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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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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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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: August 2014
TX4 follows Fifth Circuit and TX14: Search warrant not required for CSLI
TX4 follows Fifth Circuit and TX14: Search warrant not required for CSLI. It is information kept by the phone provider and voluntarily disclosed to it by the use of the cell phone. Ford v. State, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 9159 … Continue reading
WaPo: Editorial: The country needs more information on how often police kill
Editorial: The country needs more information on how often police kill: HOW MANY times a year do U.S. police officers employ deadly force, and how many people die as a result? What are the races and ethnicities of those involved? … Continue reading
NYTimes: In Washington, Second Thoughts on Arming Police
NYTimes: In Washington, Second Thoughts on Arming Police by Matt Apuzzo and Michael S. Schmidt: WASHINGTON — Jolted by images of protesters clashing with heavily armed police officers in Missouri, President Obama has ordered a comprehensive review of the government’s … Continue reading
CA2: Whether to employ a SWAT team entitled to qualified immunity; rest of raid not
The decision to employ a SWAT team is subject to qualified immunity, but the actions that follow here aren’t. The raid here was overkill [my word], and the officers do not get qualified immunity for how it was conducted because … Continue reading
CA6: Ptf’s own video of stop supported that his arrest was without PC
Plaintiff in this § 1983 case videotaped his own stop because he was concerned of continued harassment by one particular officer. The video shows no factual basis for plaintiff’s arrest for “menacing” or disorderly conduct in his interaction with the … Continue reading
OH9: Merely having open garage door for a couple of days didn’t warrant emergency aid entry
The emergency aid exception did not warrant entry into defendant’s home and finding marijuana. Neighbors reported that the garage door had been open for a couple of days, and that was unusual. There was no sign of breaking and entering, … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: A pretextual traffic stop can’t be used to remove a tracking device
The government doesn’t have the authority to have its officers simply stop a motorist under the guise of a traffic stop to remove a tracking device. Because tracking devices are always removed surreptitiously, there is no law on this anywhere. … Continue reading
W.D.Mich.: Police wandering rural property for an hour was invalid knock and talk
Officers came to defendant’s rural property to do a knock and talk and “lingered” for an hour wandering around. They obviously made a decision to search before they got there, and their actions were that of searching officers and the … Continue reading
CA7: Def’s car with his phone in it parked repeatedly outside a house supported PC to search that place
The repeated presence of defendant’s car and cell phone at the place searched under the warrant added to the probable cause that that was a place where evidence could be found. It wasn’t misleading to the USMJ to not tell … Continue reading
KS: “puppy dog look” isn’t enough for a stop
Defendant’s “puppy dog look” isn’t enough for a stop. State v. Wilburn, 2014 Kan. App. LEXIS 56 (August 15, 2014): At the time of the stop, the officers had no reasonable and articulable suspicion that Wilburn or Curtis had committed … Continue reading
NYTimes: State of the Art: Police Cameras Can Shed Light, but Raise Privacy Concerns
NYTimes: State of the Art: Police Cameras Can Shed Light, but Raise Privacy Concerns by Farhad Manjoo: But the technology raises privacy concerns both for the police and the public, and there are no national guidelines for how they should … Continue reading
538.com: Nobody Knows How Many Americans The Police Kill Each Year
538.com: Nobody Knows How Many Americans The Police Kill Each Year by Reuben Fischer-Baum: Earlier this month, a police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri. The shooting and the response have reignited concerns … Continue reading
CA4: Davis saves pre-Jones GPS installations in the Fourth Circuit
Prior to Jones’s GPS ruling, Knotts governed all the GPS cases in this circuit, so Davis good faith has to apply to a 2011 GPS installation. United States v. Stephens, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 15920 (4th Cir. August 19, 2014):
IN: SW not needed to test DNA lawfully found during investigation
Defendant was arrested for a murder and DNA was found on his lawfully seized shoe linking him to the crime. A search warrant was not needed to test the DNA already lawfully seized. Guilmette v. State, 2014 Ind. LEXIS 650 … Continue reading
TN: Arrival of a police squad with arrest warrants was a “seizure” despite defendant’s flight
Several police cars from Knoxville PD pulled up at a house with arrest warrants for people known to hang out there. Defendant saw them and fled and was pursued. The arrival of that many police was a “seizure” under the … Continue reading
NE: SW not needed for cell phone call records
Defendant’s cell phone call records were obtained by subpoena. This is governed by Smith v. Maryland, and not by any of the cases involving search warrants for the contents of cell phones. [Riley not cited because case arose pre-Riley.] Big … Continue reading
NPR: Police, Race And The Use Of Deadly Force
NPR: Police, Race And The Use Of Deadly Force, The Diane Rehm Show, One Hour: Michael Brown’s death sparks a national conversation about what happens when police don’t reflect the communities they serve. As the Justice Department investigates police tactics … Continue reading