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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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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: May 2015
WaPo: Surveillance planes spotted in the sky for days after West Baltimore rioting
WaPo: Surveillance planes spotted in the sky for days after West Baltimore rioting by Craig Timberg: Discovery of the flights – which involved at least two airplanes and the assistance of the FBI – has prompted the American Civil Liberties … Continue reading
PCWorld: Lawmakers move to end warrantless surveillance of U.S. residents
PCWorld: Lawmakers move to end warrantless surveillance of U.S. residents: A new bill in Congress would require law enforcement agencies to get court-ordered warrants before targeting U.S. residents in searches of electronic communications collected by the National Security Agency. The … Continue reading
CA1: An investigation of sex with a child doesn’t automatically translate into child porn on def’s computer; affidavit purely conclusory
Defendant was under investigation by Puerto Rico police for lewd acts with a minor. There was no suggestion of child pornography. Thus, it was conclusory for the judge issuing the search warrant for defendant’s computer to find nexus or probable … Continue reading
CA9: No special protocol required for computer SW, but courts must be vigilant on review
No special protocol required for a computer search warrant, but vigilance of the court is expected in review to protect against overreaching. Also, the least intrusive measures are required. United States v. Nessland, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 7360 (9th cir. … Continue reading
CA7: No Fourth Amendment Heck bar in false statements case
Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment civil claim not barred by Heck v. Humphrey because it says nothing about, and doesn’t undermine, his false statement conviction. Hill v. Murphy, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 7351 (7th Cir. May 4, 2015) (concurrence):
boingboing: Court says DEA is allowed to secretly fill your truck with weed, get into firefights with Zetas
boingboing: Court says DEA is allowed to secretly fill your truck with weed, get into firefights with Zetas by Cory Doctorow: Craig Patty asked his employee Lawrence Chapa to help take one of his two trucks to the garage, not … Continue reading
Business Insider: A federal court just dealt a potentially huge blow to cellphone privacy
Business Insider: A federal court just dealt a potentially huge blow to cellphone privacy by Maxwell Tani: The government doesn’t need a warrant to search cellphone tower location records, a federal appeals court in Atlanta has ruled. In a potentially … Continue reading
WaPo: Volokh Conspiracy: Eleventh Circuit rules for the feds on cell-site records — but then overreaches
WaPo: Volokh Conspiracy: Eleventh Circuit rules for the feds on cell-site records — but then overreaches by Orin Kerr: The en banc Eleventh Circuit has ruled that historical cell-site records are not protected by the Fourth Amendment under the third-party … Continue reading
CA11 (en banc): CSLI third party information accessed under the Stored Communications Act does not violate the Fourth Amendment
CSLI third party information accessed under the Stored Communications Act does not violate the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Davis, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 7385 (11th Cir. May 5, 2015) (en banc) (4 concurrences, 2 dissents):
E.D.Pa.: Gov’t failed its burden to show plain view
The stop was justified by a taillight violation, but the government failed in its burden of proof to show that the gun seized was actually in plain view. “It remains unclear if Officer Washington opened the door or not; however, … Continue reading
MN: Exigency for entry unproved; inevitable discovery doesn’t apply to statements after an unlawful search
The state didn’t make its burden in proving that the emergency aid exception applied to the entry into defendant’s home because there was no positive link to it and an assault where the victim was in the hospital being treated … Continue reading
ACLU: FBI Slow-Walking Toward End Of Illegitimate Stingray Secrecy
ACLU: FBI Slow-Walking Toward End Of Illegitimate Stingray Secrecy by Nathan Freed Wessler: For years, the FBI and other federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies have been using invasive cell phone surveillance equipment, called Stingrays or cell site simulators, … Continue reading
The New American: DOJ Lifting Veil on Secret Cellphone Tracking
The New American: DOJ Lifting Veil on Secret Cellphone Tracking by Bob Adelmann: Thanks to increasing pressure from the public and from publications such as ARS Technica and the Wall Street Journal to disclose just how the Justice Department is … Continue reading
Courthouse News Service: Finding an FBI Tracker Won’t Support Civil Suit
Courthouse News Service: Finding an FBI Tracker Won’t Support Civil Suit by Jake Linger:
boingboing: FBI replies to Stingray Freedom of Information request with 5,000 blank pages
boingboing: FBI replies to Stingray Freedom of Information request with 5,000 blank pages by Cory Doctorow: The Stingray — a fake cellphone tower that gathers identity/location information on everyone who passes it — is the worst-kept secret in law enforcement, … Continue reading
The Hill: DOJ reviewing phone spying technology
The Hill: DOJ reviewing phone spying technology by Julian Hattem: The department has launched a review of its use of controversial surveillance techniques.
WA: A patdown of a runway juvenile before putting him in the patrol car was reasonable, but the full search of the person was not
A patdown of a runway juvenile before putting him in the patrol car was part of the community caretaking function. A complete search, however, was not. No weapon was found during the patdown, and the search of the pockets afterward … Continue reading
KS: Controlled delivery doesn’t have to be hand-to-hand; picking up package from porch and taking it inside is enough
Defendant didn’t raise probable cause from the triggering event in an anticipatory warrant, but the suppression judge did. He directed the parties to litigate and brief it, so the issue was properly before the court. The triggering condition was acceptance … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: CI actually questioned by judge issuing SW was entitled to more credit
There was good reason to credit the CI here: he was actually questioned by the issuing judge and the information clearly added up to probable cause. The court credits the officers that the search did not start until one hour … Continue reading