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. 
Daily Archives: July 21, 2008
Information acquired from a stop cannot retroactively justify it
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Information acquired from a stop cannot retroactively justify it
While defendant could exclude host from private things, a gun hidden outdoors was not private
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on While defendant could exclude host from private things, a gun hidden outdoors was not private
Asking questions during writing of a ticket does not unreasonably extend the stop
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Asking questions during writing of a ticket does not unreasonably extend the stop
Civil commitment order justified entry
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Civil commitment order justified entry
Probation search of third party’s private area was unlawful
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Probation search of third party’s private area was unlawful
Use of fictitious name to ship a package creates no expectation of privacy in it
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Use of fictitious name to ship a package creates no expectation of privacy in it
National security blocks access to FISA application
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on National security blocks access to FISA application
Asking driver names of passengers and then asking passengers during a traffic stop was not unreasonable
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Asking driver names of passengers and then asking passengers during a traffic stop was not unreasonable
S.D. N.Y.: Missing child ruse to gain entry to look around invalidated entry and consents
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on S.D. N.Y.: Missing child ruse to gain entry to look around invalidated entry and consents
Merely being near an illegal alien is not reasonable suspicion of alien smuggling
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Merely being near an illegal alien is not reasonable suspicion of alien smuggling
CA10: False arrest affidavit can support malicious prosecution claim under Fourth Amendment
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on CA10: False arrest affidavit can support malicious prosecution claim under Fourth Amendment
Ruse checkpoint stop with nervousness and no license is reasonable suspicion
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Ruse checkpoint stop with nervousness and no license is reasonable suspicion
Search of defendant miles away from the premises described in the warrant was unauthorized
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Search of defendant miles away from the premises described in the warrant was unauthorized
CA AF: Oral search authorization for pictures of adults did not permit clicking on other pictures out of curiosity
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on CA AF: Oral search authorization for pictures of adults did not permit clicking on other pictures out of curiosity
Asking about probationary status during brief detention is not unreasonable
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Asking about probationary status during brief detention is not unreasonable
Defendant’s shed was outside the curtilage and, therefore, not covered by the warrant
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Defendant’s shed was outside the curtilage and, therefore, not covered by the warrant
Fire scene search: During initial investigation, fireman and fire investigators may come and go
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Fire scene search: During initial investigation, fireman and fire investigators may come and go
Defendant’s initial detention on mistaken belief he was a wanted man was valid, but the subsequent frisk was not because the officer then had reason to believe defendant was not the wanted man
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Defendant’s initial detention on mistaken belief he was a wanted man was valid, but the subsequent frisk was not because the officer then had reason to believe defendant was not the wanted man
Hot pursuit of a DUI took police to defendant’s door and justified arrest without a warrant
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Hot pursuit of a DUI took police to defendant’s door and justified arrest without a warrant
Gov’t gets out of district search warrant for Yahoo! computer system via 18 U.S.C. § 2703(a) to investigate hacking crime
b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading
Comments Off on Gov’t gets out of district search warrant for Yahoo! computer system via 18 U.S.C. § 2703(a) to investigate hacking crime