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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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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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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: November 2014
CA5: Since court upheld warrantless GPS before Jones, no 2255 relief
The Fifth Circuit upheld GPS tracking without a warrant prior to Jones, so defendant wasn’t entitled to 2255 relief under Davis good faith. (The government also argued that Stone v. Powell applied, which would be true, but the court didn’t … Continue reading
OR follows Brown v. Illinois on attenuation
Oregon follows Brown v. Illinois on attenuation analysis. State v. Bailey, 356 Ore. 486, 2014 Ore. LEXIS 813 (November 6, 2014):
E.D.Pa.: 1 am robbery report by three men was enough to stop first three men seen in vicinity
The stopping officer had a radio report of a recent robbery at 12:54 a.m. by three black males, with no further description. In the vicinity of the robbery, a high crime area, the officer encountered three men about 1 a.m. … Continue reading
Slate: Stingrays: Not Just for Feds!
Slate: Stingrays: Not Just for Feds! by Kate Klonick: How local law enforcement uses an invasive, unreliable surveillance tool. From Ferguson to Senate hearings, the news of local police arming themselves with federal-grade equipment—tanks, riot gear, M16 rifles—has captivated everyone … Continue reading
WaPo: Unusual lawsuit challenges police seizure tactics
WaPo: Unusual lawsuit challenges police seizure tactics by Robert O’Harrow Jr.: The two men in the rented red Nissan Altima were poker players traveling through Iowa on their way to Las Vegas. The police were state troopers on the hunt … Continue reading
MYTimes: Concerns in Criminal Justice System as New York City Eases Marijuana Policy
MYTimes: Concerns in Criminal Justice System as New York City Eases Marijuana Policy by Al Baker: Mayor Bill de Blasio, who took office promising to reform the Police Department and repair relations with black and Latino communities, on Monday unveiled … Continue reading
WSJ: Lynch: Civil Actions Against Police Agencies Can Spur ‘Systemic Change’
Wall Street Journal Law Blog: Lynch: Civil Actions Against Police Agencies Can Spur ‘Systemic Change’ by Jacob Gershman: How would President Barack Obama’s Attorney General nominee Loretta Lynch approach a high-profile police controversy like the one that engulfed Ferguson, Mo., … Continue reading
Govt Tech: Eyeglass-Mounted Video Cameras Earn Police Respect
Government Technology: Eyeglass-Mounted Video Cameras Earn Police Respect by Dean Narciso, Columbus Dispatch: If not for Sunbury, Ohio, officers’ new cameras, one case might have brought charges of police abuse, Fourth Amendment violations and a lengthy investigation. The officers raced … Continue reading
NYTimes: Marijuana May Mean Ticket, Not Arrest, in New York City
NYTimes: Marijuana May Mean Ticket, Not Arrest, in New York City by Joseph Goldstein: The New York Police Department, which has been arresting tens of thousands of people a year for low-level marijuana possession, is poised to stop making such … Continue reading
SCOTUS per curiam decides a not front door knock-and-talk on qualified immunity
Officers didn’t go to the front door for a knock-and-announce and they didn’t anybody. The law was not clearly established at the time. The homeowner sued under § 1983. SCOTUS per curiam grants the officers qualified immunity without full briefing. … Continue reading
FISC: Another FISC case disagreeing with Klayman released
Another FISC case disagreeing with Klayman released (without adversarial briefing, of course). In re Application of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for an Order Requiring the Production of Tangible Things from [Redacted], 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 157864 (For. Intel. Surv. … Continue reading
DC’s new MJ decriminalization doesn’t affect a search from 2010
Decriminalization of marijuana in the future may change the probable cause calculus, but this search was based on the smell of marijuana and long predated that (April 2010). Butler v. United States, 2014 D.C. App. LEXIS 446 (November 6, 2014) … Continue reading
IL implied consent statute not unconstitutional under McNeely
Illinois’s implied-consent statutory scheme did not unconstitutionally circumvent defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights by punishing him for refusing to take the chemical analysis by suspending his driver’s license and introducing his refusal against him at his criminal trial. A per se … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Touching the fog line when a police car is in one’s blind spot isn’t a traffic offense; stop unreasonable
Defendant touched the fog line and wasn’t driving erratically. As he explained on the video during the stop, he was concerned that there was a police car staying in his blind spot and he was trying to stay away from … Continue reading
D.Kan.: RS was shown for a frisk even though the officer didn’t articulate it
A frisk was reasonable where the officer would have to turn his back on the defendant to deal with the passenger, even though the officer did not articulate specific reasonable suspicion he was armed. “As in Manjarrez, the deputy could … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Cell phone found in automobile exception search could be seized for SW
Defendant’s cell phone found in a car searched under the automobile exception could be seized pending getting a search warrant for it. There was probable cause to believe evidence of the crime would be found there. United States v. Palermo, … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Officers’ testimony too embellished and padded to be believable
The court finds the officers’ testimony too embellished and padded to be believable. Their job is to testify factually and not embellish. [See Treatise § 60.47 n.2 (“Counsel should watch for testimony ‘tailored to nullify constitutional objections.’”)] United States v. … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: 404(b) and the exclusionary rule
N.D.Cal. wrestles with 404(b) and the exclusionary rule. United States v. Felix, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 156232 (N.D. Cal. October 31, 2014). See Treatise § 9.02. A thoughtful opinion, without really resolving the issue, yet:
CA3: Where search was limited, alleged overbreadth of SW was less important
The affidavit for the search warrant showed probable cause, so the search can’t be suppressed. Moreover, the officer acted reasonably and gets qualified immunity. The search itself wasn’t as broad as the warrant was argued to allow, so the search … Continue reading