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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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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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"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: February 2015
S.D.W.Va.: There was reasonable suspicion for a slight delay of an Express Mail package
“In what has become a large line of cases, a number of federal circuits have found that a combination of similar factors created reasonable suspicion to seize a package. The Court has no problem finding reasonable suspicion based solely on … Continue reading
CA5: Use of deadly force to stop a fleeing driver with officer on running board was objectively reasonable
An officer attempted to arrest the driver of a vehicle on a warrant, but the driver refused to submit and drove off, with the officer on the running board. Ultimately, the officer shot and killed the driver. The use of … Continue reading
Just Security: Homeland Insecurity: Checkpoints, Warrantless Searches and Security Theater
Just Security: Homeland Insecurity: Checkpoints, Warrantless Searches and Security Theater by Patrick Eddington: Since June 2013, the American public, press, and policy-makers have been debating the implications of Edward Snowden’s disclosures of mass U.S. government surveillance programs, most established after … Continue reading
WaPo: DEA v. NSA – the podcast
WaPo: DEA v. NSA – the podcast by Stewart Baker In this week’s episode, our guest is Rebecca Richards, NSA’s director of privacy and civil liberties. We ask the tough questions: Is her title an elaborate hoax or is she … Continue reading
EFF: Secure Our Borders First Act Would Ensure Proliferation of Drones at the Border
EFF: Secure Our Borders First Act Would Ensure Proliferation of Drones at the Border BY Nadia Kayyali: The Secure Our Borders First Act is an ugly piece of legislation that’s clearly intended to strongarm the Department of Homeland Security into … Continue reading
Politico: Administration highlights surveillance reforms
Politico: Administration highlights surveillance reforms by Josh Gerstein: With legislation to overhaul a key surveillance program stalled on Capitol Hill, the Obama Administration issued a report Tuesday highlighting reforms it has made to the nation’s snooping efforts since Edward Snowden … Continue reading
SC Magazine: Act would require gov’t to get warrant for electronic content, geolocation data
SC Magazine: Act would require gov’t to get warrant for electronic content, geolocation data by Teri Robinson: A bipartisan trio of legislators reintroduced the Online Communication and Geolocation Protection Act to extend Fourth Amendment rights to electronic communications. A bipartisan … Continue reading
Watchdog.org: ‘Sneak and peek’ bill rolls quietly through [Virginia] General Assembly
Watchdog.org: ‘Sneak and peek’ bill rolls quietly through [Virginia] General Assembly by Kenric Ward: State Sen. Jennifer Wexton wants to endow Virginia law-enforcement agencies with Patriot Act powers RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia lawmakers want to give local and state authorities … Continue reading
CA11: Illegal vehicle search cured by inevitable inventory; owner of car was dead
Defendant was driving on a suspended license the truck of a man known to be dead. The search of the truck was clearly illegal, but inevitable discovery applied because it would have been impounded and inventoried. United States v. Johnson, … Continue reading
IL: Pre-Jardines dog sniff at apartment door at 3:20 am violated curtilage
The police used a drug dog to sniff defendant’s apartment door at 3:20 am. That led to a search warrant and a search of the apartment. Then Jardines was decided, and defendant moved to suppress which was granted. The court … Continue reading
IN: After suppression of evidence, state can’t backdoor it into evidence by a testifying snitch
The search of the juvenile defendant’s backpack was illegal under the Fourth Amendment and Indiana Constitution, but the state backdoored the evidence by calling a snitch to identify it. This was part of the fruit of the poisonous tree and … Continue reading
D.Nev.: Dual motive stop of truck for NAS level III safety inspection and looking for drugs was valid
An administrative stop of a tractor trailer for an NAS level III safety inspection with the dual motive of looking for drugs is valid. United States v. Orozco, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10190 (D.Nev. January 28, 2015):
WaPo: Eyewitnesses aren’t as reliable as you might think
WaPo: Eyewitnesses aren’t as reliable as you might think by Thomas Albright and Jed Rakoff: Thomas Albright is a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Jed Rakoff is a federal district judge in the Southern District of New … Continue reading
CO: Davis GFE applies to a pre-McNeely DUI blood draw
Because state law said it was proper at the time, Davis good faith applies to a warrantless blood draw “problematic” under McNeely. People v. Barry, 2015 Colo. App. LEXIS 95 (January 29, 2015):
On the Media: Too Little, Too Late
On the Media: Too Little, Too Late, Hosted by Brooke Gladstone, Guest: Ed Pilkington: On Christmas Eve, Google informed WikiLeaks that personal information for three of its employees had been handed over to the Department of Justice over three years … Continue reading
NC: Where def’s front door obviously wasn’t used, it was reasonable to go to nearest side door for knock-and-talk; MJ in plain view
Officers came to defendant’s house to do a knock-and-talk based on reports he was growing marijuana. The front door was covered in plastic and appeared to have furniture blocking it, so they went to the nearest door, on the side … Continue reading