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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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General (many free):
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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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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)
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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: September 2014
VI: DNA request 15 months later wasn’t stale, but it was speculative and denied
There was no probable cause for obtaining a buccal swab for DNA 15 months after defendant’s arrest to attempt to link him to a gun. The best that the officers could say was that there may be trace evidence that … Continue reading
KS former restrictive SI statute applied rather than Gant
Kansas had a search statute [in effect from 2006-11] that was more restrictive on the police than Gant, and the trial court and court of appeals erred in not applying that statute. State v. Julian, 2014 Kan. LEXIS 500 (September … Continue reading
MT: Talking control of DL is a seizure when they are carried to the patrol car
The officer’s taking control of defendant’s and the passenger’s driver’s license was a seizure of them when he took the DLs back to the patrol car to run them. They were not free to leave. State v. Strom, 2014 MT … Continue reading
NYTimes: Editorial: Smartwatches and Weak Privacy Rules
NYTimes: Editorial: Smartwatches and Weak Privacy Rules: It’s true that the devices could help some people lead healthier lives. The problem is that most of the medical and personal information collected by fitness trackers and apps is not protected by … Continue reading
Grits for Breakfast: Texas’ mandatory blood draw statute on DWI under fire
Grits for Breakfast: Texas’ mandatory blood draw statute on DWI under fire: Texas’ warrantless blood draw statute has been challenged and in some cases declared unconstitutional by intermediate state appellate judges in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2013 McNeely … Continue reading
Daily Beast: Your Arrest Video Is Going Online. Who Will See It?
Daily Beast: Your Arrest Video Is Going Online. Who Will See It? by Jacob Seigel: America is rushing to outfit cops with cameras, but even experts aren’t sure of the laws regulating the storage of the videos they capture—or determining … Continue reading
Missing posts for book supplement added back in
Those cases that will definitely make it into the 2015 book supplement have been added back in. Those marked with an * weren’t. Yes, and still behind.
CA11: Officer denied qualified immunity for slamming passive arrestee to pavement
“We have repeatedly ruled that a police officer violates the Fourth Amendment, and is denied qualified immunity, if he or she uses gratuitous and excessive force against a suspect who is under control, not resisting, and obeying commands. See, e.g., … Continue reading
CA11: Courthouse security guard denied qualified immunity for twisting arm of a female lawyer on the phone
Plaintiff in this § 1983 case was a lawyer entering the Fulton County Courthouse. She put her briefcase and purse on the conveyor belt for the x-ray machine, but she set off the metal detector. She was instructed to take … Continue reading
CA9: A roving game warden stop not a proper administrative search
“We must decide whether a suspicionless roving automobile stop of commercial fishers made while they drive on a public highway to investigate compliance with Washington fish and game laws constitutes an unreasonable search and seizure within the meaning of the … Continue reading
MO: “I need to talk to you” is a request not a command
Defendant was not seized by officer who, based on an anonymous tip that defendant was armed, stopped near defendant and walked toward him saying “I need to talk to you.” Defendant backpadeled and reached for his waistband. The officer drew … Continue reading
D.Utah: Defendant was clearly “seized” at the police station; couldn’t even go to bathroom without escort
Defendant was transported to the police station in the caged back of a patrol car and the police had his ID. He was kept incommunicado, denied food and water, and escorted to the bathroom. He was seized, and it was … Continue reading
CA2: Court lacks “high level of confidence” for inevitable discovery to apply
Here, the search discovering defendant’s illegal firearms violated the Fourth Amendment, but the government argued for inevitable discovery, but the court lacks a “high level of confidence” that the officers would have inevitably discovered it. The government’s argument was essentially … Continue reading
PA: Cell phone not per se subject to plain view for seizure and search for its potential information
A cell phone is not per se subject to the plain view exception just because it contains information that the police might suppose conceivably has some relationship to the crime they are investigating. Commonwealth v. Wright, 2014 PA Super 189, … Continue reading
CA9: Posse Comitatus Act applies to NCIS investigation of CP cases against civilians
Posse Comitatus Act applied to NCIS investigation into child pornography anywhere in the State of Washington against civilians. Thus, the district court erred in not suppressing the evidence. United States v. Dreyer, 13-30077 (9th Cir. September 12, 2014) (summary by … Continue reading
Watchdog.org: Bloodletting could be in store for Mississippi drivers at DUI checkpoints
Watchdog.org: Bloodletting could be in store for Mississippi drivers at DUI checkpoints by Steve Wilson: Over the long Labor Day weekend, the patrol ran a no-refusal DUI checkpoint in Oxford, home of the University of Mississippi. In a no-refusal checkpoint, … Continue reading
We’ve been down for 9 days; back up Sunday
Longest ever down in 11½ years. Most likely cause: WordPress plug-ins got corrupted. Right now it’s missing a few posts from late August to September 5th. They’re backed up somewhere and will be added back in shortly. In the interim, … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Justification for stop “does not pass the laugh test” but still objectively reasonable
“Although this is a close decision, the Court denies Defendant’s motion. Sergeant Timberlake’s testimony that he stopped Davidoff’s van for a lane change [on an almost vacant interstate highway] does not pass the laugh test. He obviously stopped Davidoff’s vehicle … Continue reading
OH8: Entry into def’s home for DWI arrest wasn’t with sufficient justification
Police officers’ warrantless forced home entry to arrest defendant suspected of OVI violated the Fourth Amendment and the Ohio Constitution because, under the totality of the circumstances. Evidence that defendant turned into his driveway and parked the car before the … Continue reading
NJ: Emergency entry valid despite two hour delay attempting to locate victim
The entry into defendant’s home was justified under the emergency aid doctrine on a finding of blood despite a two hour delay where the police were calling hospitals trying to locate the defendant to avoid the entry unless it was … Continue reading