Archives
-
Recent Posts
- CAAF: Information on computer stored in evidence room wasn’t stale
- CAAF: SW’s incorporated affidavit satisfied particularity, reliance on CA10 case not CAAF case was error
- CA10: Def’s BO suggesting heroin abuse added to RS
- WaPo: They confided in ChatGPT. Their secrets ended up in court.
- CA6: No interlocutory appeal of denial of motion to suppress
-
-
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: June 2016
FL1: Knock-and-talk on motel room door didn’t need justification, but here it was because robbery getaway car was outside
Officers could conduct a knock-and-talk at a motel room door without reasonable suspicion based on the fact the getaway car from an armed robbery was in the parking lot. When the person opening the door was recognized as the robber … Continue reading
OH2: Patdown unreasonable because it was for drugs not safety
Pat down was unreasonable because officer didn’t have any safety concerns and was looking for drugs. State v. Kinnison, 2016-Ohio-3481, 2016 Ohio App. LEXIS 2337 (2d Dist. June 17, 2016). Defendant was indicted, had a motion to suppress hearing, had … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Parking violation justified a seizure
“The police seized defendant Devon Bean for an alleged parking violation, locating drugs and a firearm while searching his person and car. Charged with possession of a firearm as a felon, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and possession of marijuana with … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: The facts and dashcam video don’t support RS
The stop was continued without reasonable suspicion. The owner of the car was present and never asked for consent. The occupants were told that a drug dog had been called, and there was no consent. The claim of nervousness isn’t … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: If SW includes marital privileged material, that’s for filter team, not motion to quash
The search warrant target moved to quash based on marital privilege. Under federal law, the privilege is based on common law and presumed. The affidavit for the search warrant, however, shows probable cause for witness tampering. Resolution of the marital … Continue reading
MA: Officer’s failure to testify to the facts for his belief that defendant was traveling at an “unreasonable speed” made the stop unreasonable
The officer’s failure to testify to the facts for his belief that defendant was traveling at an “unreasonable speed” made the stop unreasonable. Thus, the passenger’s flight from the car after the stop and the seizure of a gun from … Continue reading
DE: Cell phone is a tool of the drug trade for SW purposes
Probable cause was shown on the four corners of the affidavit for the search warrant. Citing a 2001 U.S. district court case, “[t]he Wiseman court [158 F.Supp.2d 1242, 1249 (D.Kan.2001)] stated that ‘it had become common knowledge in the courts … Continue reading
WaPo: The Volokh Conspiracy; Applying the Fourth Amendment to placing calls from a locked phone to identify its owner
WaPo: The Volokh Conspiracy: Applying the Fourth Amendment to placing calls from a locked phone to identify its owner by Orin Kerr:
GA: No standing in the cell phone of one’s murder victim taken at the time of the crime
In a form of “wrongful presence,” defendant took the cell phones of his murder victims. He has no standing to challenge the obtaining of the call records of those phones that helped link defendant to the crimes. Marchman v. State, … Continue reading
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: After police raided an apartment building to arrest a suspect, others were left with the collateral damage
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: After police raided an apartment building to arrest a suspect, others were left with the collateral damage by Koran Addo: The aftermath of the standoff highlights a murky legal area where in some places law enforcement covers … Continue reading
The Hill: Congress Blog: Congress should stop government hacking and protect the Fourth Amendment
The Hill: Congress Blog: Congress should stop government hacking and protect the Fourth Amendment by Peter Goldberger: While it is surely possible to craft a constitutional procedure for digital searches, the rulemaking process is not adequate for addressing such sensitive … Continue reading
ID: Michigan v. Summers on detention of bystanders can apply to arrest warrants, too
Summers rationale of detaining bystanders when executing a search warrant can apply to arrest warrants. Here, the target of the arrest warrant fled, and that justified the officers in detaining the others just in case of a risk of a … Continue reading
AK: State didn’t prove car’s ashtray was associated with the person to store things
Defendant was stopped for blocking the road with the passenger door open and a man leaning, and officers suspected a drug transaction, further confirmed at least in part by the person leaning in running and jumping three fences to get … Continue reading
OR: State veterinarian taking blood from def’s sick dog was a seizure requiring a warrant
A warrantless search of a dog’s blood by a state hired veterinarian after seizure of the sick animal was a seizure by the state requiring a warrant. State v. Newcomb, 359 Ore. 756, 2016 Ore. LEXIS 366 (June 16, 2016):
SCOTUS: Utah v. Strieff: Even if stop lacked RS, finding an arrest warrant on def justified his search; the warrant is attenuated from the stop (so they can violate the 4A if there’s a warrant out)
Defendant was stopped leaving a drug house under surveillance. He gave his name, and an arrest warrant came back for him. Attenuation is found without regard to the validity of the stop. The attenuation doctrine is not limited to the … Continue reading
DE: Patdown unreasonable; state didn’t argue for probation search and court won’t decide that
Defendant was subjected to a patdown that was unreasonable, and it is suppressed. Defendant was on probation then, and the probation search exception could have been relied on but wasn’t. The court won’t argue the state’s case for it. State … Continue reading
CA6: Officers doing a knock-and-talk for meth were confronted with an emergency justifying entry
Officers responded to a noise complaint and ran into a guy outside who said he was there to buy methamphetamine. They went to the door and smelled meth being manufactured. Nobody answered. They went around to the back to see … Continue reading