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- Reason: Homeland Security Is Monitoring Activists Building Anti-Flock Tech
- W.D.Pa.: Def can’t repackage a losing 4A standing claim into a due process claim
- GA: No case says SW required to ask for cell phone password
- 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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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: Independent source
D.Mont.: Def had no standing in a search of a UK CP bulletin board service that revealed his info
Defendant had no standing in a U.K. bulletin board where he was alleged to have obtained child pornography. U.S. officers got into the system and obtained defendant’s information. Even the fact it was password protected adds nothing to the standing … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Prior illegal entry didn’t void search were the independent source was two later controlled deliveries
Police conducted an illegal warrantless entry two weeks before seeking a search warrant, but then they made two more controlled buys from defendant before getting a search warrant. The warrant had an independent source and would not be suppressed. United … Continue reading
IN: Walking into a house during a drug raid justifies a frisk
Defendant drove up to a house in the process of a drug raid. Eight people were in custody. Defendant was stopped when he got to the door, and he was frisked and a gun was found. The search was valid … Continue reading
CA11: Nothing from warrantless cell phone search made it into SW for phones; independent source rule applies
The government did a cursory warrantless search of two defendants’ cell phones, concerned about a remote wipe, prior to obtaining a search warrant for those phones and others. The independent source rule was satisfied for the searches because there was … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Computer searches should occur away from the home of the target
Computer searches should occur away from the target’s premises. Sometimes they take a long time, and it is infeasible to do them at the scene of the search when it can take days. The comment to the Rule supports this. … Continue reading
D.Vt.: False name during traffic stop is RS for longer detention
Officer’s reasonable belief driver gave false name is reasonable suspicion to continue a stop. United States v. Marsh, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47995 (D.Vt. April 7, 2016). Defendant challenged the search warrant because it included information that was allegedly obtained … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: Alleged police induced private search in SW affidavit mooted by fact remainder still shows PC
Defendant’s landlord conducted a private search of his apartment and brought out 2 lbs of meth to the police saying there was more inside. He argues that this information in a search warrant application should be purged because the landlord … Continue reading
MA: If arrest invalid, inventory based on it is too
Defendant’s arrest was invalid, so the inventory of his car was invalid. Commonwealth v. Williams, 2016 Mass. Super. LEXIS 19 (Wooster Feb. 18, 2016). The protective sweep here was invalid, but that did not require suppression of the search. Excising … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Despite govt instigated private seizure of phone, emails admissible because the govt already had them
Defendant’s wife seized his cell phone and turned it over to the police at their suggestion, but only because he was communicating with what he believed were underage girls for purposes of sex. The police already had all the emails … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Protective sweep was for evidence not persons, but there was an independent basis for the SW
The protective sweep in this case was not a look for persons but evidence, and the body cam audio supports that conclusion. However, there was an independent basis for a search warrant, and the motion to suppress guns found in … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Even if def’s stop was without RS, his flight and subsequent traffic violations were an independent basis for arrest
Officers had reasonable suspicion to approach defendant’s vehicle for being engaged in a pending drug sale. “However, even if officers lacked reasonable suspicion to support the stop of defendant’s vehicle, the Court finds that defendant’s attempt to flee from law … Continue reading
PA: In a child murder case, the police entry merely to look for other children in the home did not taint subsequent SW
Defendant was sentenced to death for murder of a two-year old boy. On the search issue, officers entered the house only to see if there was another child in the house that he was caring for. They came back with … Continue reading
ID: Child sex offense witnesses were discovered prior to likely illegal phone search
Defendant was under investigation for various offenses, including sex crimes. His cell phone was seized when he was arrested for burglary. Minor sex offense witnesses were identified by the allegedly illegal search of the phone, and the court doesn’t suppress … Continue reading
WI: Police had independent source of information of CP to search computer seized in connection with wife’s suicide investigation
Defendant’s wife allegedly committed suicide. In the investigation, the police interviewed their daughter and she said that her mother was using her computer just before her death. The computer was seized as a part of the suicide investigation. Later the … Continue reading
CA1: Govt proved independent source for SW; nexus to computer shown by its proximity to forged documents
Removing the information from the alleged illegal search from the affidavit for search warrant still shows probable cause from independent sources, and the motions to suppress were properly denied. Nexus to search one defendant’s computer came from his carrying it … Continue reading