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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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Fourth Circuit
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Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
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State courts (and some USDC opinions)
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
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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
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Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
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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) -
“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: Neutral and detached magistrate
OH5: SW saved by GFE even if issuing court lacked jurisdiction
The good faith exception applies even if the Common Pleas court lacked jurisdiction to issue a warrant for a Dropbox account in another jurisdiction. State v. Wharton, 2025-Ohio-4485, 2025 Ohio App. LEXIS 3295 (5th Dist. Sep. 25, 2025). Summary judgment … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Person with lock on a storage unit has apparent authority to consent to its search
The person with a lock on a storage unit, even though not the renter, has apparent authority to consent to its search. United States v. Gibson, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 178083 (E.D.N.C. Sep. 11, 2025). Rule 41 doesn’t mandate a … Continue reading
AR: Taking two minutes to review a SW application doesn’t make issuing judge not neutral and detached
The search warrant application was emailed to the issuing magistrate, and the warrant came back in two minutes. That doesn’t show that the judge was not neutral and detached because “an experienced judge can prudently review a succinct, factually detailed … Continue reading
TX7: SW sworn to before wrong officer still in GF
The search warrant affidavit was not sworn to before a judge as required by the statute, but it was sworn to before an officer with the authority to take oaths. That was sufficient for the good faith exception to apply. … Continue reading
TX5: State has to prove SW application properly sworn to; no GFE where it wasn’t pled
Where it couldn’t be established that the officer swore to a notary or clerk when applying for a search warrant for blood, the motion to suppress was properly granted. The state doesn’t get the benefit of the good faith exception … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: Lack of a recording for SW application in violation of state law didn’t violate 4A
There was no recording of the showing of probable cause for this state warrant that became a part of a federal prosecution. The lack of a recording isn’t fatal to the showing of probable cause found by the issuing magistrate … Continue reading
NY3: Judge who issued SW not barred from handling trial
Defendant’s claim that the judge issuing the search warrant couldn’t preside at the trial was not preserved because there was no objection. It would have failed anyway. People v Coston, 2025 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 3046 (3d Dept. May 15, … Continue reading
FL1: Judge issuing SW not barred from presiding over trial
Reviewing search warrant applications is a core function of a judicial officer, and that does not qualify as an improper ex parte communication requiring the trial judge to recuse. Writ of prohibition denied. Adelson v. State, 2025 Fla. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: Lack of a SW signature cured by GFE
“Defendant argues that the warrant is facially deficient because the affidavit lacked a signature, a panel of the Eleventh Circuit has considered and rejected this argument. See United States v. Gordon, 686 F. App’x 702, 704 (11th Cir. 2017) (holding … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Squatters have no REP
Squatters have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the property they’ve appropriated. Lewis v. Blakeslee, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75568 (E.D. Cal. Apr. 21, 2025). In a written order denying an arrest warrant of a male victim of an alleged … Continue reading
D.Alaska: Unsigned SW affidavit still in GF where officer was sworn
The affidavit for warrant was unsigned by the officer but he had been sworn before the warrant issued. The good faith exception saves this search. United States v. Hampton, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 200326 (D. Alaska Nov. 4, 2024) Defendant’s … Continue reading
LA: Judge’s arbitrarily denying or slow walking SW requests violates Canons of Judicial Conduct
A state judge who sat on search warrant requests, didn’t know the definition of probable cause despite having been a former prosecutor and defense lawyer for 15 years, and imposed unnecessary legal requirements on the state to obtain warrants violated … Continue reading
NY Kings: Jurisdiction of the issuing magistrate didn’t matter here
“The fact that the warrant was signed by Justice Tully as an Acting Supreme Court Justice is irrelevant; Justice Tully was authorized to issue the search warrant regardless of whether she was sitting as a Criminal Court Judge or as … Continue reading
W.D.Wis.: Jurisdictional issue in SW wasn’t enough to suppress here
In a domestic terrorism investigation, USMJs have the authority to issue search warrants outside their court’s jurisdiction. Defendant disputes that this investigation was not that, but it’s close enough. Even if the officers were mistaken, the court won’t suppress an … Continue reading
CA4: Officers with arrest warrant for def could enter yard of property they knew he was visiting to arrest him; plain view sustained
Defendant was a social visitor, not a business visitor, and his standing is more like Olson than Carter. The district court erred in finding no standing. On the merits, however, he loses on a ground fully litigated but not decided … Continue reading