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- 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
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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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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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)
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"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. 
Monthly Archives: May 2014
M.D.Ala.: Scrivener’s error in time of issuance of SW is corrected
The time of the warrant of 10:31 pm was clearly a scrivener’s error because it was issued at 9:31 pm. Therefore, the search warrant did not issue after the search began, and the motion to suppress is denied. United States … Continue reading
WaPo: Morning Links: DEA launches nationwide synthetic drug sweep
WaPo: Morning Links: DEA launches nationwide synthetic drug sweep by Radley Balko: ● I’ve often seen my reporting co-opted by other publications without credit.* So I try to acknowledge the reporters who originally broke stories that later make national news. … Continue reading
N.D.Idaho: SW application is for evidence to be found, not to implicate a target
In a business records search, the question is probable cause to believe evidence will be found, and it isn’t necessary for the search warrant affidavit to implicate a possible target of the search to be valid. United States v. Suarez, … Continue reading
PC World: Department of Justice wants expanded permission to hack and search remote computers
PC World: Department of Justice wants expanded permission to hack and search remote computers by Grant Gross: The U.S. Department of Justice wants new authority to hack and search remote computers during investigations, saying the new rules are needed because … Continue reading
SFGate: Magistrate waxes poetic while rejecting Gmail search request by Henry K. Lee
SFGate: Magistrate waxes poetic while rejecting Gmail search request by Henry K. Lee SAN JOSE — A federal magistrate on Friday rejected a bid by prosecutors to search an unidentified target’s Google e-mail account, criticizing the “seize first, search second” … Continue reading
BLT: Court: Privacy Outweighs Public Interest in Dispute Over Cell Tracking Records
BLT: Court: Privacy Outweighs Public Interest in Dispute Over Cell Tracking Records by Zoe Tillman: The public doesn’t have a right to information on criminal cases involving warrantless cell phone tracking if the defendant was acquitted or had their case … Continue reading
Two inventory cases
This was a stop by Texas Tech PD, and defendant’s DL was suspended. Other things indicated drugs or drug usage. Nevertheless, the inventory of the vehicle was conducted in compliance with the department’s inventory policy and it wasn’t shown to … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Exigent circumstances entry and search has to be limited by the exigency
An exigent circumstances entry and search has to be limited by the exigency, and this one was. (In this case, there was a hearing on a motion to suppress in state court before, and then the case was indicted federally, … Continue reading
LA: Arrest and search and seizure outside of an officer’s territorial jurisdiction does not warrant exclusion
An arrest and search and seizure outside of an officer’s territorial jurisdiction does not warrant exclusion. State v. Gates, 2014 La. LEXIS 1139 (May 7, 2014): Even if we assume Officer Bell acted outside of his territorial jurisdiction in the … Continue reading
The Atlantic: 23 Police Officers Fire 377 Bullets at Two Men With Zero Guns
The Atlantic: 23 Police Officers Fire 377 Bullets at Two Men With Zero Guns by Conor Friedersdorf: I’ve long proposed a simple rule: police officers who shoot unarmed innocents should have their guns taken away. They can work desk jobs … Continue reading
WaPo: House nears deal on bill to end mass collection of phone data
WaPo: House nears deal on bill to end mass collection of phone data by Ellen Nakashima: Key lawmakers in the House are nearing a bipartisan compromise on surveillance legislation that they believe can pass the full chamber and satisfy President … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Armed raid for campaign finance records leads to enjoining investigation for First Amendment violation
Plaintiffs showed enough to enjoin a criminal investigation punctuated by armed raids on plaintiff’s home for campaign finance records for interference with First Amendment political and free speech rights. O’Keefe v. Schlitz, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63066 (E.D. Wis. May … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: FBI search 4 years earlier, where same records were disclosed in civil discovery, will not be suppressed
A motion to suppress an FBI search over four years into later civil litigation where the same records were produced in civil discovery is academic and denied. In re 650 Fifth Ave. & Related Props., 970 F. Supp. 2d 204 … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Consent to search a computer includes its external hard drive
Consent to search a computer includes its external hard drive. United States v. Beckmann, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 62950 (E.D. Mo. May 7, 2014) R&R 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63156 (E.D. Mo. March 14, 2014). Plaintiff admittedly refused successive requests … Continue reading
Tennessee adopts the “second look” booking inventory search rule
Tennessee adopts the “second look” booking inventory search rule. Defendant had been arrested for DUI, but he was a suspect in a rape and robbery. Officers looked again at the contents of his pants and found jewelry from the victim, … Continue reading
KLAS TV: I-Team: Do police seek search warrant friendly judges?
KLAS TV: I-Team: Do police seek search warrant friendly judges? by Glen Meek: LAS VEGAS — Could police be playing favorites when it comes to getting search warrants signed by local magistrates? An I-Team investigation shows one judge has signed … Continue reading
New Law Review Article: Beyond the Judicial Fourth Amendment: The Prosecutor’s Role
Russell M. Gold, Beyond the Judicial Fourth Amendment: The Prosecutor’s Role, __ UC Davis L. Rev. __ (2014), Forthcoming. Abstract: Scholarly discussion of the Fourth Amendment focuses narrowly on judicial enforcement and the exclusionary rule. This Article takes a different … Continue reading
WaPo: Volokh: A law review title pun that has run its course
WaPo: Volokh: A law review title pun that has run its course by Orin Kerr: I’m not a fan of using puns in the titles of law review articles. But many authors writing about Fourth Amendment law seem unable to … Continue reading