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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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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: November 2014
Nebraska holds for first time that rules of evidence don’t apply to suppression hearings
“Because our interpretation of the rules of evidence is meant to be the same as the federal rules, we conclude that under § 27-104 [Rule 104], the rules of evidence do not apply at hearings to determine preliminary questions of … Continue reading
Poker Update: FBI Sabotages Internet Connection to Send in Trojan Horse; Test Boundaries of Privacy Rights
Poker Update: FBI Sabotages Internet Connection to Send in Trojan Horse; Test Boundaries of Privacy Rights by Bradley Chalupski: A warrant obtained by the FBI that resulted in the arrest of “One-Drop” participant Wei Seng Phua constituted an illegal search … Continue reading
LTN: The Golden Rule of Data Privacy
LTN: The Golden Rule of Data Privacy by Kathryn Hume: ARMA panel identifies principles that are changing law firm practices. At last week’s ARMA session, “Data Privacy—Emerging Information Governance Challenges” Brian McCauley, director of information governance at McDermott, Will & … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: With smell of MJ in car and it couldn’t be found, officer could look under hood and into air cleaner
In a traffic stop, the officer could smell marijuana and that gave probable cause to search. He couldn’t find it in the passenger compartment, so he could look in the engine compartment. United States v. Hollis, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
Idaho implied consent statute is not a per se exception to the warrant requirement under McNeely
The Idaho implied consent statute is not a per se exception to the warrant requirement under McNeely. State v. Wolff, 2014 Ida. LEXIS 286 (October 29, 2014):
TX8: That person signing affidavit for SW was different than one named at top didn’t matter–it’s an oath
The officer named as the affiant wasn’t the one who signed the affidavit for search warrant. That wasn’t material because was an oath by somebody. Patterson v. State, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 11996 (Tex. App.–El Paso October 31, 2014). A … Continue reading
Hudson v. Michigan (2006) v. Wilson v. Arkansas (1995)
NY Review of Books: Why Innocent People Plead Guilty
NY Review of Books: Why Innocent People Plead Guilty by Jed S. Rakoff (off topic but necessary, since venal candidates like to pick on opponents for handling any criminal case): The criminal justice system in the United States today bears … Continue reading
Digital Journal: FBI seeking new invasive global hacking powers
Digital Journal: FBI seeking new invasive global hacking powers by Brett Wilkins: Washington – The Federal Bureau of Investigation has proposed a rule change that would grant the agency broad new powers to hack into and carry out surveillance of … Continue reading
WaPo: Wrong-door raid gone relatively right is still wrong
WaPo: Wrong-door raid gone relatively right is still wrong by Lucy Steigerwald: Until the war on drugs entirely ends, perhaps all we can hope for is to have a police department polite enough to fix a door they just broke.
WaPo: Opinion: Time to call in the SWAT team reform crew
WaPo: Opinion: Time to call in the SWAT team reform crew by Joshua D. Filler: The extraordinary capabilities of SWAT teams have become too ordinary.
NYTimes: Albuquerque Agrees to Changes on Use of Force
NYTimes: Albuquerque Agrees to Changes on Use of Force by Ian Lovett: The Justice Department has reached a settlement with the City of Albuquerque over excessive use of force by the Police Department. Under an agreement announced Friday, an independent … Continue reading
NYTimes: Editorial: Deceptions of the F.B.I.
NYTimes: Editorial: Deceptions of the F.B.I.: If your Internet service goes down and you call a technician, can you be certain that the person who arrives at your door is actually there to restore service? What if he is a … Continue reading
CA6: A parole search can occur in the place the officers have probable cause to believe the defendant is living, even if that’s not the place she’s officially paroled to
A parole search can occur in the place the officers have probable cause to believe the defendant is living, even if that’s not the place she’s officially paroled to. Ohio statute says the place where the parolee lives. United States … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: An order to obtain historical cell site location information does not require probable cause
An order to obtain historical cell site location information does not require probable cause because it is a mere business record. Real time information does. United States v. Martinez, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 153485 (S.D. Cal. October 28, 2014):
AR: Locked safe in car could be searched without warrant under automobile exception
Where the automobile exception applies to a car, the state does not need a search warrant to search a locked safe found in it. State v. Crane, 2014 Ark. 443, 2014 Ark. LEXIS 586 (October 30, 2014). The government did … Continue reading