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- D.Mont.: Delay of USPS Express Mail for dog sniff didn’t violate 4A
- S.D.W.Va.: Warrantless arrest at door for CSAM didn’t support plain view seizure of cell phone
- OH2: Parking on the grass justified stop
- CA11: NCMEC’s cybertips are reliable enough to support PC and the GFE
- MS: Execution style murder in public in broad daylight was exigency to get suspect’s CSLI
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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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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: Administrative search
Cal.1: Subpoena for info on who arranged home rentals didn’t violate SCA and would be enforced
The City sought a subpoena to HomeAway to produce records of people that arrange occasional rentals of their homes or apartments for purposes of collecting sales taxes. HomeAway contends that it merely enables people to connect with each other and … Continue reading
N.D.N.Y.: Rental inspection code use of may not shall to get admin. warrant not 4A violation
The fact the City of Schenectady’s rental building inspection code says that the inspectors may get a warrant instead of shall doesn’t state a Fourth Amendment violation. There’s no evidence that the city has applied it unconstitutionally yet. Hafez v. … Continue reading
CO: The oil and gas industry is “closely regulated” for 4A purposes
The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission gas well inspection program is constitutional. It provides for unannounced inspections. The court concludes that the oil and gas industry is “closely regulated” for Fourth Amendment administrative inspection law. Maralex Resources, Inc. v. … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: San Diego strip club inspection ordinance violates 1A; 4A deferred for more development
San Diego has an ordinance permitting inspections of strip clubs. After an “inspection” with armed officers with bulletproof vests to photograph nearly nude dancers ostensibly to log their tattoos, the court finds the ordinance violates the First Amendment because it … Continue reading
CA8: No standing to challenge a DEA administrative subpoena just used to identify his storage unit for a dog sniff
Defendant had no standing to complain that a DEA administrative subpoena was used to identify the storage unit that was his so the DEA could use a drug dog on his storage unit. Defendant’s plain error argument that a tracking … Continue reading
OH8: Trash pull helped corroborate informant hearsay
The police received informant hearsay, and sought to corroborate it, and a trash pull did it. State v. Rieves, 2018-Ohio-955, 2018 Ohio App. LEXIS 1021 (8th Dist. Mar. 15, 2018). The town’s housing inspection scheme is reasonable under the Fourth … Continue reading
VA: ABC employee firing for excessive administrative search affirmed
Appellant was a agent of the Virginia ABC who conducted an unreasonable and excessive warrantless search of a licensee’s premises, and he was fired for abuse of authority. He appealed through the state grievance procedure claiming the search was legal, … Continue reading
Reason: City Orders Businesses to Join Its Police Surveillance System
Reason: City Orders Businesses to Join Its Police Surveillance System by Scott Shackford: Saginaw demands that establishments install video cameras and turn over footage.
NOLA considering ordinance to put surveillance cameras in and outside all bars feeding to a city central server
New Orleans has proposed ordinance 32,107 regulating bars, and part is about surveillance systems. This caught my eye because, in college, I first considered the privacy concerns of street cameras being installed here. That was probably 1969-70, and Katz was … Continue reading
W.D.Wash.: Exclusionary rule wouldn’t apply to USCG’s obtaining medical records of merchant mariners (dicta)
Plaintiff sued the Coast Guard because it subpoenaed his medical records for the merchant marine, something completely within its statutory and regulatory authority. The Coast Guard 40 years ago determined that the exclusionary rule wouldn’t be applied to medical records … Continue reading
CA6: Precious metals dealers are “closely regulated business” for administrative inspection of records of purchases
The Ohio Precious Metals Dealers Act (PMDA) authorized warrantless records searches to locate stolen property, and the court finds that the limitations in the statute served as constitutionally adequate warrant substitutes. They applied only to licensed precious metals dealers, and … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Residential rental property is not a “closely regulated industry”
Plaintiff meets his burden to get a preliminary injunction against a city rental property inspection ordinance that had no warrant requirement for refused entry. Rental property is not a closely regulated industry. Vonderhaar v. Evendale, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8856 … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Administrative search exception doesn’t apply to a motorcycle club that isn’t remotely a “closely regulated business”
The administrative search exception under Atlanta city ordinance doesn’t apply to a motorcycle club that isn’t remotely a “closely regulated business.” Summary judgment for plaintiffs granted. Brown v. City of Atlanta, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6222 (N.D. Ga. Jan. 9, … Continue reading
AP: Judge: Atlanta warrantless search policy unconstitutional
AP: Judge: Atlanta warrantless search policy unconstitutional: The city of Atlanta had a policy of conducting unlawful, warrantless searches of commercial properties, a federal judge ruled this week in a case brought after officers searched a motorcycle club’s meeting space.
MyNewsLA.com: Apartment building owners sue LA over rent stabilization, argue ordinance hurts tenants
MyNewsLA.com: Apartment building owners sue LA over rent stabilization, argue ordinance hurts tenants by Toni McAllister:
ME: DEP could enter open fields to inspect composting operation
The state Department of Environmental Protection sought an injunction against the livestock business to get it to stop denying access to the business property for inspection of its composting operation. Because the area to be inspected was open fields, the … Continue reading
AlterNet: Wisconsin Governor Walker’s Plan to Drug Test Food Stamp Applicants Would Be Wasteful, Ineffective and Perhaps Unconstitutional
AlterNet: Wisconsin Governor Walker’s Plan to Drug Test Food Stamp Applicants Would Be Wasteful, Ineffective and Perhaps Unconstitutional by Widney Brown It’s yet another attempt to stigmatize and criminalize people living in poverty.
W.D.N.C.: First def denied ownership of backpack, and after drugs were found he claimed it; “the fact that defendant claimed ownership of the backpack after the search is of no moment.”
First defendant denied ownership of the backpack, and the police searched it. “[T]he fact that defendant claimed ownership of the backpack after the search is of no moment.” That was abandonment. United States v. Ferebee, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 193791 … Continue reading
CA6: 53 days after an occurrence is hardly exigent
Detroit has a stray dog problem and passed an ordinance in 2004. The ordinance allowed warrantless entries into yards to search for and seize dogs. The district court enjoined that, and the city did not appeal. On individual claims, an … Continue reading