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by John Wesley Hall
Criminal Defense Lawyer and
Search and seizure law consultant
Little Rock, Arkansas
Contact: forhall @ aol.com / The Book
www.johnwesleyhall.com -
© 2003-25,
online since Feb. 24, 2003 Approx. 500,000 visits (non-robot) since 2012 Approx. 47,000 posts since 2003 (30,000+ on WordPress as of 12/31/24) -
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Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
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Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
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D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
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LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
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General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
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
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
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) -
“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] -
“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
---Pepé Le Pew -
"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: Third Party Doctrine
Reason: Treasury Department Surveillance at the Southern Border Faces Fourth Amendment Challenges
Reason: Treasury Department Surveillance at the Southern Border Faces Fourth Amendment Challenges by Toslin Akintola (“In March, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a geographic targeting order (GTO) that quietly turned MSBs along the U.S.-Mexico border into … Continue reading
IN: No REP in bank records in securities investigation
The state securities department subpoenaed petitioner’s bank records. He has no privacy interest in them under the Fourth or Fifth Amendment. Peabody v. State Office of the Sec’y of State Sec. Div., 2025 Ind. App. LEXIS 328 (Oct. 3, 2025). … Continue reading
Latin Times: Arrest of Mexican Man in Hawaii Shows ICE is Using Remittance Data To Deport Migrants
Latin Times: Arrest of Mexican Man in Hawaii Shows ICE is Using Remittance Data To Deport Migrants by Pedro Camacho (“Critics argue that bulk collection of financial data without a warrant may violate the Fourth Amendment.”) But the third party … Continue reading
Reclaim The Net: How Digital Convenience Becomes a Government Backdoor
Reclaim The Net: How Digital Convenience Becomes a Government Backdoor by Christina Maas (“The Supreme Court’s silence keeps 20th-century privacy rules firmly in place while 21st-century surveillance marches on.”). Well, to be frank, the third-party doctrine isn’t going anywhere as … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: FinCEN’s SWB GTO for financial reporting enjoined for APA reasons; 4A not reached yet
FinCEN’s Southwest Border Geographic Targeting Order (SWB GTO) for enhanced reporting requirements in certain zip codes appears to have been adopted without proper authority under the Administrative Procedure Act. The Fourth Amendment claim is deferred until later as unnecessary at … Continue reading
PA: No REP in data on use of EBT card
Appellant’s argument that the search incident failed because of a lack of an arrest warrant wasn’t presented below so it’s waived. He had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the data on his EBT card that Wawa wouldn’t turn over … Continue reading
HPCWire: Do You Own Your Cloud Data? Third-Party Doctrine Says No
HPCWire: Do You Own Your Cloud Data? Third-Party Doctrine Says No by Alex Woodie (“Your data is yours, right? It seems like a simple question, but thanks to a little-known loophole in federal law, US regulators can access your private … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Carpenter does not protect ISP information
Carpenter creates no protection for ISP subscriber information. No Due Process rights were violated though a § 1509 summons. United States v. Meyrand, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 84060 (E.D. Mo. May 2, 2025).* This court declined to abandon the automobile … Continue reading
FDNV: Primer on Persistent Surveillance
Federal Defender of Nevada: Primer on Persistent Surveillance (Mar. 28, 2025):
Goldwater Institute: Search Warrants in the Digital Age: Supreme Court Should Look to the States
Goldwater Institute: Search Warrants in the Digital Age: Supreme Court Should Look to the States by Timothy Sandefur:
W.D.Pa.: No standing to contest civil investigative demands to third parties over medical records
Defendant had no standing to contest civil investigative demands to third parties, even involving medical records of others. United States v. Hertel & Brown Physical & Aquatic Therapy, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6437 (W.D. Pa. Jan. 13, 2025):
E.D.Tex.: Corporate Transparency Act enjoined, but 4A claim as yet unresolved
On the balance of equities, the Eastern District of Texas enjoins the Corporate Transparency Act going into effect January 1, 2025. “[T]he CTA requires a vast array of companies to disclose otherwise private stakeholder information to FinCEN. See 31 U.S.C. … Continue reading
WaPo: TSA PreCheck vs. Clear: What’s better for price and privacy?
WaPo: TSA PreCheck vs. Clear: What’s better for price and privacy? by Tatum Hunter (“Clear saves you time at the airport. Just make sure to read the fine print.” “Airport security is, by nature, at odds with individual privacy. The … Continue reading
TX1: GPS installed by dealer in a used car was owned by dealer and was not comparable to CSLI
Defendant bought a used car that the dealer had GPS installed in if necessary to recover it. The police accessed that information without a warrant to connect him to a murder. The contract for the vehicle told defendant about the … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: Reporting requirements of Corporate Transparency Act don’t violate 4A under California Bankers
Plaintiffs challenge the Corporate Transparency Act on several grounds. As to their claim the reporting requirement violates the Fourth Amendment, there is no likelihood of success on the merits under California Bankers decided 50 years ago. Community Ass’ns Inst. v. … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: Three images from ALPR in 30 days wasn’t enough for a Carpenter violation
Police checking the database of Flock’s ALPR for defendant’s license plate revealed only three images in 30 days. The court is not inclined to hold that the mere potential of a Carpenter violation makes one. What happens hereafter might. United … Continue reading
NPR: 23andMe is on the brink. What happens to all its DNA data?
NPR: 23andMe is on the brink. What happens to all its DNA data? by Bobby Allyn (“As 23andMe struggles for survival, customers like Wiles have one pressing question: What is the company’s plan for all the data it has collected … Continue reading
NE: Not IAC to not challenge state’s obtaining phone records
It was settled in this state long ago that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in third-party cell phone records. Therefore, defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not challenging it. State v. Rush, 317 Neb. 622 (Sep. 20, 2024).* On … Continue reading
D.N.J.: Fictitious tags stop justifies SI
Based on circuit authority, a stop and arrest for fictitious tags justifies a search incident on the driver. United States v. Jones, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 161352 (E.D. Wis. Sep. 9, 2024), quoting United States v. Travis, 2023 U.S. App. … Continue reading
Harvard Law Review: Tech Companies’ Terms of Service Agreements Could Bring New Vitality to the Fourth Amendment
Harvard Law Review: Tech Companies’ Terms of Service Agreements Could Bring New Vitality to the Fourth Amendment by Brent Skorup [that is, if they choose to do anything about it]: