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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: June 2015
N.D.Ga.: Def’s failure to respond to gov’t’s questioning his standing was waiver
Defendant has the burden of establishing standing. At the hearing, the government contested standing, and defendant didn’t respond or brief it. Therefore, standing was waived. United States v. Tolbert, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71047 (N.D.Ga. April 30, 2015).* Probable cause … Continue reading
Time: Sen. Rand Paul: Don’t Trust a Lying Government
Time: Sen. Rand Paul: Don’t Trust a Lying Government by Sen. Rand Paul: The USA Freedom Act, which the Senate approved Tuesday, still threatens the constitutional rights of Americans This week President Barack Obama suffered a serious rebuke. Congress sent … Continue reading
techdirt: DOJ Releases Surveillance Drone Policy, Undercuts Accountability Claims By Exempting It From Use In Court
techdirt: DOJ Releases Surveillance Drone Policy, Undercuts Accountability Claims By Exempting It From Use In Court by Tim Cushing: The FBI won’t tell you how its drone usage affects your privacy. It has withheld every page of its Privacy Impact … Continue reading
USA Today: DEA eavesdropping tripled, bypassed federal courts
USA Today: DEA eavesdropping tripled, bypassed federal courts by Brad Heath: The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration more than tripled its use of wiretaps and other types of electronic eavesdropping over the past decade, largely bypassing federal courts and Justice Department … Continue reading
WaPo: Afternoon links: Missouri AG’s report finds mass racial discrepancy in traffic stops
WaPo: Afternoon links: Missouri AG’s report finds mass racial discrepancy in traffic stops by Radley Balko: ● Missouri attorney general’s report finds that black drivers in the state are 75 percent more likely to be pulled over, although white drivers … Continue reading
CA10: Unnecessarily overlong detention while handcuffed when it was apparent ptf not the man wanted was clearly established as a 4A violation
Plaintiff was detained too long after it was obvious that he was not the person they were looking for with the same last name during a familial dispute. That right was clearly established. There was no other independent justification. Martinez … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Search of trash container on driveway where public was impliedly invited was not violation of curtilage
The court agrees that an entry into the curtilage to search a trash container would implicate Jardines, but it finds here that the entry onto the front part of the defendant’s property to the trash container was still the area … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Computer generated signature on a search warrant not Fourth Amendment violation
Defendant is charged with arranging the murder of her soldier husband on a military base, and a military judge issued a search warrant. The fact the warrant had a computer generated signature is not a constitutional error. There is no … Continue reading
WaPo: Surveillance reform without the Fourth Amendment
WaPo: Surveillance reform without the Fourth Amendment by Orin Kerr: Don’t overlook one key feature of surveillance reform and the passage of the USA Freedom Act: It came from legislation, not the Fourth Amendment. A court had wrongly allowed the … Continue reading
AP: FBI behind mysterious surveillance aircraft over US cities
AP: FBI behind mysterious surveillance aircraft over US cities by Jack Gillum, Eileen Sullivan, and Eric Tucker:
WaPo: Bill ending NSA phone data collection heads to Obama
WaPo: Bill ending NSA phone data collection heads to Obama by Mike DeBonis & Ellen Nakashima: The Senate passed a significant remake of U.S. surveillance powers Tuesday, after an internal split among Republicans delayed consideration of the bill and caused … Continue reading
NC: Taking defendant’s driver’s license back to the patrol car to run it is a seizure of the person and not de minimus under Rodriguez; RS required
Taking defendant’s driver’s license back to the patrol car to run it is a seizure of the person and not de minimus under Rodriguez. Reasonable suspicion is required. State v. Leak, 2015 N.C. App. LEXIS 445 (June 2, 2015) (2-1):
D.Nev.: FBI Internet repair ruse case dismissed after gov’t says it can’t proceed; hasn’t decided whether to appeal
Yesterday, the District of Nevada dismissed the Phua case, the FBI Internet repair ruse case, after the government conceded it had no evidence. Whether it will appeal hasn’t been decided. LVRJ: Judge dismisses World Cup-linked betting case against Malaysian businessman … Continue reading
WaPo Editorial: Rand Paul should stop stalling the USA Freedom Act
WaPo Editorial: Rand Paul should stop stalling the USA Freedom Act: LEGISLATION TO reform the National Security Agency’s surveillance of telephone metadata and put it on a firmer legal footing has passed the House with a huge bipartisan majority. President … Continue reading
R Street: A guide through Senate amendments to the USA FREEDOM Act
R Street: A guide through Senate amendments to the USA FREEDOM Act by Mike Godwin & Nathan Leamer: As most anyone interested now knows, Congress last night now allowed Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act to sunset. This expiration appears … Continue reading
Foreign Policy: Forget the Patriot Act – Here Are the Privacy Violations You Should Be Worried About
Foreign Policy: Forget the Patriot Act – Here Are the Privacy Violations You Should Be Worried About by Stephen Vladeck America hasn’t even begun to have a meaningful debate about curtailing the government’s right to spy on citizens.
NYTimes: Key Parts of Patriot Act Expire Temporarily as Senate Moves Toward Limits on Spying
NYTimes: Key Parts of Patriot Act Expire Temporarily as Senate Moves Toward Limits on Spying by Jennifer Steinhauer & Jonathan Weisman: WASHINGTON — The government’s authority to sweep up vast quantities of phone records in the hunt for terrorists expired … Continue reading
WaPo: Sun sets on some NSA surveillance powers as Rand Paul foils extension
WaPo: Sun sets on some NSA surveillance powers as Rand Paul foils extension by Mike DeBonis & Ellen Nakashima: The legal authority for several national security programs expired at midnight Sunday and will not be renewed for at least two … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Distancing oneself from ownership and control over the vehicle searched “effectively has eviscerated his ability to challenge the warrantless search of it.”
Defendant’s distancing himself from ownership and control of the vehicle searched by the government “effectively has eviscerated his ability to challenge the warrantless search of it.” He has no standing to suppress what his wife had. United States v. King, … Continue reading