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- WaPo: Americans have turned against police cameras that track license plates, new survey shows
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- 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)
--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: December 2014
The Economist: Driving while nervous
The Economist: Driving while nervous by S.M.: IN AN unusual 8-1 split, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor as the lone dissenter, the Supreme Court issued a ruling on Monday that whittles away at the Fourth Amendment protection against “unreasonable searches and … Continue reading
BLT: Fourth Circuit Grapples With Privacy of Cell Tower Data
BLT: Fourth Circuit Grapples With Privacy of Cell Tower Data by Mike Scarcella: Maryland’s top federal prosecutor argued in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that cellphone users have no privacy expectation in the records that wireless … Continue reading
HuffPo: 5 Things You Need to Know About Illinois New Eavesdropping Law
HuffPo: 5 Things You Need to Know About Illinois New Eavesdropping Law by Dan Johnson: In the past few days, there has been a flurry of information about SB 1342, a pending rewrite of Illinois eavesdropping statutes. Some say it … Continue reading
CA6: Violation of some regulations may be “sloppy police work” that doesn’t make out a constitutional violation
There was probable cause for this § 1983 plaintiff’s arrest. While there may have been some violations of police regulations in how the controlled buy went down, a little “sloppy police work” that doesn’t make out a constitutional violation. Womack … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Reasonable mistake on facts that person entering car was wanted on a warrant still supported stop on RS
Officers reasonably mistaken on the facts that the person entering a 4Runner from a drug house was a particular wanted person still justified the stop. Then, furtive movements justified a protective weapons search. United States v. Black-McCormick, 2014 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
D.Conn.: CSLI not good enough to place def at particular location for entry to arrest
Using cell site location data to locate the defendant, the fact the phone put him at a particular address wasn’t sufficient to show that he was actually inside or that it was his residence under Steagald. The government had no … Continue reading
The Atlantic: What Are the Limits of Police Subterfuge?
The Atlantic: What Are the Limits of Police Subterfuge? by Bruce Schneier: A warrantless FBI search in Las Vegas sets a troubling precedent.
NYTImes: More Police Officers to Get Body Cameras
NYTImes: More Police Officers to Get Body Cameras by AP: Los Angeles and Houston next major cities See WaPo: 7000 in LA by summer
BLT: Florida Federal Prosecutor Disciplined Over Warrant Application
BLT: Florida Federal Prosecutor Disciplined Over Warrant Application by Zoe Tillman: A federal prosecutor in Florida was recently disciplined for providing false information to a U.S. magistrate judge’s secretary about a tracker warrant application.
NY: Search incident to arrest requires an arrest
There has to be an arrest that occurred or is going to occur to justify a search incident to arrest. Here, there was no intent to arrest until the search turned up something, so the search is invalid. People v. … Continue reading
PA: No IAC for not challenging entry into house to look for potential domestic violence victim
Defense counsel was not ineffective for not challenging the police entry during a 911 anonymous domestic abuse call that there was screaming coming from inside defendant’s home. When they got there, there was silence, but the silence could have meant … Continue reading
EFF: The Faulty Logic at the Heart of Microsoft Ireland Email Dispute
EFF: The Faulty Logic at the Heart of Microsoft Ireland Email Dispute by Hanni Fakhoury: Microsoft has been battling with the federal government over the Department of Justice’s high profile attempt to get access to emails stored abroad in Ireland … Continue reading
The New American: Well-respected Federal Judge Says Privacy Is Overrated
The New American: Well-respected Federal Judge Says Privacy Is Overrated by C. Mitchell Shaw: The most cited legal scholar of the 20th century, Judge Richard Posner, says the NSA should have free range to “vacuum all the trillions of bits … Continue reading
WaPo: Editorial: What we don’t know about police killings
WaPo: Editorial: What we don’t know about police killings: Congress, as we have urged, should put in place a system that ensures the collection of accurate information to assess the problem and inform the debate over reform. But there is … Continue reading
SCOTUS: Mistake of law can justify a stop on reasonable suspicion; Heien v. North Carolina
Heien v. North Carolina, 2014 U.S. LEXIS 8306 (Dec. 15, 2014): Mistake of law can justify a stop on reasonable suspicion. [So ironic for Bill of Rights Day.] The Syllabus:
Bill of Rights Day, Dec. 15.
December 15th is Bill of Rights Day. The Fourth Amendment became law 224 years ago today.
KY: Suppression and dismissal during bench trial is double jeopardy; error or not
In a bench trial, the defendant moved to suppress during the trial, and it was granted. Based on that, the state called no witnesses, and the trial court dismissed the case. Correct or not, the defendant can’t be retried because … Continue reading
The Economist: America’s police on trial
The Economist: America’s police on trial The United States needs to overhaul its law-enforcement system THE store camera tells a harrowing tale. John Crawford was standing in a Walmart in Ohio holding an air rifle—a toy he had picked off … Continue reading
NYTimes: Court Weighs Facebook’s Right to Challenge Search Warrants on Users’ Behalf
NYTimes: NY Court Weighs Facebook’s Right to Challenge Search Warrants on Users’ Behalf by James C. McKinley: The thorny issue of Internet privacy was taken up by a New York State appeals court on Thursday, as judges seemed to be … Continue reading
WaPo: N.Y. man sues FBI in bid to lift decade-old gag order
WaPo: N.Y. man sues FBI in bid to lift decade-old gag order by Ellen Nakashima: A New York man who ran a small Internet company has sued the Justice Department to lift a 10-year-old gag order that accompanied a national … Continue reading