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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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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)
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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: November 2015
NLJ: Justices Hang Up on Call for Cellphone Location Protection
NLJ: Justices Hang Up on Call for Cellphone Location Protection by Marcia Coyle: Supreme Court denies petition that said authorities should get a warrant to obtain cell tower info. The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to decide whether law … Continue reading
ID: Child sex offense witnesses were discovered prior to likely illegal phone search
Defendant was under investigation for various offenses, including sex crimes. His cell phone was seized when he was arrested for burglary. Minor sex offense witnesses were identified by the allegedly illegal search of the phone, and the court doesn’t suppress … Continue reading
TN: “a driver is not required to drive perfectly on the highways in order to avoid being stopped by police and subjected to a seizure.”
Weaving within one’s lane, touching the center line once, crossing it once, turning wide, and driving five mph below the speed limit is not reasonable suspicion. A motorist doesn’t have to drive perfectly to avoid a stop. Case law supports … Continue reading
CA11: Impoundment and inventory can happen with a vehicle parked on private property, too
A police officer has the discretion to impound a vehicle being left on private property too, not just on a public road. It is still subject to vandalism. [And why should the owner of the private property have to put … Continue reading
WA: Child porn SW permitted search and seizure of adult porn, and that made it overbroad; merely citing the CP statute doesn’t narrow it
Where a child pornography search warrant also permitted seizure of adult pornography which is not unlawful, it was overbroad under established precedent for 23 years. Merely citing the child pornography in the search warrant wasn’t a cure. State v. Besola, … Continue reading
NY3: It’s not IAC to not listen to the audio of the SW application where there was a motion to suppress for lack of PC
Defense counsel was not ineffective for not listening to the audio of the oral application for the search warrant challenging probable cause. The defense moved to suppress on lack of PC, and it was denied by the trial court and … Continue reading
AL: Federal adoption of a forfeiture deprives the state court of jurisdiction to order return of property
Federal adoption of a forfeiture deprives the state court of jurisdiction to order return of property. Gray v. City of Opelika, 2015 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 254 (Nov. 6, 2015). A traffic offense justified this stop, then “the smell of … Continue reading
The Atlantic: Body Cameras and The Death of a 6-Year-Old Boy
The Atlantic: Body Cameras and The Death of a 6-Year-Old Boy by Marina Koren: Police say footage of an officer-involved shooting contributed to prosecutors’ decision to press charges.
D.Nev.: Execution of SW in def’s home and moving him to basement for questioning made it custodial subject to Miranda
“No circuit court has held that an occupant must be Mirandized as a matter of course when the police execute a search warrant in the home.” The nature of a search is, of course, police dominated by definition, and, in … Continue reading
VA: Davis-type good faith exception applies to the length of the detention where Rodriguez decided while case on appeal
Davis-type good faith exception applies to a violation of Rodriguez on the length of the detention where no state or Fourth Circuit case said an overlong stop was unreasonable. (Rodriguez was decided while the appeal was pending, but the defense … Continue reading
LA3: The person who owned a document obtained by SW clearly has standing for its return
Somebody was denied a job at a hospital, and complained to the Jefferson Davis Parish Sheriff’s Office who sought a search warrant for the letter received that apparently caused the job denial. A judge pro tem issued the search warrant … Continue reading
CO declines to give greater state const’l rights to closed container
Defendant was stopped for fictitious tags, and he had a revoked DL and no insurance, too. An inventory of the vehicle was conducted, and a closed cooler was searched. Conceding the search valid under the Fourth Amendment, he argued that … Continue reading
TX1: Davis GFE does not apply because of statutory exclusionary rule
“[T]he judge-made Davis exception to the judge-made federal exclusionary rule does not create an exception to the Texas exclusionary rule adopted by the Texas Legislature. Because the search warrant in this case was not based on probable cause, the Texas … Continue reading
APNewsBreak: US border agency staff rejects body cameras for agents, citing cost, terrain
APNewsBreak: US border agency staff rejects body cameras for agents, citing cost, terrain by Elliot Spagat: Customs and Border Protection staff concluded after an internal review that agents and officers shouldn’t be required to wear body cameras, positioning the nation’s … Continue reading
CA9 en banc: Violation of Posse Comitatus Act was systemic but unique and suppression will not be ordered
“[T]he scenario presented by this case is both extreme and unusual”: An NCIS officer conducted a statewide investigation of P2P computers with child pornography on them and reported defendant. NCIS investigators are civilian but answer to the Secretary of the … Continue reading
OH2: Heroin gel caps found by plain feel
Defendant was fully cooperative and the officer was not overbearing, so the consent was voluntary. Heroin in gel caps was found by plain feel. State v. Mabry, 2015-Ohio-4513, 2015 Ohio App. LEXIS 4400 (2d Dist. Oct. 30, 2015). http://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/2/2015/2015-Ohio-4513.pdf Officers … Continue reading
NYTimes: How the F.B.I. Can Detain, Render and Threaten Without Risk
NYTimes: How the F.B.I. Can Detain, Render and Threaten Without Risk by Patrick G. Eddington (Opinion): Eight years after Mr. Meshal’s rendition, his case ended up before a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District … Continue reading
The Hill: House bill would require warrants for aerial surveillance
The Hill: House bill would require warrants for aerial surveillance by David McCabe: A House bill introduced on Thursday would require federal law enforcement officials to get a warrant if they want to conduct aerial surveillance inside the country.
WaPo: The FAA is about to require recreational drone registration. Here are the recommended rules.
WaPo: The FAA is about to require recreational drone registration. Here are the recommended rules. by Matt McFarland: A government task force created to recommend registration guidelines for recreational drones wrapped up three days of meetings in Washington Thursday.