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: August 2014
TX4: Reverses self on remand from McNeely: warrant was required
On remand from SCOTUS after McNeely, the Texas Court of Appeals in San Antonio reverses itself and held that a warrant was required for defendant’s blood draw. Aviles v. State, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 8508 (Tex. App. – San Antonio … Continue reading
NYTimes: Editorial: Keeping Track: … Stop-and-Frisk
NYTimes: Editorial: Keeping Track: … Stop-and-Frisk:
CA5: Firing assault rifle into car with suicidal driver during high speed chase not constitutionally unreasonable
An officer firing an assault rifle into a fleeing stolen car operated at high speeds by a suicidal armed man did not commit a constitutional violation. There was no constitutional obligation on the part of the officer to use less … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: A private party’s search of a thumb drive didn’t limit the government’s search when they provided it
A thumb drive was found with child pornography on it by a private party who turned it over to the government. The government wasn’t limited by the scope of the private party’s search as to how deep it could search. … Continue reading
CA7: Warrantless seizure of alleged contraband wasn’t covered yet by FTCA; GJ in session
The DEA’s warrantless seizure of the plaintiff’s fake incense products which the DEA considered contraband but wasn’t declared such until just after the seizure didn’t state a claim for separate relief yet for a seizure for forfeiture. The government apparently … Continue reading
FL3: SI of defendant’s cell phone in 2011 already violated established law in Florida
The search incident of defendant’s cell phone was in violation of settled law in Florida at the time it happened in 2011, and the search is suppressed. Saint-Hilaire v. State, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 12039 (Fla. 3d DCA August 6, … Continue reading
WA: Defendant was separated from his backpack, so it couldn’t be searched incident to arrest
During a Terry stop, the officer separated defendant from his backpack, and the backpack was searched about 10 minutes later when defendant was placed under arrest. The backpack was thus not on defendant’s person nor within his area of control … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Police observation of a controlled buy is justification for a traffic stop
Police observation of a controlled buy is justification for a traffic stop. United States v. Cooper, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105617 (N.D. Cal. July 31, 2014).* D.C. helped set up defendant’s computer system, and defendant was downloading child pornography. The … Continue reading
WaPo: Police officers have no constitutional ‘right of privacy’ in records of their official misconduct
WaPo: Police officers have no constitutional ‘right of privacy’ in records of their official misconduct by Eugene Volokh.
Law.com/CT: Gideon: Conn. Court Makes Misguided Ruling in Name of Officer Safety
Law.com/CT: Gideon: Conn. Court Makes Misguided Ruling in Name of Officer Safety In 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court in Ybarra v. Illinois held that ‘a person’s mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not, without more, give … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Cell phone GPS location was obtained by court order under § 2703 so GFE applies
Cell phone GPS location data was obtained by HSI with a court order on probable cause. While it wasn’t under Rule 41, it was clearly covered by good faith under § 2703. United States v. Garcia, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
WI: When a probation term includes no computers, it is reasonable for a probation officer to search one found in the home
When a probation term includes no computers, it is reasonable for a probation officer to search one found in the home. This one had child pornography on it. State v. Purtell, 2014 WI 101, 2014 Wisc. LEXIS 538 (August 1, … Continue reading
CA7: Davis GFE exception applies to pre-Jardines dog sniffs
A pre-Jardines dog sniff at the door is saved by the Davis good faith exception. United States v. Gutierrez, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 14853 (7th Cir. July 29, 2014). The Eighth Circuit said the same thing the same day. Defendant … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Defendant’s denial he had an ID didn’t warrant searching his wallet
Just because defendant was nervous and denied having ID when it was apparent he had a wallet, a search of his wallet wasn’t justified. United States v. Garcia-Garza, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105586 (D. Minn. June 30, 2014):
D.Neb.: Good faith exception applies to applications for CSLI
The good faith exception applies to applications for CSLI. United States v. Corona, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 106398 (D. Neb. June 23, 2014): Notwithstanding the sufficiency of the search warrant issued by Judge Gossett, or any theoretical ramifications behind distinguishing … Continue reading
WaPo: How closely is Google really reading your e-mail?
WaPo: How closely is Google really reading your e-mail? by Hayley Tsukayama: Most users know that Google routinely uses software to scan the contents of e-mails, including images, to feed its advertising and to identify malware. But many may not … Continue reading
D.Colo.: Photo of property in SW application cures address typo
A typo in the address, 1557 v. 1577, was not material where the application for the search warrant had a photograph of the property involved. United States v. Padilla, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 104023 (D. Colo. July 30, 2014). Exigent … Continue reading
The Hill: Microsoft digs in on digital privacy
The Hill: Microsoft digs in on digital privacy by Julian Hattem: Microsoft and the DOJ are squaring off in a case with drastic ramifications for digital privacy.