty of PC before the peek
Officer’s peek into backpack seeing cocaine before getting a search warrant for it didn’t taint the search. There was plenty of probable cause before the peek. “The agents disclosed in the warrant affidavit that they had looked inside the backpack … Continue reading
CA8: The independent source rule doesn’t apply to a civil rights conviction for false arrest
Defendant was properly convicted of false arrest as a deprivation of civil rights. He argued the attenuation doctrine that there was an independent source of information. There wasn’t, and the independent source doctrine is for the exclusionary rule not a … Continue reading
VI: Evidence suppressed in another case couldn’t be used here as 404(b) evidence
Evidence suppressed in another case against defendant for a Fourth Amendment violation not admissible in this case as 404(b) evidence. People v. Walters, 2017 V.I. LEXIS 165 (Dec. 4, 2017). Defendant argued his arrest was unlawful but not that his … Continue reading
LA1: State cured error of SDT for medical records with SW showing independent source
Defendant was charged with rape of a minor and whether he transmitted chlamydia to the alleged victim was a fact issue in dispute. The state obtained the records by subpoena finding that he had been a carrier since 2010, but … Continue reading