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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:
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Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
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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
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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: Staleness
S.D.Fla.: Murder for hire scheme was exigency for entry; SW issued a day late not automatically stale
A murder for hire scheme was exigency for a warrantless search. Here, the officers thought the firearm would be moved imminently on December 31, 2024, but the warrant wasn’t signed until after midnight January 1, 2025. It wasn’t automatically stale, … Continue reading
OH5: Typo on SW date could be overlooked if it can be otherwise figured out
The warrant said without the blanks filled in: “‘Sworn to and subscribed in my presence this ___ day of August 2024. Time ___.’ The warrant also contained a partially pre-filled date line which read ‘Dated this ___ day of August … Continue reading
CA9: A successful Franks challenge means deletion of offending material and not addition of what was missing
“Welch successfully challenged five statements in the search warrant affidavit, and the district court did not clearly err in rejecting his challenge to several additional statements. Having found that Welch made the necessary showing with respect to the five statements, … Continue reading
NC: Nine-day delay between shooting and SW for gun wasn’t stale
A nine-day delay between a shooting and the search warrant for defendant’s place to look for the weapon wasn’t stale. The standard for timeliness is simply common sense. State v. Stevens, 2025 N.C. App. LEXIS 489 (Aug. 6, 2025).* A … Continue reading
OH1: Protective sweep unjustified; inevitable discovery alternative waived by state by lack of preservation
The protective sweep here was unreasonable because the only gun the officers knew anything about had already been found and there were no people to look for. The trial court erred in overruling the motion to suppress. The state waived … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Only “some temporal reference” is required to avoid staleness
The affidavit for search warrant shows sufficient references to recent time to show it was not stale. “Put plainly, the Sixth Circuit does not require a search warrant affidavit to include the temporal specificity which Hardaway suggests is necessary. Rather, … Continue reading
CA10: Siccing police dog on sleeping man wasn’t subject to QI
Siccing a police dog on a sleeping man not subject to qualified immunity. Luethje v. Kyle, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 6385 (10th Cir. Mar. 19, 2025). The CI’s information on a video showed his basis of knowledge and provided probable … Continue reading
PA: For crime of obstructing a search, def didn’t have to see SW to know there was one when he was told
Defendant’s conviction for obstructing a search is affirmed. He was not entitled to a jury instruction that he had to have seen or read the warrant first where it was not disputed that he knew there was a warrant. Commonwealth … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Single image that officer opined was CP is PC
“Under Supreme Court and Eighth Circuit law, Detective Erwin’s professional opinion [based on her experience] that the file contained child pornography was sufficient to establish probable case for the issuance of the search warrant. See Ornelas, 517 U.S. at 700; … Continue reading
D.Mass.: SnapChat warrant didn’t go stale after six months [would it ever?]
SnapChat warrant wasn’t stale: “The passage of more than six months between Cardoso’s messages to Pyrtle and issuance of the October 2021 warrant did not undermine probable cause to believe that data from Pyrtle’s Snapchat account would provide evidence of … Continue reading
OH6: Background information didn’t make SW affidavit stale
Information in the affidavit for warrant about a 2021 overdose was valid background and not stale information. State v. Martin, 2025 Ohio App. LEXIS 727 (6th Dist. Mar. 7, 2025). Officers getting a search warrant to enter to arrest was … Continue reading
OH5: Drug dog officer’s touching car to redirect dog wasn’t a search
The officer’s briefly touching the vehicle’s exterior to redirect the canine’s focus did not constitute a search. The dog’s certification and training were sufficient to establish its reliability, absent conflicting evidence from the defendant. This traffic stop was not unconstitutionally … Continue reading
IN: Cell phone ping to locate missing 13-year-old was with exigent circumstances
The ping of defendant’s cell phone to find him when a 13-year-old girl went missing was based on exigency under state statute. Brooks v. State, 2025 Ind. App. LEXIS 19 (Jan. 31, 2025). All the factors supported reasonable suspicion: CI … Continue reading
CA8: When there’s PC for a SW, standing doesn’t even have to be decided
In a tax fraud case, there were six search warrants. Defendants challenge them all. Standing was in dispute, but doesn’t even have to be decided because there clearly is probable cause for all six, despite the claim that one piece … Continue reading
M.D.Tenn.: Five-month-old information about CP on a Pinterest account not stale
There was probable cause for this child pornography warrant. Information about a Pinterest account that was five months old was not stale, and the images were adequately identified. United States v. Lynch, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2633 (M.D. Tenn. Jan. … Continue reading
S.D.W.Va.: Reasonable during a traffic stop to ask about firearms in the car
The traffic stop was reasonable, and it was also reasonable for the officer to just ask whether there was a gun in the car for safety reasons because carrying in legal in this state. United States v. Martin, 2024 U.S. … Continue reading
D.Neb.: SW for property not overbroad and sought in GF; it objectively was a single-family home
The officers did their due diligence before the search warrant and saw only that defendant’s property was a single-family dwelling. That’s how it appeared, that’s what public records said. Therefore, they searched in good faith. United States v. Rice, 2024 … Continue reading
CA1: GFE applies to alleged staleness of SW
Defendant operated a pill-making operation in his house for years without detection. He moved to a new place without suspicion for it. The warrant for the prior house was not sufficiently stale to still be valid under the good faith … Continue reading
DC: Illegal stop led to finding weapon, and it was not attenuated
Defendant was subjected to a stop that violated the Fourth Amendment. Information from that stop sufficiently led to a search of a dwelling producing a gun. That was fruit of the poisonous tree. There was a first search that could … Continue reading