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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
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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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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)
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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
NC: SW for medical records was reasonable and not barred by HIPAA
Defendant’s motion to suppress wasn’t timely, and the trial court didn’t err for denying it on that ground alone. Even so, on the merits, obtaining defendant’s medical records for DUI by search warrant wasn’t unreasonable: HIPAA permits search and seizure … Continue reading
NC: Search of def’s person not justified just because of smell of MJ in car
The trial court erred in denying defendant’s motion to suppress evidence found during a search of his person as the deputy lacked probable cause to remove defendant from the vehicle and search his person. The State offered no evidence that … Continue reading
Orin Kerr on WaPo: New draft article: ‘The Effect of Legislation on Fourth Amendment Interpretation’
Orin Kerr on WaPo: New draft article: ‘The Effect of Legislation on Fourth Amendment Interpretation’:
2016 supplement off to the publisher for December 2016 publication
NYLJ: Police Use of Force, the Constitution, and the New NYPD Policy
NYLJ: Police Use of Force, the Constitution, and the New NYPD Policy by Christopher Dunn: Earlier this summer, the NYPD—the nation’s largest and most influential police department—rolled out new use-of-force policies that have received precious little scrutiny. In light of … Continue reading
SF Chronicle: Op-ed: First they take your stuff, then you get to ask for it back
SF Chronicle: Op-ed: First they take your stuff, then you get to ask for it back by Debra J. Saunders:
New law review article: The Original Fourth Amendment by Laura Donohue
New law review article: The Original Fourth Amendment by Laura Donohue, University of Chicago Law Review, Forthcoming. Abstract: The meaning of the rights enshrined in the Constitution provide a critical baseline for understanding the limits of government action — perhaps … Continue reading
MN: Exclusionary rule doesn’t apply to state tax proceedings
In this state tax case, the taxpayer claimed revenuers came to his liquor store and searched and seized by downloading his Quickbooks file to a flash drive. The state tax court holds that, even if the search was unreasonable, the … Continue reading
IN: CSLI is intrusive and protected by 4A; not a mere third party record
CSLI is not just ordinary third party records, and they have Fourth Amendment protection without a warrant. CSLI is collected surreptitiously while bank (Miller) and telephone tolls calls (Smith) are provided willingly and knowingly. Moreover, CSLI is far more intrusive … Continue reading
CA10: NCMEC is govt agent not a subject to private search doctrine; email a “paper” or “effect” for 4A
NCMEC is a government actor because of how the government treats and funds it, and the private search doctrine does not apply to it. AOL here captured emails with child pornography and forwarded them to NCMEC which further searched them, … Continue reading
The Texas Tribune: What Are Your Rights at U.S.-Mexico Border Patrol Checkpoints?
The Texas Tribune: What Are Your Rights at U.S.-Mexico Border Patrol Checkpoints? by Julián Aguilar: Under federal law, checkpoints are legal. But officers do have limits in what they can ask you.
WaPo: ‘The Watch’ Blog: Utah SWAT stats show militarized tactics used less, but still overwhelmingly for drug crimes
WaPo: ‘The Watch’ Blog: Utah SWAT stats show militarized tactics used less, but still overwhelmingly for drug crimes by Radley Balko: That’s a massive increase in the use of tactics that are inherently volatile, risky and violent. It’s unfortunate that … Continue reading
techdirt: Sheriff Uses Unconstitutional Law To Raid Home And Seize Electronics Belonging To Watchdog Blogger
techdirt: Sheriff Uses Unconstitutional Law To Raid Home And Seize Electronics Belonging To Watchdog Blogger by Tim Cushing: A Louisiana sheriff has just inserted himself into a mess of First and Fourth Amendment violations by using his power to go … Continue reading
CA8: Losing a motion to suppress in state court is collateral estoppel to a § 1983 case over the same search
Losing a motion to suppress in state court is collateral estoppel to a § 1983 case over the same search. Nance v. Humane Society to Pulaski County, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 14239 (8th Cir. Aug. 4, 2016):
CA8: Apparent hidden compartment under trunk raised RS to PC
Defendant consented to a search of his car during a stop because of something dragging under the car. He was asked because he was nervous. In the trunk, the officer noticed the carpet was glued down, and that indicated to … Continue reading
ABAJ: Drivers are pulled over for driving without an ice cream cone; are the stops unconstitutional?
ABAJ: Drivers are pulled over for driving without an ice cream cone; are the stops unconstitutional? by Debra Cassens Weiss No. The fact police think it’s not speaks to their psychology.
N.D.Cal.: Conversations outside courthouse were entitled to REP
Surreptitious recordings outside the San Mateo courthouse of persons talking amongst themselves were entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy because they talked such that others could not overhear them except with planted recording devices. United States v. Giraudo, 2016 … Continue reading
NJ: Joint occupancy by adults with separate bedrooms doesn’t give apparent authority over each other’s rooms
Because of the heightened privacy protection in the home, it was unreasonable for the officer here to conclude that one adult resident of a home could consent to a search of the room of another adult resident. “Third parties derive … Continue reading