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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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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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)
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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: March 2016
NewsOK: OU professor: Fourth Amendment at heart of dispute between FBI, Apple
NewsOK: OU professor: Fourth Amendment at heart of dispute between FBI, Apple by Stephen E. Henderson
US Law Week Blog: Premeditated: Now You Can Invoke Your 4th Amendment Rights at a Bargain
US Law Week Blog: Premeditated: Now You Can Invoke Your 4th Amendment Rights at a Bargain: Those looking for an easy way to protect their homes from unreasonable searches and seizures can now find it at the reasonable price of … Continue reading
CA2: RCMP was merely giving information to CBP and not on a joint venture
Defendant was prosecuted for alien smuggling in Northern New York. CBP received information from the RCMP about a vehicle stopped in a rural area near the border, and Border Patrol picked up defendant. “Put simply, the interaction between the U.S. … Continue reading
D.Minn.: PC shown to get def’s Facebook account for evidence of soliciting sex acts with minors
Probable cause was shown for defendant’s Facebook account: “The Court finds here that Agent Jones’s affidavit established probable cause to believe that evidence of engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places, or contraband or fruits of such conduct, would … Continue reading
NYTimes: Apple Encryption Engineers, if Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist
NYTimes: Apple Encryption Engineers, if Ordered to Unlock iPhone, Might Resist by John Markoff, Katie Benner and Brian X. Chen: SAN FRANCISCO — If the F.B.I. wins its court fight to force Apple’s help in unlocking an iPhone, the agency … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: “Strawman” car rental resulted in no reasonable expectation of privacy
Defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a rental car that was rented by another, defendant had a suspended license, it was, for all appearance, a strawman rental, and it was overdue. This was not a case … Continue reading
OR: Emergency aid doctrine permitted entry, but search had to stop when it was shown dissipated
The emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement justified officers’ warrantless entry into defendant’s home because there was a report of yelling and sounds of possible hitting, defendant was intoxicated, uncooperative and belligerent to the officers, and he repeatedly lied … Continue reading
Lawfare: Apple v. FBI Shows That Lawyers and Tech Speak Different Language on Privacy
Lawfare: Apple v. FBI Shows That Lawyers and Tech Speak Different Language on Privacy by Timothy Edgar:
CA11: FL deferred prosecution “pretrial intervention program” subject to probation searches
Defendant was entered into “a pretrial intervention program as part of a deferred prosecution agreement with the State of Florida. Florida offers the program to first-time offenders and some second-time offenders, Fla. Stat. § 948.08(2), who are then supervised by … Continue reading
WaPo: President Obama to nominate Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, sources say
WaPo: President Obama to nominate Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, sources say
E.D.Wis.: CSLI is third-party information and SW not required, rejecting CA4’s Graham
CSLI information is merely third party information in which there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, and no warrant was required to collect it. If SCOTUS wanted to deal with third party data it could, but it hasn’t. The Fourth … Continue reading
WaPo: ‘The Watch’ Blog: Police cameras are a tool. It’s how we use this tool that matters.
WaPo: ‘The Watch’ Blog: Police cameras are a tool. It’s how we use this tool that matters by Radley Balko: There’s little question that police body cameras and dashboard cameras offer added transparency. They offer an independent narrative of disputed … Continue reading
Reason.com: Meet Paul Watford, One of Obama’s Potential Nominees to Replace Scalia on the Supreme Court
Reason.com: Meet Paul Watford, One of Obama’s Potential Nominees to Replace Scalia on the Supreme Court by Damon Root.
Charlotte Observer: NC police agencies block body-cam footage from public view
Charlotte Observer: NC police agencies block body-cam footage from public view by Cleve R. Wootson Jr.: Seven Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers surrounded a man lying on the ground – a suspect detained in a hit-and-run wreck. One officer raised his fist … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Arrest for avoiding subway fare led to inevitably finding gun; good explanation of analytical steps
Officers had probable cause to stop defendant for using the service gate at the Bronx 233d St. subway station without paying. He was a frequent flyer, as it were, and that led to a custodial arrest. He had a knife … Continue reading
CA3: Parolee strip search in his own home was reasonable
Parole officers were properly granted summary judgment in a parolee’s claim that they unreasonably searched his property without cause. There was cause, there was no need for reasonable suspicion, and he established no material factual dispute about anything. Moreover, the … Continue reading
NE: Def didn’t have standing in her husband’s cell phone when they lived apart
Defendant had no standing in photographs on her husband’s cell phone. They’d lived apart for five months, had separate accounts, and his was password protected. She had no right to it or the ability to exclude others; therefore, no standing. … Continue reading
CA10: “No trespassing” sign doesn’t deny implied license of a police officer to approach a house to ask questions
Even a “no trespassing” sign doesn’t deny implied license of a police officer to approach a house to ask questions of the occupant. United States v. Carloss, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 4547 (10th Cir. March 11, 2016):
E.D.N.Y.: A brief explanation of how FISA surveillance works and why this was constitutional
Defendant pled to attempting to provide material support to a terrorist organization by flying from JFK to Turkey to Pakistan. His emails overseas were captured by FISA and led to his prosecution. After the plea he filed a 2255 to … Continue reading