Archives
-
Recent Posts
- CA6: Knowing passcode to cell phone shows common authority over it to consent
- VI: Smell of MJ no longer PC in VI since legalization
- Reason: 3 Charlotte Cops Resign After Group Chat Reveals Competition To Arrest the Most Black People
- E.D.Mich.: Second SW for cell phone data retained by govt was valid
- S.D.W.Va.: “Shocking” nature of immigration raid on a Mexican restaurant at lunchtime didn’t warrant suppression
-
Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
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
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
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
-
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)
-
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] -
“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: Cell site location information
W.D.Pa.: CSLI warrant based on CI’s statement was with PC
The CSLI warrant here was based on probable cause from a CI. “In sum, the Affidavit was not required to contain a statement regarding the confidential informant’s reliability and its absence is not dispositive of the reliability determination or the … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: Even if Carpenter reverses, Davis GFE will apply to searches occurring before
Even though CSLI is before SCOTUS in Carpenter, this court had sustained seizure of CSLI before, so, even if Carpenter reverses, the Davis good faith exception will sustain this seizure. United States v. Brown, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 126504 (C.D. … Continue reading
Law360: Cell Location Searches Assailed In Raft Of High Court Briefs
Law360: Cell Location Searches Assailed In Raft Of High Court Briefs by Shayna Posses:
Techdirt: ACLU Tells Court Long-Term Cell Site Location Tracking Should Require A Warrant
Techdirt: ACLU Tells Court Long-Term Cell Site Location Tracking Should Require A Warrant by Tim Cushing:
Cato: To Apply the Fourth Amendment in the Digital Age, Go Back to Its Text
Cato: To Apply the Fourth Amendment in the Digital Age, Go Back to Its Text by Ilya Shapiro re Cato’s Carpenter amicus brief:
CA10: CSLI is third-party information
Noting pendency of Carpenter, the Tenth Circuit finds CSLI third-party records and they are bound to apply the third-party doctrine. United States v. Thompson, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 14551 (10th Cir. Aug. 8, 2017). Defendant had a warrantless search condition … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Probation condition doesn’t permit warrantless tracking of defendant’s cell phone as a matter of course. If he’s a fugitive, yes, by court order
Probation condition doesn’t permit warrantless tracking of defendant’s cell phone as a matter of course. When he’s a fugitive, however, it can be. United States v. Ponce, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 119550 (M.D. Fla. July 31, 2017):
CA9: A valid parole search includes detaining the property long enough to search it
Defendant was on a parole search condition, and that included searching any property under his control and even detaining that property long enough to do it. United States v. Miller, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 14283 (9th Cir. Aug. 3, 2017). … Continue reading
SCOTUSBlog: Symposium: Justices poised to consider, or reconsider, Fourth Amendment doctrines as they assess the scope of privacy in a digital age
SCOTUSBlog: Symposium: Justices poised to consider, or reconsider, Fourth Amendment doctrines as they assess the scope of privacy in a digital age by John Castellano, Asst. District Attorney of Queens County, New York
SCOTUSBlog: Symposium: Will the Fourth Amendment protect 21st-century data? The court confronts the third-party doctrine
SCOTUSBlog: Symposium: Will the Fourth Amendment protect 21st-century data? The court confronts the third-party doctrine by Jennifer Lynch, EFF
SCOTUSBlog: Symposium: A defense of the doctrine [Re Carpenter]
SCOTUSBlog: Symposium: A defense of the doctrine by David LaBahn, president and CEO of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (with links to other articles in the same vein):
MD: Court order to access def’s location from murder victim’s cell phone by cell site simulator was in good faith
The use of a cell site simulator to find defendant who was suspected of having taken his alleged murder victim’s cell phone was done in objective good faith because officers relied on an order to initiate the tracking. [Since Maryland … Continue reading
D.R.I.: Warrantless ping of def’s cell phone was based on exigency of threatened suicide
Defendant sent texts suggesting he’d commit suicide rather than go to prison for child pornography, something he’d been involved with before. The officers had exigent circumstances to have his cell phone pinged to find him. There was a factual dispute … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Seizure of months of CSLI was proper to connect def to a particular place
Months of historical CSLI, rather than just three day’s worth, was properly acquired by the government to show defendant’s connections to the property at issue. The third party doctrine provides defendant no relief [yet]. United States v. Serrano, 2017 U.S. … Continue reading
WaPo: Court: Warrantless requests to track cellphones, Internet use grew sevenfold in D.C. in three years
WaPo: Court: Warrantless requests to track cellphones, Internet use grew sevenfold in D.C. in three years by Spencer S. Hsu:
CA2 looks at CSLI anew and still finds warrant not required
The Second Circuit declines to find its precedent in In re Application of the United States for an Order Directing a Provider of Electronic Communication Service to Disclose Records to the Government was still binding. Looking at the issue anew … Continue reading
MA: No PC shown for text messages, but PC shown for CSLI information
The state could not show that defendant’s text messages would show his connection with a murder, so the text messages were properly suppressed. The ubiquity of cell phones, however, does provide probable cause to believe that it might show the … Continue reading
Investor’s Business Daily: Betsy McCaughey: How Privacy Purists Are Helping Criminals [No they’re not and she doesn’t get how it all works.]
Investor’s Business Daily: Betsy McCaughey: How Privacy Purists Are Helping Criminals:
Motherboard: The Supreme Court Phone Location Case Will Decide the Future of Privacy
Motherboard: The Supreme Court Phone Location Case Will Decide the Future of Privacy by Stephen Vladeck: Later this year, the Supreme Court will decide if police can track a person’s cell phone location without a warrant. It’s the most important … Continue reading
More news on CSLI cert grant
MIT Technology Review: Warrantless Tracking of Cell Phone Location Data by the Police Could Get Harder EFF: Supreme Court Will Hear Significant Cell Phone Tracking Case techdirt: Supreme Court To Consider Fourth Amendment Implications Of Cell Site Location Info Digital … Continue reading