Archives
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Recent Posts
- VA: 12 second question about drugs didn’t unreasonably prolong the stop that was going to take a while anyway
- E.D.Tenn.: Application for SW was considered in detention ruling
- TN: RS didn’t develop to continue stop; second stop based on first suppressed
- CA4: Traffic stop immediately became firearms investigation; suppressed
- CA10: Disagreement over spelling of street name didn’t make warrant fail particularity; GFE at least would apply
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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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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) -
“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: August 2015
NLJ: What’s a SCOTUS Fourth Amendment advocate worth?
NLJ: Hourly Rates for Top Supreme Court Advocates Revealed in Fee Filing by Tony Mauro: Recent filings in an attorney fee request in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit lift the veil on the four-figure hourly rates … Continue reading
CA2: Cooperator exceeded officer’s direction in conducting a private search, but it’s still reasonable
A cooperator ended up taking evidence from defendant’s house without police direction. It was a private search not governed by the Fourth Amendment. “‘A private person cannot act unilaterally as an agent or instrument of the state; there must be … Continue reading
PolitiFact: Rand Paul says the Fourth Amendment ‘was what we fought the Revolution over’ (mostly true)
“The Fourth Amendment was what we fought the Revolution over. John Adams said it was the spark that led to our war for independence.” — Rand Paul on Thursday, August 6th, 2015 in a Republican presidential debate in Cleveland PolitiFact: … Continue reading
techdirt: Despite Recent Court Rulings, Getting Behind The Wheel Is Pretty Much Kissing Your 4th Amendment Protections Goodbye
techdirt: Despite Recent Court Rulings, Getting Behind The Wheel Is Pretty Much Kissing Your 4th Amendment Protections Goodbye by Tim Cushing:
HuffPo: It’s Almost Impossible To Tell If Police Camera Footage Has Been Edited
HuffPo: It’s Almost Impossible To Tell If Police Camera Footage Has Been Edited by Alexis Sobel Fitts: We trust video footage to offer an irrefutable account. But as more police departments around the country begin using cameras to document police … Continue reading
NJ: When an officer asks for a DL and registration, he can only go looking for it if the owner refuses or can’t
“[T]he trooper was required to provide defendant with the opportunity to present his credentials before entering the vehicle. If such an opportunity is presented, and defendant is unable or unwilling to produce his registration or insurance information, only then may … Continue reading
NJ: The emergency aid exception is based on objective known facts, not hindsight
Casino and police received a report of a hotel room robbery in Atlantic City, and the officer called for SWAT backup. The officers went to the floor where the robbery occurred, and they entered a room when there was no … Continue reading
D.Minn.: If warrant lacked PC or was defective, def’s admissions in questioning would have led to another search warrant based on more, so inevitable discovery applies
Police doing a child porn investigation with an allegedly defective search warrant come to defendant to talk about it, and his admissions are enough that the police would have obtained a search warrant if they already didn’t have one. Therefore, … Continue reading
D.Me.: Just having your stuff in a motel room rented by another doesn’t prove you’re an overnight guest
One defendant failed to even attempt to show standing in a motel room rented by a third man. The second defendant failed, too, but he was a little closer to the mark. Just having stuff in the room alone isn’t … Continue reading
Open Technology Institute: Unreasonable: the Fourth Amendment and Indefinite Retention of Digital Data
Open Technology Institute: Unreasonable: the Fourth Amendment and Indefinite Retention of Digital Data by Laura Moy & Matt Baker:
NC: A broken window and screen off is not an exigency without a burglary call or more information
A broken window at a house and a screen leaning against the house without other objective evidence of a break in was not reasonable cause to believe that there was a recent or ongoing burglary to justify a police entry … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Merely adding “electronic devices” into a drug SW here was enough to search cell phones found during the search
The drug search warrant for the house included drugs, ledgers, documents, safes, and electronic devices to store information. That was sufficient to authorize a search and forensic analysis of two cell phones found inside. United States v. Robinson, 2015 U.S. … Continue reading
WaPo: When and how will the Supreme Court enter the cell-site fray?
WaPo: When and how will the Supreme Court enter the cell-site fray? by Orin Kerr: In an earlier post, I noted the Fourth Circuit’s new decision on Fourth Amendment protection for historical cell-site data. In this post, I want to … Continue reading
CA4: Cell site location information requires a search warrant or other court order; but GFE applies this time
Cell site location information requires a search warrant or other court order. The government, however, gets a good faith argument for reliance on the Stored Communications Act. [Not so the next time.] United States v. Graham, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
EFF: A New Milestone: Appeals Court to Consider NSA’s Mass Seizures and Searches on the Internet Backbone
EFF: A New Milestone: Appeals Court to Consider NSA’s Mass Seizures and Searches on the Internet Backbone by Andrew Crocker: One of the most outrageous ways that the government has violated our Fourth Amendment rights against general seizures and searches … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Bodycam video shows that defendant did not consent to police entry during a knock-and-talk
Bodycam video shows that defendant did not consent to police entry during a knock-and-talk. It was mere acquiescence to a claim of authority. Inside they could smell marijuana. United States v. Rodriguez, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 98292 (D.Neb. July 28, … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: It is not defendant’s burden in a warrantless search to anticipate in the motion to suppress all the justifications the police may have for it
It is not defendant’s burden in a warrantless search to anticipate in the motion to suppress all the justifications the police may have for the search. It’s the government’s burden to plead and prove an exception. Here, they showed probable … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Failure to show or leave a copy of the SW or make the inventory in the def’s presence has nothing to do with his statements
“Defendant James Allen Crippen filed a Motion to Suppress Evidence in the matter (Doc. 25) in which he argues that officers executing a search warrant at his home violated Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and the … Continue reading
E.D.La.: Is a USMJ neutral and detached when the target of the search warrant the judge just signed is allegedly having an affair with the judge’s husband but the defense can’t prove the judge knew?
Is a USMJ neutral and detached when the target of the search warrant the judge just signed is allegedly having an affair with the judge’s husband but the defense can’t prove the judge knew? True or not, that has no … Continue reading