Archives
-
Recent Posts
- 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
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
-
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)
ACLU on privacy
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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)
-
“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
New Yorker: No Such Thing as Racial Profiling
New Yorker: No Such Thing as Racial Profiling by Jelani Cobb: The stilted conversations that have followed these tragedies have largely focussed on the meaning and implications of the nonsensical phrase ‘racial profiling.’ Nothing better illustrates the slick, manipulative power … Continue reading
HuffPo: Tommy Wall Loses Job, House, Reputation After Police Wrongly Charge Him With Child Rape
HuffPo: Tommy Wall Loses Job, House, Reputation After Police Wrongly Charge Him With Child Rape by David Lohr. They arrested based on his alleged resemblance to a man in a video, but didn’t look at the video until playing it … Continue reading
Cal.1: Taking DNA from an arrestee violates the California Constitution; Maryland v. King distinguished
California’s Constitution and DNA statute is different than Maryland’s in Maryland v. King so taking DNA from an arrestee is unconstitutional. People v. Buza, 2014 Cal. App. LEXIS 1100 (1st Dist. December 3, 2014):
Marshall Project: The Pentagon Finally Details its Weapons-for-Cops Giveaway
Marshall Project: The Pentagon Finally Details its Weapons-for-Cops Giveaway: Flooded with calls for greater transparency, in late November, the Pentagon quietly released data that details all tactical equipment distributed through the program, and for the first time identified the agencies … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Cell phone PC and particularity; GFE applies to cell phone warrant execution
Defendant was a guard at Riker’s Island prison complex, and he was arrested in a drug conspiracy. When a cell phone is removed from a person at the time of arrest and a search warrant is sought, the government doesn’t … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: GFE applies to foreign search by Cambodia National Police turned over to U.S.
Defendant was charged in the Central District of California with international travel to have sex with a minor in Cambodia. He was also charged in Cambodia, and that case led to a Cambodian Supreme Court decision remanding the search question. … Continue reading
CA11: Welfare recipients can’t be drug tested without reasonable suspicion
Welfare recipients can’t be drug tested without reasonable suspicion as a condition of receiving benefits under the Fourth Amendment. [This is Lebron II.] Lebron v. Sec’y of the Fla. Dept. of Children & Families, 772 F.3d 1352 (11th Cir. 2014): … Continue reading
The Marshall Project: What You Need to Know About Body Cameras
The Marshall Project: What You Need to Know About Body Cameras by Clare Sestanovich: Police cams are all the rage. Are they the answer?
WSJ: Hundreds of Police Killings Are Uncounted in Federal Stats
WSJ: Hundreds of Police Killings Are Uncounted in Federal Stats by Bob Barry and Coulter Jones: A Wall Street Journal analysis of the latest data from 105 of the country’s largest police agencies found more than 550 police killings during … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: 30 day cell phone GPS tracking order requires PC and particularity
A 30 day cell phone GPS tracking order requires probable cause and particularity; otherwise it is a general warrant. Intercepted calls, however, led to a search warrant for his house. The search of the house has a different basis, and … Continue reading
Three Aaron Hernandez cell phone and house search cases on Lexis today; cell phone turned over to lawyers not immune from search (Updated)
Commonwealth v. Hernandez, 2014 Mass. Super. LEXIS 144 (Super. Ct. Bristol August 26, 2014) (“Because the Commonwealth failed to sustain its burden of proof that the cell phones and iPads were in plain view, that their incriminating character was immediately … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Even if NSA captured def’s calls, search of laptop at LAX was attenuated and with RS
Defendant was charged with violating the trade embargo with Iran. The government refused to provide details of how it accessed telephone call information, the defendant asserting that the NSA must have captured his call information. Assuming, then, that the search … Continue reading
The Hill: DOJ wants Apple to help unlock iPhones
The Hill: DOJ wants Apple to help unlock iPhones by Cory Bennett: The Department of Justice is harkening back to an 18th-century federal law to get access to encrypted iPhones, according to court documents published Monday by ArsTechnica.
The Recorder: Judge Limits Feds’ Email Search Request
The Recorder: Judge Limits Feds’ Email Search Request by Ross Todd: Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal said he wouldn’t approve an indefinite gag order as part of a search warrant for a Hotmail account.
The Recorder: CA Lawmaker Offers New Bill to Regulate Drones
The Recorder: Lawmaker Offers New Bill to Regulate Drones by Cheryl Miller: SACRAMENTO — A state lawmaker has revived legislation to curb public agencies’ use of drones just two months after Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill with nearly identical … Continue reading
Colorado State University Student Legal Services Attorney resigns because of alleged Fourth Amendment violations by CSU
Colorado State University Student Legal Services Attorney resigns because of alleged Fourth Amendment violations by CSU. Collegian: UPDATE: University responds to attorney’s resignation [with original story] by Danny Bishop
WaPo: Is Uber’s rider database a sitting duck for hackers?
WaPo: Is Uber’s rider database a sitting duck for hackers? by Craig Timberg: Imagine for a second that your job is to gather intelligence on government officials in Washington, or financiers in London, or entrepreneurs in San Francisco. Imagine further … Continue reading
Courthouse News Service: Drug-Planting Case Against Cops Proceeds
Courthouse News Service: Drug-Planting Case Against Cops Proceeds by Arvin Temkar: SAN JOSE (CN) – A woman may pursue claims that Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputies planted drugs in her home, a federal judge ruled. Allison Ross sued the sheriff, … Continue reading