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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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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)
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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: November 2014
MI: Police told Best Buy employee to search for CP, thereby exceeding private search
A computer is an “effect” under the Fourth Amendment, and the police conducted a warrantless search by telling a Best Buy employee to search the computer for child pornography, thereby exceeding the private search. People v. Gingrich, 2014 Mich. App. … Continue reading
OH3: Slightly pulling out bra by bottom elastic exposed nothing and wasn’t a strip search
Pulling defendant’s bra out slightly by the bottom elastic not exposing her breasts was not a strip search in violation of state statute or the Fourth Amendment. State v. Murphy, 2014-Ohio-5002, 2014 Ohio App. LEXIS 4861 (3d Dist. November 10, … Continue reading
The Hill: Rand Paul to oppose NSA reform bill
The Hill: Rand Paul to oppose NSA reform bill by Julian Hattem: “‘Sen. Paul does not feel that the current NSA reforms go far enough,’ said an aide.”
WaPo: A raid, multiple tasings, two arrests, and a home “ripped apart”: Can you guess the suspected crime?
WaPo: A raid, multiple tasings, two arrests, and a home “ripped apart”: Can you guess the suspected crime? by Radley Balko: If you guessed “underage drinking,” stumble to the head of the class. And all of that doesn’t really even … Continue reading
MO: Bandana covering lower half of face in high crime area is reasonable suspicion
“Here, Officer Lane testified that when he passed the vehicle at approximately 11:40 P.M., he observed a rear passenger with a bandana covering the lower half of his face. The parking lot was in a high-crime area. Officer Lane thought … Continue reading
The Hill: Lawmakers: Don’t fight legalized pot
The Hill: Lawmakers: Don’t fight legalized pot by Lydia Wheeler: A bipartisan group of House members urged Congress on Thursday to stay out of the way of building momentum toward marijuana legalization in states around the country.
Airborne stringray: AP from WSJ: Report: Planes used to gather cellphone data
AP from WSJ: Report: Planes used to gather cellphone data WASHINGTON (AP) – The Justice Department is collecting data from thousands of cellphones through high-tech gear deployed on airplanes that mimics communications towers, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The … Continue reading
San Francisco Appeal: FBI Might Have Used Drones To Spy On Defendant In Senator Leland Yee Corruption Case
San Francisco Appeal: FBI Might Have Used Drones To Spy On Defendant In Senator Leland Yee Corruption Case by Max A. Cherney: In a recent court filing from Raymond ‘Shrimp Boy’ Chow, one of his attorneys, Curtis Briggs, states that … Continue reading
AP Exclusive: Drones Patrol Half of Mexico Border
AP Exclusive via ABC: Drones Patrol Half of Mexico Border by Elliot Spagat and Brian Skoloff: The U.S. government now patrols nearly half the Mexican border by drones alone in a largely unheralded shift to control desolate stretches where there … Continue reading
WaPo: Senate poised to vote on USA Freedom Act as early as next week
WaPo: Senate poised to vote on USA Freedom Act as early as next week by Ellen Nakashima: The Senate is poised to vote as early as next week on the USA Freedom Act, legislation that would end the National Security … Continue reading
NYTimes: The Upshot: Americans Say They Want Privacy, but Act as if They Don’t
NYTimes: The Upshot: Americans Say They Want Privacy, but Act as if They Don’t by Claire Cain Miller: Americans say they are deeply concerned about privacy on the web and their cellphones. They say they do not trust Internet companies … Continue reading
American Spectator: Will Federalism Trump the Drug War?
American Spectator: Will Federalism Trump the Drug War? by Doug Bandow After last week’s voting it just might. Americas are angry with their politicians but nuanced in their political opinions. Voters in Alaska simultaneously ousted their Democratic Senator and legalized … Continue reading
The Atlantic: How FBI Lies Can Damage Civil Society
The Atlantic: How FBI Lies Can Damage Civil Society by Conor Friedersdorf: The FBI lies a lot. Sometimes that’s fully justified. Brave agents risk their lives to infiltrate terrorist cells, organized crime, and child-pornography rings. Subterfuge is vital to these … Continue reading
OH3: SW for strip search didn’t authorize anal penetration, and record supports there wasn’t any; “where [do] the buttocks end and … the anal cavity begin”
Officers obtained a warrant for a strip search to retrieve a baggie of suspected drugs hidden in defendant’s anus. The warrant did not authorize penetration, and the record supports that there was no penetration. The baggie protruded some, and it … Continue reading
CA6: Jail strip searches in front of other inmates alleges a cause of action; not barred by Florence
“This appeal boils down to one question: whether a complaint states a constitutional claim when it alleges that defendant’s jail, instead of using less invasive procedures, compelled pretrial detainees who were being processed into the facility to undress in the … Continue reading
Lexology: iSpy: tracking employees with GPS technology on mobile devices
Lexology: iSpy: tracking employees with GPS technology on mobile devices by Wilson Elser, Dean A. Rocco and Christopher A. Gelpi: More than 90 percent of the 322 million cellular phones in use in the United States contain global positioning system … Continue reading
WaPo: Policing for profit in Tennessee
WaPo: Policing for profit in Tennessee by Radley Balko: Phil Williams of Nashville’s NewsChannel 5, WTVF-TV, one of the best TV investigative journalists in the country, has been doing particularly stellar work over the last several years on civil asset … Continue reading