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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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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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: July 2015
IA: Mistake of law doesn’t support stop (and doesn’t discuss Heien)
Defendant was sitting in a car on a parking lot with an open container, and an officer arrested for that and searched. The court of appeals reversed. The open container law clearly only applies to streets and highways and not … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Where def stole wife’s car, his marital interest in it alone was not standing
Where defendant stole the car he was driving from his wife, his mere ownership interest in the vehicle by marital property is not enough to establish standing. United States v. Williams, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 95190 (W.D.Ky. July 22, 2015), … Continue reading
DC: Persistent questioning for ten minutes without RS was a seizure
Officers entered an apartment building hallway in SE Washington, and the smell of burnt marijuana was pervasive. They’d seen that before in the same building. None of the four they encountered, however, were seen smoking. Defendant was questioned persistently about … Continue reading
NC: SW for a house did not authorize search of a car of a visitor in the driveway [Reversed 12/21/16]
Officers with a search warrant for a house could not search a car of a visitor in the driveway under the warrant. State v. Lowe, 2015 N.C. App. LEXIS 633 (July 21, 2015). Update: Reversed State v. Lowe, 2016 N.C. … Continue reading
NY1: Facebook can’t challenge SWs for customer accounts pre-enforcement
There is no pre-enforcement right to challenge search warrants. There are plenty of post-enforcement proceedings available. In re 381 Search Warrants Directed to Facebook, Inc. v New York County Dist. Attorney’s Off., 2015 NY Slip Op 06201, 2015 N.Y. App. … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: There was PC for a Facebook account SW
There was probable cause for a Facebook account search warrant for defendant’s account, and it was limited in time so it was not overbroad. Also, the good faith exception would apply. United States v. Lowry, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 93257 … Continue reading
AZ: Scent of marijuana alone is not probable cause in a medical marijuana state
The scent of marijuana alone is not probable cause in a medical marijuana state. More is required. State v. Sisco, 2015 Ariz. App. LEXIS 119 (July 20, 2015):
ABC News: Gun-Firing Drone Subject of Federal Investigation
ABC News: Gun-Firing Drone Subject of Federal Investigation by David Kerkly: The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a video showing a handgun being fired from a drone in Connecticut.
S.D.Ala.: No-knock warrant was permissible here because of the expected presence of firearms and defendant used surveillance cameras
A no-knock warrant was permissible here because of the expected presence of firearms and defendant used surveillance cameras on the property. United States v. Miller, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 93857 (S.D.Ala. July 20, 2015): Miller also argues the affidavit did … Continue reading
CA7: Violation of state time limit for sheriff’s eviction didn’t state a Fourth Amendment claim
Plaintiff’s eviction by sheriff’s deputies took more time than state law allowed, and it was delayed, in part, by the presence of a skunk. He abandoned lots of stuff on the property, and it wasn’t possible to get it all … Continue reading
The Hill: Capitol Police Search Powers Provoke Constitutional Concerns
The Hill: Capitol Police Search Powers Provoke Constitutional Concerns by Hannah Hess: The trio of congressional officials who have exclusive control over traffic rules on the Capitol grounds are ordering a change that would enhance Capitol Police’s authority to search … Continue reading
American Thinker: Feds Get the Power to Seize Medical Records on ‘Fishing Expedition’ Investigations with No Subpoena from a Judge
American Thinker: Feds Get the Power to Seize Medical Records on ‘Fishing Expedition’ Investigations with No Subpoena from a Judge by Mark J. Fitzgibbons:
NJ: There is a rebuttable presumption that a dropped 9-1-1 call is an emergency, and the presumption applied here on the objective facts
Here, the objective facts supported the conclusion that there was an emergency from a dropped 9-1-1 call. There is a rebuttable presumption that a dropped 9-1-1 call is an emergency, and the presumption applied here. State v. Reece, 2015 N.J. … Continue reading
D.S.D.: Standing here was established by other witnesses without def even testifying; USMJ erred in denying full hearing
The USMJ found no standing, but defendant did not need to testify to establish standing. Here, there was evidence in the record that others said the duffle bag was defendant’s and his papers were found inside it. That should be … Continue reading
CA5: Air fresheners and odd responses to basic questions were enough for reasonable suspicion
Air fresheners and odd responses to basic questions were reasonable suspicion, and the court declines to get into analysis of the other factors. The initial stop was for going 2 mph over the limit. United States v. Peña-Gonzalez, 2015 U.S. … Continue reading
Wisconsin adopts Heien on reasonable mistakes of law
Wisconsin adopts Heien on reasonable mistakes of law, overruling all past cases. Reasonable suspicion is all that’s needed for a traffic stop, not probable cause. State v. Houghton, 2015 WI 79, 2015 Wisc. LEXIS 484 (July 14, 2015). Fleeing into … Continue reading
The Atlantic: A Year After Eric Garner’s Death, Has Anything Changed?
The Atlantic: A Year After Eric Garner’s Death, Has Anything Changed? by David Graham: For the past 12 months, America has actually paid attention to police violence—but what has it learned?
CA10: Stop for riding a bicycle without light unreasonably extended; search of backpack suppressed
Defendant was stopped for riding an unlighted bicycle across the street at night in the middle of the block. Once stopped, the officer questioned him about his backpack and secured an admission he was armed. The questioning was unreasonable and … Continue reading