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Recent Posts
- MD: Hot pursuit can be days later, here exigent CSLI to find him
- D.D.C.: Alleged illegal arrest doesn’t void DNA SW
- S.D.Fla.: Inventory that omitted “miscellaneous personal items” was not unreasonable
- CA4: That ptf charged with witness intimidation didn’t do it again wasn’t material for Franks
- CO: Not 4A or state constitutional violation for govt to access def’s computer via peer-to-peer sharing with BitTorrent software
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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 -
Latest Slip Opinions:
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Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
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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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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
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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: SCOTUS
Katz and the “reasonable expectation of privacy” is 48 today
Dec. 18, 1967: Katz v. United States, and the reasonable expectation of privacy decided
WaPo: The jury’s out: John Roberts
WaPo: The jury’s out: John Roberts: In 2005, John Roberts won the unanimous support of Republican senators on his way to a walk-in-the-park confirmation as the Supreme Court’s chief justice. A decade later, two Republicans running for president — Sen. … Continue reading
SCOTUS cert. grant: “Whether, in the absence of a warrant, a state may make it a crime for a person to refuse to take a chemical test to detect the presence of alcohol in the person’s blood.”
SCOTUS granted cert today on the question of whether, in the absence of a warrant, a state may make it a crime for a person to refuse to take a chemical test to detect the presence of alcohol in the … Continue reading
Police News: How SCOTUS impacted policing in 2015
Police News: How SCOTUS impacted policing in 2015 by Terrence P. Dwyer: The Court has said reasonableness does not require perfection, but it does require a plausible satisfaction of Fourth Amendment criteria.
WaPo: Chief justice favors some when assigning court’s major decisions
WaPo: Chief justice favors some when assigning court’s major decisions by Robert Barnes: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is a stickler for evenly distributing the workload of the Supreme Court, but he plays favorites among his eight colleagues when … Continue reading
Forbes: While The Supreme Court Hesitates On Warrantless Cell Location Data Collection, Your Privacy Remains At Risk
Forbes: While The Supreme Court Hesitates On Warrantless Cell Location Data Collection, Your Privacy Remains At Risk by Abigail Tracy: Two conflicting federal court rulings at the appellate level over whether or not the government can obtain your cellphone location … Continue reading
NYTimes: Supreme Court Prepares to Take On Politically Charged Cases
NYTimes: Supreme Court Prepares to Take On Politically Charged Cases By Adam Liptak: WASHINGTON — The last Supreme Court term ended with liberal victories, conservative disarray and bruised relations among the justices. The new one, which opens on Monday, marks … Continue reading
Cert. grant: Utah v. Strieff: 4A violated by outstanding warrant found during illegal stop?
Utah v. Strieff — Question Presented: “Should evidence seized incident to a lawful arrest on an outstanding warrant be suppressed because the warrant was discovered during an investigatory stop later found to be unlawful?” Prior post from January: Under the … Continue reading
ABAJ: Chemerinsky: 10 lessons from Chief Justice Roberts’ first 10 years
ABAJ: Chemerinsky: 10 lessons from Chief Justice Roberts’ first 10 years by Erwin Chemerinsky: 5. The Roberts Court has had a mixed record on criminal procedure in its most important cases, often ruling for the government, but sometimes for criminal … Continue reading
NLJ: What’s a SCOTUS Fourth Amendment advocate worth?
NLJ: Hourly Rates for Top Supreme Court Advocates Revealed in Fee Filing by Tony Mauro: Recent filings in an attorney fee request in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit lift the veil on the four-figure hourly rates … Continue reading
SCOTUSBlog: Criminal law grants for the October Term 2015
SCOTUSBlog: Criminal law grants for the October Term 2015 by Rory Little: The other interesting note is that, so far, not a single case granted for next Term involves the Fourth Amendment. I can’t recall a prior Term where that … Continue reading
NYTimes: The Illusion of a Liberal Supreme Court
NYTimes: The Illusion of a Liberal Supreme Court by Linda Greenhouse: For one, brief shining moment — that is to say, last week — there was a liberal Roberts court.
WaPo: Los Angeles v. Patel and the constitutional structure of judicial review
WaPo: Los Angeles v. Patel and the constitutional structure of judicial review by Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz: Lost in the shuffle of Supreme Court commentary last week was Los Angeles v. Patel, a case that is ostensibly about unreasonable searches under … Continue reading
NYTimes Editorial: The Activist Roberts Court, 10 Years In
NYTimes Editorial: The Activist Roberts Court, 10 Years In: What is the most useful way to understand the direction of the Supreme Court 10 years into the tenure of Chief Justice John Roberts Jr.? After a series of high-profile end-of-term … Continue reading
The Daily Show skewers Scalia hypocrisy
The Daily Show: The Human Dissentipede (segment 2, June 29, 2015): After the Supreme Court rules in favor of same-sex marriage, Justice Antonin Scalia issues a colorful dissenting option.
Politico: Supreme Court justices stop playing nice
Politico: Supreme Court justices stop playing nice by Josh Gerstein: As the Roberts court leans left, growing acrimony from Scalia and Alito. As the Supreme Court winds down a term marked by momentous decisions, two things stand out from the … Continue reading
SCOTUS decides City of Los Angeles v. Patel: A hotel has a Fourth Amendment right to precompliance review of records production; a hotel is not a closely regulated industry
City of Los Angeles v. Patel, 2015 U.S. LEXIS 4065 (June 22, 2015) (5-4). [News links at end.] Syllabus: Petitioner, the city of Los Angeles (City), requires hotel operators to record and keep specific information about their guests on the … Continue reading
SCOTUS: Officers get qualified immunity in shooting a mentally ill person who came at them with a knife
Officers called to a disturbance where a mentally ill person threatened her social worker get qualified immunity for shooting her for coming at them with a knife. The law was not clearly established that they had to make any special … Continue reading
WaPo: The Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment irrelevance
WaPo: The Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment irrelevance by Radley Balko: A few weeks ago, fellow Post blogger Orin Kerr put up a post arguing that contrary to what you may commonly read, on Fourth Amendment cases the Supreme Court usually … Continue reading
WaPo: In Fourth Amendment cases, it’s a toss-up
WaPo: In Fourth Amendment cases, it’s a toss-up by Orin Kerr: A lot of people think that today’s Supreme Court is conservative and pro-government in Fourth Amendment cases. It can be hard to analyze those views because they often hinge … Continue reading