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- KS: 13 days pole camera surveillance violated no REP
- E.D.Va.: WaPo reporter’s SW was overbroad and 1A protected
- CAAF: GFE applies to cell phone’s geolocation data because of substantial basis for the search authorization
- CA9: When a digital computer search reveals a CP hash value, officer doesn’t have to see image to have PC
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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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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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)
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"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: Seizure
IA: Trash container on the alley not on his property; no REP
A trash seizure [remember those?] was of trash on an alley awaiting pick up. There was no entry on the curtilage or his reasonable expectation of privacy. State v. Wright, 2020 Iowa App. LEXIS 151 (Feb. 5, 2020). The officer’s … Continue reading
MO: Def’s stop became a seizure with RS and search of backpack was without PC
Defendant was stopped walking with another to a hotel in Columbia, Missouri by an officer pulling up behind them and turning on the patrol car’s emergency lights. Back up arrived, and defendant and his companion were told to put the … Continue reading
PA: A command to roll down the window with an officer on each side of the car is an investigative detention
Defendant’s stop and one officer on each side and a command to roll down the window tells him that he’s required to talk to the officer. That’s an investigative detention. Commonwealth v. Powell, 2020 Pa. Super. LEXIS 67 (Feb. 3, … Continue reading
CA4: Unnecessarily shooting ptf’s dog was a 4A seizure
Officer came to scene at plaintiff’s house and parked his car within the running area of a dog on a lease between two trees. The plaintiff came out to get the dog. It barked at the officer. When the dog … Continue reading
CA6: “Detention in a police car does not automatically constitute an arrest”
“Detention in a police car does not automatically constitute an arrest,” and it depends on all the facts and circumstances. [Officers do that for safety reasons since the detainee is locked in the back seat.] United States v. Bonner, 2020 … Continue reading
CA2: CI’s reliability supported because he also testified under oath before warrant issued
“[The CI’s] reliability is further supported by the fact that he ‘testified under threat of the criminal sanction for perjury,’ and that his eye-witness report of the crime was incredibly detailed.” United States v. Martin, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 2738 … Continue reading
CA9: Tasering a man in his own bed not cooperating in being arrested could be found excessive
A jury could reasonably conclude that using a Taser on plaintiff lying on his own bed, on his cell phone trying to call his lawyer, who didn’t violently resist but just pulled his arm away, was an unreasonable use of … Continue reading
PA: Officer retaining ID means citizen not free to leave and is seized
Retaining a motorist’s identification to run a warrant check was a seizure of the person. No one would feel free to leave under those circumstances. Commonwealth v. Cost, 2020 Pa. LEXIS 315 (Jan. 22, 2020):
D.D.C.: Telling person to “hold on a sec” was a seizure as to his perception
Telling defendant to “hold on a sec” was a seizure. That’s how the defendant perceived it. Just because he didn’t run away didn’t mean he didn’t think he was seized. United States v. Hood, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9514 (D.D.C. … Continue reading
Reason: Kentucky Lawmaker Wants To Give Police the Power to Detain People Who Don’t Answer Their Questions
Reason: Kentucky Lawmaker Wants To Give Police the Power to Detain People Who Don’t Answer Their Questions by Scott Shakford (“It’s an attempt to bypass Fourth and Fifth Amendment protections by insisting it’s not an arrest.”)
CA8: Handcuffing a park jogger who was watching a traffic stop for not giving SSN was unreasonable
Handcuffing plaintiff for merely stopping to watch a St. Louis police officer conduct traffic stops in the park where he was jogging violated clearly established law on plaintiff’s facts. Walker v. City of Pine Bluff, 414 F.3d 989 (8th Cir. … Continue reading
CA10: Walking up to def sitting on parked car to talk to him wasn’t a stop
Walking up to defendant sitting on his parked car and talking to him, without blocking the path of the car and no police lights, was not a seizure. State v. McCall, 2020-Ohio-84, 2020 Ohio App. LEXIS 69 (10th Dist. Jan. … Continue reading
SD: That same traffic stop issue was rejected before this one denies state reasonable mistake of law argument
The court previously held that two of three brake lights emitting only red light and one with a hole in it also emitting white light wasn’t a traffic offense. Therefore, the state couldn’t use a claim of objectively reasonable mistake … Continue reading
IA: Def already stopped in a one-lane alley had officer stop in front of her; not a seizure
“A police officer saw a vehicle driving suspiciously for several minutes in a residential neighborhood at night at a snail’s pace of ten miles per hour. After the vehicle entered a one-lane alley that ran between two streets and then … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: FedEx’s taking a package off its conveyor belt for a dog sniff wasn’t a seizure that interfered with def’s possessory interest
“[T]he police did not ‘seize’ the package until after the dog alerted to the presence of drugs. It was not a seizure to remove the package from the FedEx conveyor belt, carry it 200 feet to the back of the … Continue reading
MD: Def’s burden to prove custody, but he didn’t testify
“It was [defendant]’s burden to prove custody. … Payne opted to remain silent at the suppression hearing; therefore, we have been provided no contrast to the evidence given by Detective Patterson, upon which the court reasonably relied.” The trial court’s … Continue reading
MS: Def was in open fields when he encountered wildlife officers and admitted he had meth on him
On the opening day of dove hunting season, wildlife officers were out. They heard shooting from open lands and went to investigate. They encountered defendant and another, and defendant tossed a bag aside when officers approached him. They asked what … Continue reading
SCOTUS cert grant: Torres v. Madrid: Is a person shot driving away from the police “seized”?
Torres v. Madrid, 19-292 (granted Dec. 18, 2019): Issue: Whether an unsuccessful attempt to detain a suspect by use of physical force is a “seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the … Continue reading
MA: The fact co-conspirators coordinated in planning the crime was nexus to def’s cell phone
The state showed a nexus to defendant’s cell phone and the crime under investigation because the participants were coordinating with each other before hand. “We have no evidence that the purpose of the cell phone call between the defendant, when … Continue reading
DC: Telling def to put his hands on the wall for a patdown was a seizure and wasn’t consensual
Telling defendant to put his hands against the wall and assume the position for a patdown was a seizure, and here it was without probable cause. It was not consensual. Dozier v. United States, 2019 D.C. App. LEXIS 495 (Dec. … Continue reading