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- 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
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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)
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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
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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: Standards of review
FL2 sua sponte raises lack of standing on the record and remands
“The State appeals the trial court’s order granting Ricardo Fernandez’s motion to suppress after the trial court found the affidavit used to obtain the anticipatory search warrant was deficient and the good faith exception to the warrant requirement did not … Continue reading
CA8: Being a passenger in a stolen vehicle justifies a patdown for weapons
Defendant’s riding in a stolen car permits a patdown. “Further, to the extent Brooks argues questioning occurred before the frisk and exceeded the permissible scope of a Terry stop, we conclude that the officers were not required to give Miranda … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: SW affidavit was sloppy and partly misleading, but not intentionally so
“A substantial basis existed for the court to determine probable cause existed on the face of the warrant affidavit.” It was, however, sloppy and partly misleading, but, on the totality there is no Franks violation. United States v. Johnson, 2020 … Continue reading
OH6: When lack of PC for a SW is the issue, a suppression hearing isn’t required: it’s a question of law
When the defendant moves to suppress a search warrant claiming only a lack of probable cause, a hearing isn’t required. It’s then a mixed question of law and fact (mostly law). State v. Holt, 2020-Ohio-6649, 2020 Ohio App. LEXIS 4515 … Continue reading
CA8 finds stop valid for grounds not relied on by Dist. Ct.
“The government defends the district court’s rationale, but argues alternatively that other facts independently provided reasonable suspicion to seize LaGrange in the restaurant parking area. We may affirm the district court’s denial of a motion to suppress on any ground … Continue reading
IL: Ct of Apps erred in reaching 4A claim in civil discovery dispute involving state AG when it didn’t have to
This case involves a civil discovery dispute between the state and a recycling business for an environmental inspection. The court of appeals erred in jumping to a Fourth Amendment claim without attempting to decide the case on nonconstitutional grounds under … Continue reading
OH11: Trial court’s order denying unsealing SW affidavit in post-conviction case wasn’t final and appealable
In a post-conviction case, the trial court’s order denying a motion to unseal a search warrant affidavit to facilitate his case was not a final appealable order. State v. Miller, 2020-Ohio-5383, 2020 Ohio App. LEXIS 4231 (11th Dist. Nov. 23, … Continue reading
UT: When two grounds support an arrest, attacking only one means affirmance
“Devenpeck, along with Utah appellate law, is controlling here. Whether Officer possessed probable cause to arrest Sanchez for DUI is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether the objective circumstances—the ‘known facts,’ see Devenpeck, 543 U.S. at 153—provided probable cause for … Continue reading
OH10: Anonymous 911 call didn’t support def’s stop
A 911 anonymous tipster’s call wasn’t justification for defendant’s stop because it was wrong as to clothing and it essentially described all the black men in the area. State v. Walton, 2020-Ohio-5062, 2020 Ohio App. LEXIS 3906 (10th Dist. Oct. … Continue reading
CA2: CIs don’t need “a track record of reliability” when shown otherwise reliable
The CI was described in the affidavit for the warrant as “reliable,” but didn’t elaborate. “Circuit precedent does not require informants to have a track record of reliability. … Here, where the informant testified under oath before the issuing judge … Continue reading
Specific objection to 4A USMJ’s R&R required or waived
“Mr. Stewart did not object to the Recommended Disposition regarding whether the inevitable discovery doctrine would have led to the discovery of his felon status and unlawful possession of a weapon. When no objections are made this Court is not … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Where def lost 4A claim on merits, he can’t relitigate it as an IAC claim
“Petitioner already presented his suppression argument to the Eleventh Circuit, and it was rejected. He now attempts to relitigate the claim by cloaking it in an ineffective assistance claim. However, Petitioner fails to establish Mr. Crowder’s decision not to pursue … Continue reading
CA6: Because def’s car would be towed and inventoried anyway, officer’s comments at time of seizure not determinative
Because defendant’s car would be towed and inventoried in any event after his stop, it didn’t matter what the officer said at the time. United States v. Snoddy, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 30512 (6th Cir. Sept. 24, 2020). “While Williams … Continue reading
CA11: Officers executing a SW at a house can approach an occupied car parked out front
“The district court did not err by denying Turner’s motion to suppress. Delgado was entitled, ‘without any level of suspicion,’ to approach a car in a dangerous locale with an unknown number of occupants parked near a residence where he … Continue reading
E.D.Va.: SW authorized search of safe in house even though in room of another occupant
The search warrant authorized a search of a safe in a house even though the room it was in wasn’t occupied by the target of the search. The search warrant wasn’t stale because the drug activities it refers to were … Continue reading
CA10: Where wrong standard of review applied below, undisputed facts allow appellate court to still decide
“Because the evidence presented by the government at the evidentiary hearing in this case was largely undisputed, we conclude that the district court’s factual findings were not clearly erroneous, and that its misapplication of the standard of review does not … Continue reading
W.D.Wash.: Govt doesn’t need SW to search its own records
The government doesn’t need a search warrant to search its own records. No case says anything like that, and there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the private sense. United States v. Fanyo-Patchou, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155998 (W.D. … Continue reading
MS: Def’s consent moots his lack of PC claim
Defendant’s claim of lack of probable cause goes unanswered because there is plenty of evidence of consent. Harris v. State, 2020 Miss. App. LEXIS 499 (Aug. 25, 2020):*
TX7: Trial court’s initially misstating burden of proof was on def was corrected in the ultimate findings
The trial court first stated that the burden on consent was on the defendant, but the ultimate findings of fact and conclusions of law concluded that the state proved it by sufficient evidence. This corrected the previous mistake, and the … Continue reading