Archives
-
Recent Posts
- 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
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
-
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
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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)
-
“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: September 2015
W.D.Pa.: No standing in an overdue rental car in somebody else’s name
Defendant had no standing in a rental car that was overdue and rented by somebody else who let him drive it. A representative of the rental car company came to the scene to retrieve it, and he consented to a … Continue reading
TX6: Failure to cite state constitution and rules in argument on motion to suppress was waiver
While defendant’s motion to suppress cited the Fourth Amendment, the state constitution, and state criminal rules, at the hearing defendant mentioned only the Fourth Amendment, so the others were waived. Glenn v. State, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 9433 (Tex. App. … Continue reading
D.Mass. somewhat reluctantly concludes, after surveying many cases, that long term pole camera surveillance of defendant’s front door is constitutionally proper
D.Mass. somewhat reluctantly concludes, after surveying many cases, that long term pole camera surveillance of defendant’s front door is constitutionally proper. That surveillance led to a GPS warrant on a car. United States v. Garcia-Gonzalez, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 116312 … Continue reading
Reason: DOJ Announces ‘New Policy’ of Acknowledging Fourth Amendment for CSLI
Reason: DOJ Announces ‘New Policy’ of Acknowledging Fourth Amendment by Scott Shackford: Will require agents get warrants for devices that track mobile phone locations …. While this new policy covers only federal law enforcement, it’s also been established that the … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Def couldn’t show standing for CSLI on this phone, and, even if he could, he’d lose
Reiterating a prior opinion in the case, the defendant did not show standing to challenge CSLI on a phone associated with him, and even if he could, he’d lose on the merits (surveying the cases). United States v. Woodley, 2015 … Continue reading
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: The blue wall: Stronger than ever
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: The blue wall: Stronger than ever: The police culture of silence uses both official and nonofficial means to keep misconduct under wraps.
NYTimes: A Surreptitious Courtroom Video Prompts Changes in a Georgia Town
NYTimes: A Surreptitious Courtroom Video Prompts Changes in a Georgia Town by Sheila Dewan: An explosion of cellphone videos has brought renewed attention to police practices, provoking criticism, indictments and talk of criminal justice overhaul. Courtroom videos of judges in … Continue reading
Courthouse News Service: ACLU Asks Feds to Deny LAPD Camera Funds
Courthouse News Service: ACLU Asks Feds to Deny LAPD Camera Funds by Matt Reynolds: The ACLU says the Justice Department should deny federal funds for the LAPD’s body-camera program because of a policy that allows officials to review and withhold … Continue reading
CA4: Landlord could consent; defendant had been evicted and locks changed
Defendant had been evicted from his apartment by the landlord who had changed the locks. He had also expressed to her a desire to vacate and was leaving unwanted stuff behind. The landlord could not produce the key because her … Continue reading
SC: Turning computer over to repair tech when it wouldn’t boot was waiver of REP in the data because the hard drive needed repair
Defendant turned her computer over to a repair technician when it wouldn’t boot. He was copying files from the hard drive to backup the data before attempting to fix it, and he saw a questionable image suggesting child exploitation. Coincidentally, … Continue reading
NYTimes: Justice Dept. to Require Warrants for Some Cellphone Tracking
NYTimes: Justice Dept. to Require Warrants for Some Cellphone Tracking by Nicholas Fandos: The Justice Department will regularly require federal agents to seek warrants before using secretive equipment that can locate and track cellphones, the agency announced Thursday, the first … Continue reading
The Marshall Project: A Phone Call From Jail? Better Watch What You Say
The Marshall Project: A Phone Call From Jail? Better Watch What You Say by Ken Armstrong: A confession, a threat—it’s probably taped. And admissible. Although people do things against their own interest all the time, even the police can be … Continue reading
OH3: Trial court decided issue defense didn’t raise, and state prejudiced
The trial court erred in sua sponte raising a length of detention issue that the state did not get to respond to. State v. Miller, 2015-Ohio-3529, 2015 Ohio App. LEXIS 3443 (3d Dist. August 31, 2015):
CA8: Rodriguez loses on remand to Davis GFE [the ultimate perversion of good faith: the guy whose case made the rule loses, too]
WaPo: Volokh Conspiracy: Rodriguez wins, Rodriguez loses by Orin Kerr (United States v. Rodriguez, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 15675 (8th Cir. September 3, 2015):
techdirt: DOJ Reasserts Its Right To Engage In Seized Data Fishing Expeditions
techdirt: DOJ Reasserts Its Right To Engage In Seized Data Fishing Expeditions by Tim Cushing: Last June, the Second Circuit appeals court restored a bit of Fourth Amendment protection to computers/devices seized by government investigators. In the case being appealed, … Continue reading
Connecticut Law Tribune: Police Video Surveillance of Psychologists’ House Prompts Lawsuit
Connecticut Law Tribune: Police Video Surveillance of Psychologists’ House Prompts Lawsuit by Christian Nolan: A married couple from Westport is suing the town and several of its police officers for what they claim is unlawful video surveillance of their home.
S.D.Ala.: The Coast Guard had authority to board a moored ship to conduct an oil dumping investigation; a complete search occurred after PC developed
A whistleblower contacted the Coast Guard that his oil tanker he was on approaching Mobile had been oil dumping. The Coast Guard boarded the ship when it was docked and conducted an inspection of the engine room and common areas. … Continue reading
OH2: The driver matched the description of the owner of the vehicle, so ordering him out was reasonable when a warrant came back for owner
Defendant’s LPN showed that the owner was the same person who had committed criminal trespass. The driver matched the general description of the owner, so that justified getting the driver out. State v. Goines, 2015-Ohio-3505, 2015 Ohio App. LEXIS 3427 … Continue reading
E.D.La.: Omitted informant information needs to be dispositive to undermine PC
More information could probably be included in all search warrant affidavits, but that doesn’t make them misleading for omissions. The omissions must be “dispositive” of probable cause, not just cast a little doubt on it. United States v. Wijetunge, 2015 … Continue reading
Ars Technica: New law permits North Dakota cop drones to fire beanbag rounds from the sky
Ars Technica: New law permits North Dakota cop drones to fire beanbag rounds from the sky by Cyrus Farivar: To pass new warrant requirement, lawmaker compromised to allow less-than-lethals.