Archives
-
Recent Posts
- N.D.Cal.: Typo in list of crimes being investigated in affidavit for SW could be overlooked
- MN: Risk of destruction of evidence was exigency for seizure of cell phone
- CA4: Use of a cell-site simulator to locate def was a search under the 4A
- TN: Bailbond bounty hunter not state actor
- TX: If electronic search was illegal, it was harmless
-
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. 
Monthly Archives: August 2007
Officer’s commands communicated that the defendant was not free to leave
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Officer’s commands communicated that the defendant was not free to leave
Arrest warrant not required where there was probable cause and it occurred in a public place
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Arrest warrant not required where there was probable cause and it occurred in a public place
Attempted search is not a Fourth Amendment violation
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Attempted search is not a Fourth Amendment violation
For automobile exception to apply, “inherent mobility” is the question, not “ready mobility”; driver miles away from vehicle did not make exception inapplicable
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on For automobile exception to apply, “inherent mobility” is the question, not “ready mobility”; driver miles away from vehicle did not make exception inapplicable
Rule 41(g) motions for return of property must be filed within 6 years of the conclusion of the case
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Rule 41(g) motions for return of property must be filed within 6 years of the conclusion of the case
“One nation, under [surveillance], with liberty and justice for all.”
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on “One nation, under [surveillance], with liberty and justice for all.”
Google Earth maps may be out of date; but use them for surveying crime scenes
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Google Earth maps may be out of date; but use them for surveying crime scenes
Police could not search a different hotel room than the one defendant was arrested in
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Police could not search a different hotel room than the one defendant was arrested in
Thoughts on the Fourth on the Fourth; readers help
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Thoughts on the Fourth on the Fourth; readers help
NJ holds that search incident can occur for a citable offense
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on NJ holds that search incident can occur for a citable offense
Search warrant fails on probable cause, and it was so deficient that the good faith exception did not apply
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Search warrant fails on probable cause, and it was so deficient that the good faith exception did not apply
Movement of a vehicle during stop is a separate seizure and resulted in an unconstitutional search
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Movement of a vehicle during stop is a separate seizure and resulted in an unconstitutional search
6th Cir.: Reasonable expectation of privacy in stored e-mails
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on 6th Cir.: Reasonable expectation of privacy in stored e-mails
Officer did not stop defendant, and the encounter turned potentially dangerous when defendant picked up a stick; patdown was justified
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Officer did not stop defendant, and the encounter turned potentially dangerous when defendant picked up a stick; patdown was justified
Covert video surveillance by a warrant under Rule 41(b) is analyzed under Title III for guidance
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Covert video surveillance by a warrant under Rule 41(b) is analyzed under Title III for guidance
FISA overhaul revealed necessary because FISA court held wiretapping program unconstitutional
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on FISA overhaul revealed necessary because FISA court held wiretapping program unconstitutional
Heck bar does not apply where plaintiff was not sentenced to imprisonment
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Heck bar does not apply where plaintiff was not sentenced to imprisonment
Dog alert to cash was sufficient to show probable cause for cash seizure, at least in 7th Cir.
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Dog alert to cash was sufficient to show probable cause for cash seizure, at least in 7th Cir.
Community caretaking function may overlap into criminal investigation, too, without violating Fourth Amendment
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Community caretaking function may overlap into criminal investigation, too, without violating Fourth Amendment
Nervous behavior with an expired inspection sticker is not reasonable suspicion
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Nervous behavior with an expired inspection sticker is not reasonable suspicion