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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)
ACLU on privacy
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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: January 2015
CA10: Public intox arrest justified protective weapons search
An incoherent drunk wandered onto the Western Stock Show grounds mumbling and stumbling. The police were called and were going to arrest him for public intoxication. A patdown revealed a gun, and he was FIPF. The protective weapons search was … Continue reading
USA Today: New police radars can ‘see’ inside homes
USA Today: New police radars can ‘see’ inside homes by Brad Heath: At least 50 U.S. law enforcement agencies quietly deployed radars that let them effectively see inside homes, with little notice to the courts or the public. WASHINGTON — … Continue reading
ABC News: Man Gets Ticket for Driving While Eating a Cheeseburger
ABC News: Man Gets Ticket for Driving While Eating a Cheeseburger by Meghan Keneally: A man was cited for allegedly distracted driving in Georgia when a police officer saw him eating a cheeseburger while behind the wheel, according to ABC … Continue reading
New American: DEA Began Warrantless Surveillance in 1990s!
New American: DEA Began Warrantless Surveillance in 1990s! by Thomas R. Eddlem:
The Hill: Obama orders review of police militarization
The Hill: Obama orders review of police militarization: President Obama on Friday took steps to curb a federal program that arms local police with surplus military equipment. Through an executive order, the president created a working group – composed of … Continue reading
WaPo: The ‘Volokh Conspiracy’ Blog: Assessing Holder’s new policy curtailing asset forfeiture
WaPo: The ‘Volokh Conspiracy’ Blog: Assessing Holder’s new policy curtailing asset forfeiture: While there is no doubt that the new policy is a step in the right direction, Radley Balko has an insightful post raising questions about exactly how far … Continue reading
OK overrules a case to follow Navarette
In a Navarette-like case with a citizen informer with stronger facts of DUI, Oklahoma overrules a prior case and holds the stop valid. State v. Alba, 2015 OK CR 2, 2015 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 2 (January 16, 2015):
ND: Refusal to submit statute doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment under McNeely
The North Dakota refusal to submit statute doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment or state constitution under McNeely. State v. Birchfield, 2015 ND 6, 2015 N.D. LEXIS 5 (January 15, 2015):
OH8: Nine gang officers stopped and surrounded a group of men on the street; no reasonable suspicion
A gang unit was driving in a four vehicle convoy into the hood. When they came upon a group of men, the cars all stopped and nine officers got out and surrounded them. All officers were armed with visible weapons, … Continue reading
Animal Cognition: Handler beliefs affect scent detection dog outcomes
Animal Cognition: Handler beliefs affect scent detection dog outcomes by Lisa Lit, Julie B. Schweitzer & Anita M. Oberbauer: Abstract: Our aim was to evaluate how human beliefs affect working dog outcomes in an applied environment. We asked whether beliefs … Continue reading
NY, Bronx Co.: Wiretap minimization requirements are founded on the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and of particularity
Wiretap minimization requirements are founded on the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and of particularity. This is the case against NYPD officers accused of ticket fixing. People v. Anthony, 2015 NY Slip Op 25003, 2015 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 44 … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Court grants suppression hearing on state law violations, even though it may not be relevant
Because circuit case law is unclear on whether a violation of state law is relevant [it likely won’t be under Virginia v. Moore], defendant gets a suppression hearing. United States v. Watkins, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4037 (E.D. Mich. January … Continue reading
Pal-Item (IN): Court: ISP trooper lied about meth case
Pal-Item: Court: ISP trooper lied about meth case by Pam Tharp: LIBERTY, Ind. – Criminal charges filed against a Liberty man for allegedly cooking meth were dropped last week because an Indiana State Police trooper allegedly lied to obtain a … Continue reading
D.Utah: Using drug dog while waiting for call back from dispatch was reasonable; didn’t prolong the stop
During the eight minutes of a normal traffic stop, the use of a drug dog by the officer while waiting for word back from dispatch was reasonable. United States v. Guzman-Cruz, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3312 (D. Utah January 11, … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: Any possible mistake of law on open carry was reasonable under Heien
In a consensual encounter, the officer saw the butt of a gun sticking out of defendant’s back pocket. The direction to him to “turn around” was custodial. Even assuming that defendant had a right to carry a gun, any mistake … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Def’s efforts to distance self from drugs at suppression hearing costs him standing
The defendant’s statements to the USMJ that he was neither a resident nor a guest at the house searched denies him standing to contest the search there. United States v. Griffin, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3695 (E.D. Tenn. January 13, … Continue reading
D.Conn.: A minor prostitute in a hotel room is exigency for entry
Officers had strong reason to believe a minor prostitute was in a hotel room rented by her pimp, and that was exigency justifying warrantless entry into the room. United States v. Thomas, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3888 (D. Conn. January … Continue reading
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: Breaking down Holder’s move to limit civil asset forfeiture abuse
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: Breaking down Holder’s move to limit civil asset forfeiture abuse: The outgoing AG strikes a blow in favor of property rights, federalism.