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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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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: December 2014
N.M.I.: When the prosecution claims an area is “high crime,” they have to prove it, and the officer’s mere assertions are not enough
When the prosecution claims an area is “high crime,” they have to prove it, and the officer’s mere assertions are not enough: “‘[j]ust as a man with a hammer sees every problem as a nail, so a man with a … Continue reading
In OR, driver arrested for suspended DL can hand off purse to passenger without search
When defendant was stopped and arrested for driving on a suspended DL, she refused consent to search her purse and wanted it given to the passenger for safekeeping. The police should have honored that request. The search of the purse … Continue reading
N.-M. Ct.Crim.App.: Sexual solicitation of children created fair inference of possession of child pornography
NCIS received a local inquiry about a man who had just solicited a child who just got off a school bus for sex. They had a description and license number. That same description (apparently without the LPN) was tied to … Continue reading
WA: Trial court erred in dismissing CP case because feds wouldn’t cooperate with defense counsel
The trial court abused its discretion in dismissing a child pornography case made by federal agents who turned the case over to the state just because the state did not produce the agents for interviews about the search. The party … Continue reading
EFF: Federal Court Agrees with EFF, Throws Out Six Weeks of Warrantless Video Surveillance
EFF: Federal Court Agrees with EFF, Throws Out Six Weeks of Warrantless Video Surveillance by Hannui Fokhoury: The public got an early holiday gift today when a federal court agreed with us that six weeks of continually video recording the … Continue reading
The Hill: The ‘dirtboxes’ of the US Marshals Service
The Hill: The ‘dirtboxes’ of the US Marshals Service by Peter Toren: Recent reports about the United States Marshals Service’s use of planes to collect location data from cell phones of suspects through devices known as “dirtboxes” — but which … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: When the gov’t claims “high crime” area justifying pursuit when one flees, it has to prove the area was
Flight in an area the officers claim is “high crime” doesn’t make the area “high crime”–the prosecution has to prove it. Some areas of California, and most of some cities cannot be labeled “high crime” at all. Wardlow requires flight … Continue reading
WY: Opening door to home here was not in response to true emergency
Defendant’s mother called the police to say she hadn’t heard from her son in several weeks. The police went to his place and saw that it was apparently occupied: there were fresh tracks in the snow and the sound of … Continue reading
D.Minn.: The scene of a shooting is nexus for a SW
The scene of a shooting is a logical place to find evidence of the shooting. Therefore, that’s nexus, and probable cause exists. United States v. Strong, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 170882 (D. Minn. November 21, 2014). Defense counsel was not … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Staleness is a function of the totality of the circumstances, and it is more than just the passage of time
Staleness is a function of the totality of the circumstances, and it is more than just the passage of time. United States v. Fuqua, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 169173 (W.D. Ky. December 8, 2014):
Think Progress: If You Thought Stop-And-Frisk Was Bad, You Should Know About Jump-Outs
Think Progress: If You Thought Stop-And-Frisk Was Bad, You Should Know About Jump-Outs by Nicole Flatow: What Hadieh described is what many Washington, D.C. residents call a jump-out, so named because of the element of shock and surprise when multiple … Continue reading
CA9: Cell phone is not a “container” under the automobile exception
In a cell phone search case submitted pre-Riley, the Ninth Circuit applies Riley and also holds that the proffered exigencies of the automobile exception and search incident do not apply to a search of the photographs and text messages on … Continue reading
Daily Report: Judge Again Rejects Attorney’s Suit Over Courthouse Security Dispute
Daily Report: Judge Again Rejects Attorney’s Suit Over Courthouse Security Dispute by Alyson Palmer: A federal district court judge has once again rejected a lawsuit by an Atlanta lawyer who claims she was injured in a 2010 dispute with a … Continue reading
CA3: Pointing a gun at a two unarmed men was objectively reasonable
Pointing a gun at a two unarmed men was objectively reasonable for § 1983 purposes. There was reasonable suspicion for a stop and the officer felt threatened until he knew all that was going on. Stiegel v. Peters Twp., 2014 … Continue reading
OH4: Padlocked bedroom in house shared with probationer couldn’t be searched by PO
Police and a probation officer entered defendant’s premises because his housemate was on probation. A padlocked bedroom could not be searched because there was no reason to believe it was the probationer’s. One officer testified to hearing noises inside, another … Continue reading
CA8: Including false information and excluding important exculpatory information in an affidavit for arrest denies the officer qualified immunity
Including false information and excluding important exculpatory information in an affidavit for arrest denies the officer qualified immunity. Williams v. City of Alexander, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 23023 (8th Cir. December 8, 2014), summary from the court: A reasonable jury … Continue reading
KS: Torn or knotted plastic baggie was PC for drugs in the car
A torn or knotted plastic baggie was probable cause for drugs in the car, although the question here is admittedly close. The officer’s experience was what made the difference. Plastic bags alone are meaningless. State v. Howard, 2014 Kan. App. … Continue reading