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: December 2015
N.D.Ga.: Where SW issued by video conference, lack of record of conference leaves gov’t with “four corners” of application; no suppression
The state officer here applied for a search warrant by video conference and either email or fax of the documents (the opinion doesn’t say how the judge had them) as permitted under Georgia statute. There was no recording made of … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: “Under ordinary circumstances, drawing weapons and using handcuffs are not part of a Terry stop,” but the totality of the circumstances here justified it
“Under ordinary circumstances, drawing weapons and using handcuffs are not part of a Terry stop,” but the totality of the circumstances can justify it. Here, it did. Defendants were stopped on a rural road with reasonable suspicion. Although a frisk … Continue reading
PA: In a child murder case, the police entry merely to look for other children in the home did not taint subsequent SW
Defendant was sentenced to death for murder of a two-year old boy. On the search issue, officers entered the house only to see if there was another child in the house that he was caring for. They came back with … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Authority to seize electronic media during search implicitly includes searching it later, if need be
A warrant for seizure of electronic media in a house carries with it authority to search it once it’s seized. Here, it was computers and cell phones. “Defendant’s Motion to Suppress [15] raises two questions: first, whether this warrant, which … Continue reading
Thrillist: A Sketchy Hidden Map in Your iPhone Tracks Everywhere You’ve Been
Thrillist: A Sketchy Hidden Map in Your Iphone Tracks Everywhere You’ve Been by Joe McGauley: It’s no secret that Apple has been collecting location data from users for years. But who knew it was so insanely detailed, or how easily … Continue reading
A.F.Ct.Crim.App.: Spousal privilege as hearsay doesn’t prevent SW from issuing
Under United States v. Lovell, 8 M.J. 613 (A.F.C.M.R. 1979), “testimonial privilege conferred by Mil. R. Evid. 504 does not extend to preventing a spouse from furnishing evidence which provides probable cause for authorizing a search. This precedent would have … Continue reading
CA9 narrows the Heck bar even more; and attendees of a party had no standing to challenge a police entry
In a § 1983 lawsuit over an LAPD entry into a warehouse to break up a music party that resulted in an arrest of a few for resisting, the individual plaintiffs who were attendees of the party lacked standing to … Continue reading
NY3: Admin. search for counterfeit cigarette tax stamps was factually justified and reasonable
“Inasmuch as defendant was ‘operating a retail outlet where cigarettes were sold openly and notoriously[, the investigators were authorized] … to enter the premises and inspect the cigarettes for possible fraudulent stamping.’” They can’t forcibly enter, but they can insist … Continue reading
The Libertarian Republic: Congress Set To Limit Judge-Less Subpoenas At Heart Of Privacy Debate
The Libertarian Republic: Congress Set To Limit Judge-Less Subpoenas At Heart Of Privacy Debate by Mark Tapscott A measure protecting Internet Service Providers against judge-less subpoenas issued by federal bureaucrats has 305 congressional co-sponsors and seems headed toward passage. The … Continue reading
WI: Confrontation clause does not apply to suppression hearings
“P11 … [We conclude the Confrontation Clause simply does not apply to pretrial hearings such as the suppression hearing at issue in this case, and the circuit court’s reliance upon the hearsay evidence from the recording was not improper. [¶] … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: No legal requirement to turn car over to third person rather than impound it
Officers are not required by law to turn a vehicle over to a third person rather than impound it. The impoundment was reasonable. Here, the impoundment decision was based in part on defendant’s claim to the officer that he’d had … Continue reading
WI: John Doe campaign finance investigation special prosecutor invalidly appointed; all materials gathered by SW and subpoena must be destroyed
In the Wisconsin campaign finance John Doe investigation with a special prosecutor, the state Supreme Court concludes that the appointment of the special prosecutor was statutorily invalid, and the materials gathered by search warrant and subpoena will ultimately have to … Continue reading
PA: State’s burden in warrantless search case is triggered by defense motion alleging facts and some law
The burden in a warrantless search case is on the state, but the defense must “state specifically and with particularity the evidence sought to be suppressed, the grounds for suppression, and the facts and events in support thereof.” The invalidity … Continue reading
NJ: SW for def’s person made it reasonable to frisk him them move him elsewhere for the search of the person
Officers had a warrant to search defendant’s person and house. When they found him, they conducted a patdown and then moved him elsewhere for the more intrusive search. The second search was objectively reasonable under the warrant, and moving him … Continue reading
Inst. for Policy Innovation: Is SEC’s Power Grab More Important Than the Fourth Amendment?
Inst. for Policy Innovation: Is SEC’s Power Grab More Important Than the Fourth Amendment? by Tom Giovanetti: It turns out that the SEC is holding up ECPA reform in an attempt to parlay more agency power. It’s a power grab, … Continue reading
Reason: Blog: New Mexico Cities Attempt to Ignore Tough Restrictions on Property Seizure. Lawsuits Follow.
Reason: Blog: New Mexico Cities Attempt to Ignore Tough Restrictions on Property Seizure. Lawsuits Follow. by Scott Shackford: