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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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--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: August 2016
Morning Consult: Potential FCC Probe of Police Cellphone Trackers Could Serve as Proxy for Congressional Battle
Morning Consult: Potential FCC Probe of Police Cellphone Trackers Could Serve as Proxy for Congressional Battle by Amir Nasr:
TX14: Two theories of standing: reasonable-expectation-of-privacy and intrusion-upon-property from Jones
Defendant was found to be a trespasser, a squatter who changed the locks, in the home of another who was in jail. Defendant attempted to show standing in the trial court, but the state did not raise lack of standing … Continue reading
N.D.N.Y. When def failed to report to parole, his parole didn’t expire and a parole search could still occur
Defendant was delinquent in reporting, and his parole otherwise had expired, but the state parole law considered him still subject to their control for not reporting. Thus, the parole search could occur after the nominal expiration of parole because he … Continue reading
D.Alaska: Officers obviously had RS
“Under these circumstances, the Court has no difficulty finding that this investigatory stop was supported by particularized and objective facts that support a reasonable suspicion that Gruben and his associates recently had engaged in unlawful drug related activity.” United States … Continue reading
Atlantic: Police Can Use a Legal Grey Area to Rob Anyone of Their Belongings
Atlantic: Police Can Use a Legal Grey Area to Rob Anyone of Their Belongings by Kaveh Waddell: When officers categorize wallets or cellphones as evidence, getting them back can be nearly impossible—even if the owner isn’t charged with a crime.
WSJ Blog: Professor Says Police Bodycam Study Suffers from ‘Fatal Flaw’
WSJ Blog: Professor Says Police Bodycam Study Suffers from ‘Fatal Flaw’ by Jacob Gershman: Law Blog last week reported on a provocative new study by Temple University researchers suggesting that police officers wearing body cameras are more likely to use … Continue reading
OH1: Probation search of room apparently common to all tenants was permissible
Defendant was a probationer subject to a search condition. It was reasonable for the officer to consider the living room area common to all the residents in the property. It was also permissible for him to stick his head into … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: A completed crime doesn’t preclude a Terry stop on reasonable suspicion
A completed crime doesn’t preclude a Terry stop on reasonable suspicion. Besides that, the court finds probable cause. United States v. Truth, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 106651 (W.D.Va. Aug. 11, 2016):
TN: Not IAC to not object to def’s consent to statement and DNA sample
Defense counsel was not ineffective for not moving to suppress defendant’s volunteering to talk to police and give a DNA sample. It was clearly consensual. Jones v. State, 2016 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 595 (Aug. 11, 2016).* The plaintiffs’ family … Continue reading
D.C.Cir.: Govt waived standing by not presenting issue to Dist.Ct.
The government waived defendant’s lack of standing by not arguing it in the district court. The faint smell of marijuana and multiple air fresheners was probable cause to search. United States v. Sheffield, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 14826 (D.C.Cir. Aug. … Continue reading
VI: No REP in a bag on ground outside an apt building
Defendant’s apartment was subjected to a search warrant, and defendant argued that a Crown Royal bag outside on the ground was outside the scope of the warrant and couldn’t be seized. The court applies Dunn and the curtilage analysis to … Continue reading
ME: Great detail supported the CI’s statement; inclusion of CI’s criminal history didn’t undermine PC
The great detail about the CI with its corroboration was probable cause. The inclusion of the CI’s criminal history doesn’t ipso facto undermine the probable cause, and the reviewing court is obliged to give deference to the issuing court’s probable … Continue reading
OR: Going into pocket after patdown unreasonable; no articulation of anything being a weapon
Defendant consented to a patdown, and the officer exceeded the scope of the patdown by going into the pocket. He felt something, but he didn’t articulate that it could be a weapon. The officer’s general observations about drug dealers didn’t … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Child porn SW affidavit doesn’t need pictures attached: a description will do
The description “child pornography” is enough for the affidavit for a CP search warrant–the pictures themselves don’t have to be attached to prove it. United States v. Weatherman, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 104878 (S.D. N.Y. Aug. 9, 2016). Based on … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Defense counsel was ineffective for not seeing def’s guest standing in girlfriend’s apartment
Defendant established a failure of performance of defense counsel in his 2255 for not filing a motion to suppress on guest standing. He didn’t file a motion to suppress solely because defendant said he didn’t “live at” his girlfriend’s place, … Continue reading
OR: Def didn’t abandon backpack by not affirmatively claiming ownership of it during vehicle search by consent
The officer had reasonable suspicion something was up and the driver of a van already stopped consented to a search of the van, but that did not include a backpack that didn’t belong to him. Defendant did not abandon the … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Lack of full detail and minor discrepancies from reports didn’t make officers unbelievable
In a Bronx stop and frisk, the fact that the four NYPD Stop, Question and Frisk Report Worksheets for each person frisked didn’t have the detail of the officers’ hearing testimony or resulted in minor discrepancies doesn’t make them unbelievable. … Continue reading
D.Neb., M.D.Fla., C.D.Cal. also sustain an NIT search warrant for IP addresses
Another NIT warrant upheld in a child pornography case. United States v. Laurita, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103405 (D.Neb. Aug. 5, 2016)* (collecting cases):
M.D.Fla.: CSLI information captured by Stingray would be unreasonable under 4A except defs had no standing in burner phones they disassociated themselves from
Use of a Stingray to capture defendants’ cell phone location information in real time was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment [without much discussion], but the defendants lack standing to complain. The mere fact the government referred to the phones as … Continue reading
New law review article: How Governments Pay: Lawsuits, Budgets, and Police Reform
Joanna C. Schwartz, How Governments Pay: Lawsuits, Budgets, and Police Reform, 63 UCLA L. Rev. 1144 (2016). Abstract: