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- 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)
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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
CA9: A “dilapidated” shack behind a house on the curtilage was still a place subject to the Fourth Amendment
A “dilapidated” shack behind a house on the curtilage was still a place subject to the Fourth Amendment, but the entry without a warrant claim goes forward. They get qualified immunity on the knock-and-announce violation. Deputies entered and shot a … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Being a mere drug handler in a drug house doesn’t give standing
Defendant lacked standing in the place searched because he lived elsewhere, and he was there helping run drugs through the house. United States v. Espindola-Pineda, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24489 (E.D.N.C. Feb. 3, 2016), adopted 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24488 … Continue reading
NYTimes: Review Agency Faults New York Police Department on Unlawful Searches
NYTimes: Review Agency Faults New York Police Department on Unlawful Searches by Al Baker: A team of plainclothes New York City police officers, tracking the signal of a stolen cellphone, pushed past a man who denied the officers permission to … Continue reading
Bluefield (WV) Daily Telegraph: High court ruling threatens to end ‘Santa Stops’
Bluefield (WV) Daily Telegraph: High court ruling threatens to end ‘Santa Stops’ by Samantha Perry: PRINCETON — A recent high court ruling threatened to put the brakes on the popular law enforcement “Santa Stops,” however local troopers have found a … Continue reading
EFF Urges Sixth Circuit to Revisit Case Finding No Warrant Needed for Ten Weeks of Covert 24/7 Video Surveillance
EFF Urges Sixth Circuit to Revisit Case Finding No Warrant Needed for Ten Weeks of Covert 24/7 Video Surveillance by Jennifer Lynch: EFF joined NYU Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice, ACLU, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Libertarian … Continue reading
FCW: Lawmakers seek controls for access to geolocation data
FCW: Lawmakers seek controls for access to geolocation data by Chase Gunter: Members on both sides of the aisle on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee believes that the Department of Justice is required to obtain a search warrant … Continue reading
Memphis Commercial Appeal: Strickland says he can’t discuss city’s use of cell phone eavesdropping device
Memphis Commercial Appeal: Strickland says he can’t discuss city’s use of cell phone eavesdropping device by Ryan Poe: Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland confirmed Monday that the city is using cell phone eavesdropping technology with court approval, but said he couldn’t … Continue reading
WaPo: Devices on public buses in Maryland are listening to private conversations
WaPo: Devices on public buses in Maryland are listening to private conversations By Ovetta Wiggins: The Maryland Senate on Tuesday delayed action on a bill that would clamp down on when public buses and trains can record the private conversations … Continue reading
WaPo: What do we know about police body cameras? Survey says: Not much
WaPo: What do we know about police body cameras? Survey says: Not much by Tom Jackman …[W]hat research has been done on the overall effect of police body cameras? Do they change an officer’s behavior? Do people on camera behave … Continue reading
NYTimes: F.B.I. Error Locked San Bernardino Attacker’s iPhone
NYTimes: F.B.I. Error Locked San Bernardino Attacker’s iPhone by Cecilia Kang and Eric Lichtblau: WASHINGTON — The head of the F.B.I. acknowledged on Tuesday that his agency lost a chance to capture data from the iPhone used by one of … Continue reading
NYTimes: The iPhone Stays Locked, for Now
NYTimes: Editorial: The iPhone Stays Locked, for Now: The Justice Department has argued that Apple has a legal responsibility to help the government unlock iPhones that may contain evidence needed in criminal investigations. A federal judge in Brooklyn argues, persuasively, … Continue reading
OH3: Particularity challenge waived by not presenting it to suppression court
The officer’s smelling marijuana outside defendant’s residence was probable cause to corroborate the story that defendant had a grow going on. A particularity challenge was waived by not presenting it to the trial court at the suppression hearing. State v. … Continue reading
OH2: Police following you may be intimidating, but it’s not a seizure
Police following defendant may have been intimidating, but it wasn’t a seizure. He abandoned the drugs on him. State v. Ramey, 2016-Ohio-607, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS 689 (2d Dist. Feb. 19, 2016).* A convenience store clerk who called the police … Continue reading
WWMT: As drones soar in Michigan, so do privacy concerns
WWMT: As drones soar in Michigan, so do privacy concerns by Cody Coombs: The drop in price, along with the improvements made to camera technology have made drones both popular and controversial, especially when it comes to privacy concerns.
Colorado Public Radio: Police Body Camera Recommendations Head To Lawmakers
Colorado Public Radio: Police Body Camera Recommendations Head To Lawmakers by Rachel Estabrook: A group studying how police should use body cameras has released its recommendations to Colorado legislators, including guidance on when the devices should be turned on and … Continue reading
Daily Signal: Inside the Push to Make It Harder for Government to ‘Steal’ Property, Cash in America’s Heartland
Daily Signal: Inside the Push to Make It Harder for Government to ‘Steal’ Property, Cash in America’s Heartland by Melissa Quinn: But in a year when Loveless, R-Oklahoma City, is up for re-election to the state legislature—a time when most … Continue reading
The Hill: Privacy groups wary of compromise encryption bill
The Hill: Privacy groups wary of compromise encryption bill by Cory Bennett: Privacy advocates are already concerned about legislation to establish a national commission to explore how police can get at encrypted data without endangering Americans’ privacy.
NPR: Advertising Company Will Use Its Billboards To Track Passing Cellphones
NPR: Advertising Company Will Use Its Billboards To Track Passing Cellphones by Merrit Kennedy: The technology is sure to help advertisers better target their ads. But privacy advocates argue that it’s, well, a little creepy.
WaPo: ‘The Watch’ Blog: Lawsuit takes aim at asset forfeiture in Indiana
WaPo: ‘The Watch’ Blog: Lawsuit takes aim at asset forfeiture in Indiana by Radley Balko: The Institute for Justice, a libertarian advocacy law firm, is suing the state of Indiana over its civil asset forfeiture practices. Under state law, the … Continue reading