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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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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
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: October 2014
Gizmodo: When Can the Police Search Your Phone and Computer?
Gizmodo: When Can the Police Search Your Phone and Computer? by Hanni Fakhoury and Nadia Kayyali of EFF: Your computer, phone, and other digital devices hold vast amounts of personal information about you and your family. This sensitive data is … Continue reading
Boston Marathon bombing case: D.Mass.: SW was broad, but not constitutionally overbroad
In the Boston Marathon bombing case, the search warrant for defendant’s house and college dormitory room were necessarily broad but not constitutionally overbroad. It wasn’t even possible for a search warrant to be more specifically drafted than this one was, … Continue reading
NE: Cell phone SW was overbroad for “[a]ny and all information” but still saved by GFE
The state relied at trial on search incident to justify a search of a cell phone, and Riley was decided while the appeal was pending, and it applies. There were no exigent circumstances for a search of the phone. But, … Continue reading
GA: Police directive to a man to show his hands was not a seizure
A police directive to a man coming from between two buildings to show his hands was not a seizure. Defendant immediately fled and abandoned items as he ran. State v. Walker, 2014 Ga. LEXIS 805 (October 20, 2014), rev’g 323 … Continue reading
WaPo: Would a new crime of ‘willful refusal to comply with a decryption order’ be the best answer to the device decryption puzzle?
WaPo: Would a new crime of ‘willful refusal to comply with a decryption order’ be the best answer to the device decryption puzzle? by Orin Kerr: FBI Director James Comey is worried that the government won’t be able to decrypt … Continue reading
Cert grant: SCOTUSblog: Privacy of hotel guest lists at issue
SCOTUSblog: Privacy of hotel guest lists at issue The Supreme Court, taking on an issue that reaches hotels and motels across the nation, agreed on Monday to rule on the power of city governments to require commercial lodgings to open … Continue reading
NV: Suspicion of DUI drugs is not an exigency under McNeely
Suspicion of DUI drugs is not an exigency under McNeely. Byars v. State, 130 Nev. Advance Opinion 85, 2014 Nev. LEXIS 111 (October 16, 2014): In this appeal, we are asked to determine whether the warrantless, forced blood draw on … Continue reading
HuffPo: Yes, It’s Legal To Film The Cops — And What’s Been Filmed In Recent Months Is Appalling
HuffPo: Yes, It’s Legal To Film The Cops — And What’s Been Filmed In Recent Months Is Appalling by Christopher Mathias: NEW YORK — It’s becoming clearer and clearer that smartphones have ushered in a new era of police accountability. … Continue reading
R.I.P. William H. Buckman, legend in the criminal law and law of racial profiling
Today was the funeral of a dear friend of mine, William H. Buckman of Moorestown, NJ, which I attended with about 20 members of National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers among about 350. We came to honor a man and … Continue reading
UT: Exclusionary rule does not apply to child welfare proceedings
The exclusionary rule does not apply to child welfare proceedings. The father was accused of possession of child pornography involving his own daughter and her friends, and the state sued to deny him access to them. Whether the search was … Continue reading
NY: Search of a metal box after arrest on entry on exigency was excessive
Police entered into a house on exigent circumstances after gunshots and arrested everybody. A search of a metal box after everybody was handcuffed and under control was unreasonable because the exigency had abated. People v. Jenkins, 2014 NY Slip Op … Continue reading
MS implicitly rejects Navarette: uncorroborated anonymous tip is not enough to support a stop
An uncorroborated anonymous tip is not enough to support a stop, and defendant’s DUI conviction is reversed and dismissed. (The majority does not cite or explain away Navarette but the dissent does address it. The opinion attempts to rely on … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Automobile exception applies when drugs tossed from car
The automobile exception applies when officers see a baggie of drugs tossed from a car. United States v. Hatley, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 147032 (D. Minn. September 8, 2014) The USMJ’s findings that there was probable cause for the automobile … Continue reading
D.Me.: Protective sweep permissible during knock-and-talk where RS was evident
Police conducted a knock and talk at defendant’s hotel room. They were there investigating sex trafficking and found drug paraphernalia in the hallway outside the room. After they were admitted to the room, a protective sweep was permissible. Buie involved … Continue reading
CA9: No qualified immunity to handcuffing ADHD child who wouldn’t leave school grounds
Officers were entitled to qualified immunity with regard to an unconstitutional seizure of a minor child with attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder who was sitting quietly but was unresponsive and refused to leave a school playground, since a reasonable officer would … Continue reading
Politico: Facebook unfriends the DEA
Politico: AP Facebook unfriends federal drug agency: The social network wants assurances the federal drug agency is not operating any more fake profiles.
WaPo: San Diego Police Department says, ‘Just trust us.’
WaPo: San Diego Police Department says, ‘Just trust us.’ by Radley Balko: I noted in August the bizarre position staked out by the San Diego Police Department with respect to the use of body cameras: A department spokesman told local … Continue reading
NY Times: F.B.I. Director Hints at Action as Cellphone Data Is Locked
NY Times: F.B.I. Director Hints at Action as Cellphone Data Is Locked by David E. Sanger and Matt Apuzzo: The director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, said on Thursday that the “post-Snowden pendulum” that has driven Apple and Google … Continue reading