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- 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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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. 
Monthly Archives: July 2014
WaPo: Manhattan prosecutor issued sweeping, secret Facebook warrant
WaPo: Manhattan prosecutor issued sweeping, secret Facebook warrant by Radley Balko: The New York Times reports on a big investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office into disability fraud by more than 100 New York City police officers and firefighters. … Continue reading
BLT: NSA Privacy Report by Fed Watchdog Seen as Too Weak
BLT: NSA Privacy Report by Fed Watchdog Seen as Too Weak Leading technology and civil liberties groups are disappointed with a study [PDF] the U.S. government’s privacy watchdog released in support of a major U.S. foreign surveillance program that collects … Continue reading
Just Security: Cloud City: A Fourth Amendment Thought Experiment
Just Security: Cloud City: A Fourth Amendment Thought Experiment by Julian Sanchez: Reading the Privacy & Civil Liberties Oversight Board’s rather tepid report on NSA surveillance under §702 of the FISA Amendments Act last night, I found myself thinking of … Continue reading
NYTimes: Pursuit of Punctuation; on the Declaration of Independence
NYTimes: Pursuit of Punctuation: An excerpt from the National Archives’ official transcript of the Declaration of Independence. A scholar is arguing that the period after “the pursuit of happiness” — shown in an 1823 engraving — does not appear on … Continue reading
CA9: SJ for officers revd; no showing of exigency for entry or need for excessive force
The plaintiff stated a § 1983 claim for unlawful entry and excessive force, and the district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the officers. There was no showing of exigency for the entry or need for the … Continue reading
WaPo: Riley won, but will Riley benefit from it?
WaPo: Riley won, but will Riley benefit from it? by Orin Kerr: The Supreme Court gave a big victory to criminal defendants last week when it held in Riley v. California that the police need a warrant to search a … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: A protective sweep wasn’t justified where the officers weren’t legitimately concerned about safety
A protective sweep was not justified in this case. Defendant was being talked to about shooting a shotgun at a racoon, and the other person in the house was conceded at the time to be passive and known to be … Continue reading
NC: De minimus rule for traffic stops doesn’t apply when they have to wait for the drug dog
Once the basis for the traffic stop was completed, the stop had to end. Defendant was asked for consent and refused, and the officer told him he was staying for a drug dog to arrive. The state argued for the … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: No standing to contest seizure of guns left at a pawn shop
Defendant had no standing to contest law enforcement’s seizure of guns he pawned at a pawn shop. United States v. Sanders, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88788 (E.D. Tenn. May 19, 2014).* The officer had reasonable suspicion defendant was driving under … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Warrant for whole single family dwelling was not overbroad in a CP case
Search warrants are directed at places, and it doesn’t matter that several people live there. This was a single family dwelling, so the warrant wasn’t overbroad for identifying the whole home as a place to search in a child pornography … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: That police were rude during the search isn’t a ground to exclude
Alleged police misconduct in how the search was conducted because they were rude and cavalier in handling the evidence isn’t a ground to suppress. United States v. Samonek, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88269 (E.D. Mich. June 30, 2014):
D.Kan.: Standard govt cell phone search protocol violates particularity requirement and results in a general search
And it begins: What is the scope of Riley? When I was interviewed by the NYT last week about Riley, I mentioned that particularity was going to be the next real issue in cell phone searches, but that didn’t end … Continue reading
CA5: Border Patrol agent could be sued in federal court for shooting a kid across the border in Mexico
A Border Patrol agent in El Paso shot and killed a young man in Mexico who was playing with his friend, running down and touching the border fence and running back. The friend was lucky and captured; Hernandez was shot … Continue reading
ACLU: STINGRAYS: The Most Common Surveillance Tool the Government Won’t Tell You About (Download)
ACLU of No. Cal.: STINGRAYS: The Most Common Surveillance Tool the Government Won’t Tell You About Download: Stingrays: The Most Common Surveillance Tool the Government Won’t Tell You About: Federal and state law enforcement entities across the country are using … Continue reading
WaPo: Officials release data on ‘backdoor’ searches
WaPo: Officials release data on ‘backdoor’ searches by Ellen Nakashima: The FBI conducts a “substantial” number of warrantless queries for Americans’ e-mails and phone calls in a special database of intercepted communications, but it does not track exactly how often, … Continue reading
D.N.H.: Bail conditions can permit otherwise illegal searches of the person; same as parole search
Officers had reasonable suspicion to conduct a patdown of the defendant. Even if they didn’t, a bail condition of his would have permitted it. United States v. Drane, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88729 (D. N.H. June 30, 2014):
NM adopts Greenwood dissents and finds a reasonable expectation of privacy in trash out for collection
New Mexico adopts the Greenwood dissent and holds that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in trash left out for collection in an opaque bag, even in a communal dumpster. City ordinances on trash collection help create the expectation … Continue reading