Archives
-
Recent Posts
- WaPo: Americans have turned against police cameras that track license plates, new survey shows
- W.D.Tex.: What is the duty of the neutral and detached magistrate?
- D.Me.: Yes, more investigation could have been done, but there’s still PC on what there was
- CA3: Brady doesn’t apply to SW materials
- E.D.Mich.: Person a cell phone was given to as gift could consent to search
-
-
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: May 2014
N.D.Ga.: Court doesn’t buy officer testimony they smelled marijuana; search suppressed
Effective cross examination works: The court concludes on the credibility of the officers that they did not smell marijuana coming from defendant’s car, and the subsequent search is suppressed. United States v. Smith, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 67306 (N.D. Ga. … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Hand-to-hand drug deal from car supported search incident
Officers observed a hand-to-hand drug deal from a car and they approached it. Then the occupants tossed what appeared to be more. This was sufficient for a search incident of the car under Gant. United States v. Daniel, 2014 U.S. … Continue reading
TN: Inventory search of def’s property in the book-in area of jail was valid even though he was going to be OR’ed shortly
An inventory search of defendant’s property in the book-in area of the jail was valid even though he was going to be OR’ed shortly. State v. Johnson, 2014 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 458 (May 15, 2014): The Defendant also challenges … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Def’s admission there was meth in his car was PC for a search; Gant inapplicable
Gant did not void the search of defendant’s car where he’d already admitted there was methamphetamine in the car. Searching the car for meth, officers found a firearm and defendant was a convicted felon. United States v. Spack, 2014 U.S. … Continue reading
7News Denver: Motorists sue over 2-hour traffic stop after bank robbery in Aurora in 2012
7News Denver: Motorists sue over 2-hour traffic stop after bank robbery in Aurora in 2012 by John Aguilar: AURORA, Colo. – Motorists who were detained at an Aurora intersection for more than two hours while officers attempted to catch a … Continue reading
Politico: Who watches the watchers? Big Data goes unchecked
Politico: Who watches the watchers? Big Data goes unchecked by Josh Gerstein and Stephanie Simon: The National Security Agency might be tracking your phone calls. But private industry is prying far more deeply into your life. Commercial data brokers know … Continue reading
Boston Globel: How privacy became an American value
Boston Globe: How privacy became an American value by Ted Widmer: The Fourth Amendment grew from a showdown in Boston’s North End
The Atlantic: What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?
The Atlantic: What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs? by Jake Cole: As gridlock has become the norm in Washington, U.S. cities are increasingly going it alone in the search for solutions to the country’s … Continue reading
NYT: Robbery Suspect Tracked by GPS and Killed
NYT: Robbery Suspect Tracked by GPS and Killed by Joseph Goldstein and Michael Schwirtz: Relying on a GPS device placed in a decoy pill bottle, police officers tracked an armed man suspected of robbing a pharmacy on Friday afternoon and … Continue reading
TX4 follows TX7 and TX13 and holds warrantless blood draw violates McNeely
TX4 follows TX7 and TX13 and holds warrantless blood draw violates McNeely. Weems v. State, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 5109 (Tex. App.–San Antonio May 14, 2014): We agree with both the Amarillo [Sutherland v. State, No. 07-12-00289-CR, 2014 Tex. App. … Continue reading
FL2: Officer’s seizing pills he couldn’t identify as contraband violated Fourth Amendment
Officers seeing then seizing pills he couldn’t identify (Ritalin) until he later got on the Internet seized them without probable cause or reasonable suspicion. Gay v. State, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 7121 (Fla. 2d DCA May 14, 2014): Here, neither … Continue reading
CA3: Knock-and-talk at back door violated curtilage and Fourth Amendment
The knock and talk exception only applies to the front door. If the officer goes to the back door first, the knock and talk exception doesn’t apply. The officer’s entry onto the curtilage here was a violation of the curtilage … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Jones doesn’t create a REP in a computer with peer to peer software that lets the police in
“Several courts have rejected the application of Jones to the investigation of file sharing programs,” United States v. Brashear, Criminal No. 4:11-CR-0062, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 163865, 2013 WL 6065326, at *3 (M.D. Pa. Nov. 18, 2013) (citations omitted), and … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Gov’t instigated a private search, and it is suppressed
The government became actively involved in a private search of a computer for child pornography, and the search is suppressed. United States v. Lichtenberger, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65938 (N.D. Ohio April 30, 2014): The government argues that the intent … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Payton violation doesn’t require suppression of confession
Payton violation doesn’t require suppression of confession. United States v. Medina, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65708 (S.D. N.Y. May 7, 2014): Finally, even if a Payton violation had occurred, it would not warrant suppression of Medina’s post-arrest statements. The Supreme … Continue reading
The Atlantic: NSA Spying Has a Disproportionate Effect on Immigrants
The Atlantic: NSA Spying Has a Disproportionate Effect on Immigrants by Conor Friedersdorf: The consequences of eliminating Fourth Amendment protections for all international communication with foreigners.
NYT: Phone Company Pushed Back Against N.S.A.’s Data Collection, Court Papers Show
NYT: Phone Company Pushed Back Against N.S.A.’s Data Collection, Court Papers Show by Charlie Savage: In 2009 and early 2010, a telephone company raised questions about the legality of the then-secret National Security Agency program that is systematically collecting records … Continue reading
HuffPo: Alleged Drug Dealer Busted After Posting Photos To Facebook; and then sold to cops
HuffPo: Alleged Drug Dealer Busted After Posting Photos To Facebook: Cops by David Moye: Taylor Harrison allegedly wanted to make a point about how easy it was to sell drugs in Port St. Lucie, Florida — even when deputies were … Continue reading