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- 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
- CAAF: Information on computer stored in evidence room wasn’t stale
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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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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)
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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
Privacy Foundation
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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)
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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: December 2015
WaPo: Here’s how to register your drone with the government
WaPo: Here’s how to register your drone with the government by Matt McFarland: The Federal Aviation Administration offered reporters a preview of its website for drone registration Friday afternoon, detailing what appears to be a straightforward process that should take … Continue reading
LA4: Protective sweep before def arrested in pajamas reentered to get dressed was reasonable
Defendant was arrested in his pajamas, and it was appropriate for the police to conduct a protective sweep for others before he was permitted to get dressed to leave. A shotgun was validly found propped against the wall in the … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Bank fraud conspiracy investigation supported PC for SW for cell phone
In a bank fraud conspiracy, other person’s cell phones had evidence of the conspiracy on them. That led to a fair probability defendant’s phone would, too, based on the PC showing. There was also PC for a tracking device and … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Def has burden of showing standing in business premises; he can’t just rely on govt’s theory of case
Defendant had the burden of showing standing in business premises to challenge the search, and he cannot rely on the government’s theory of the case to do so [the latter is a premise on which I disagree: why isn’t that … Continue reading
The Intercept: Stingrays–A Secret Catalogue of Government Gear for Spying on Your Cellphone
The Intercept: Stingrays-A Secret Catalogue of Government Gear for Spying on Your Cellphone by Jeremy Scahill & Margot Williams: THE INTERCEPT HAS OBTAINED a secret, internal U.S. government catalogue of dozens of cellphone surveillance devices used by the military and … Continue reading
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: When the ‘reasonable police officer’ standard isn’t reasonable at all
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: When the ‘reasonable police officer’ standard isn’t reasonable at all: Accountability shouldn’t be the only tool for changing the more troubling aspects of police culture, but it’s an important one.
The Hill: Court won’t reconsider ruling upholding NSA spying
The Hill: Court won’t reconsider ruling upholding NSA spying by Julian Hattem: A federal appeals court on Friday declined to take up a lower court’s decision upholding National Security Agency surveillance, in a blow to privacy advocates who have called … Continue reading
Washington Lawyer: Data Privacy and Your Wearable Fitness Device
Data Privacy and Your Wearable Fitness Device: Sarah Kellogg, Every Breath You Take, 30 Wash. Law. 22 (No. 4, Dec. 2015).
OH11: Conflict of laws: Recording of def in CA which violated CA law but not Fourth Amendment nor OH law was admissible in OH prosecution
Where a recording of defendant was made in California in violation of California law but being used in a prosecution in Ohio, the exclusionary rule would not be applied. The recording violated neither the Fourth Amendment nor Ohio law, and … Continue reading
W.D.Okla.: Rare successful Franks challenge on reckless statements of fact
Defendant made a successful Franks challenge in his drug case. The officer affiant was reckless in overstating facts that were critical to the finding of probable cause and the warrant was suppressed because a Franks violation means no good faith … Continue reading
Katz and the “reasonable expectation of privacy” is 48 today
Dec. 18, 1967: Katz v. United States, and the reasonable expectation of privacy decided
TX: Jardines applies to apartments
“In this case, we are asked to decide whether it constitutes a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment for law-enforcement officers to bring a trained drug-detection dog directly up to the front door of an apartment-home for the … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: Smell of burnt MJ didn’t justify searching all four occupants or the whole car
“[T]he smell of burnt marijuana in the vehicle, without more, [doesn’t] provide[] probable cause to search each of the occupants for marijuana.” Otherwise it’s guilt by association. The officers needed to do more to isolate the smell of marijuana as … Continue reading
Cato Institute: Blog: What Do Police Think About Body Cameras?
Cato Institute: Blog: What Do Police Think About Body Cameras? by Matthew Feeney: [W]hile it is important to consider how the public views police body cameras, it is also worth noting what police law enforcement leadership thinks about the technology.
NYLJ: Court to Review Facebook’s Ability to Fight Warrants
NYLJ: Court to Review Facebook’s Ability to Fight Warrants by Joel Stashenko: The state Court of Appeals said Wednesday it will hear an appeal of a lower court’s ruling that found Facebook lacks standing to challenge search warrants seeking information … Continue reading
TX: No SW needed for historical SCLI
“Did the State’s warrantless acquisition of four days worth of historical cell-site-location information—recorded by Jon Thomas Ford’s cell-phone service provider—violate the Fourth Amendment? No. We agree with the San Antonio Court of Appeals that, because a third-party, AT&T, gathered and … Continue reading
New Haven Register: New Haven judge says police need warrant for phone tracking data
New Haven Register: New Haven judge says police need warrant for phone tracking data (AP): A Connecticut judge says police have been improperly using data from cellphones to track the location of suspects. New Haven Superior Judge Jon Blue agreed … Continue reading
WSJ: The Fourth Amendment and TIA Algorithms
WSJ: The Fourth Amendment and TIA Algorithms A Total Information Awareness system will be one-stop shopping for hackers; data “loss” will be inevitable. Concerning Total Information Awareness, Holman Jenkins is wrong: TIA will not protect us, and it does threaten … Continue reading