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- 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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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)
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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: September 2016
the intercept: Leaked Catalogue Reveals a Vast Array of Military Spy Gear Offered to U.S. Police
the intercept: Leaked Catalogue Reveals a Vast Array of Military Spy Gear Offered to U.S. Police by Sam Biddle: A confidential, 120-page catalogue of spy equipment, originating from British defense firm Cobham and circulated to U.S. law enforcement, touts gear … Continue reading
Wired: How Baltimore Became America’s Laboratory for Spy Tech
Wired: How Baltimore Became America’s Laboratory for Spy Tech by Lily Hay Newman: If you live in Baltimore, you may have the feeling that you’re being watched. You are. Baltimore Police track your cellphone use without a warrant. They secretly … Continue reading
PA: Letter from def in jail ended up at DA’s office already opened; private search
Defendant’s motion to suppress was delivered to the DA’s office by an unknown person in an envelope along with another already opened envelope inside that contained a letter from defendant in the jail to his girl friend encouraging witnesses to … Continue reading
W.D.La.: RS of drug trafficking here not “rocket science”
Defendant was a passenger in a car asserting no interest in it or the contents. “Diaz never responded to the Government’s standing argument, even after he was given an opportunity to file a post-hearing supplemental brief.” He’d also lose on … Continue reading
W.D.Tenn.: Order to execute on civil default judgment satisfied the warrant clause
The sheriff’s office entered defendant’s home to execute on a civil judgment for attorneys fees in a domestic matter obtained by a default judgment. Firearms were found, but he was a prohibited person. The civil process was a court order … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Information for Franks hearing needs to be made to USMJ, not on appeal to USDJ
When making a Franks challenge to the USMJ, defendant must come forward with the information then, not on the request for review to the USDJ. “The Magistrate Judge did not state on the record his specific reasoning for a finding … Continue reading
OR: Horse owner didn’t lose privacy interest in horses being cared for by another on other’s property
Third-party property owners who were boarding defendant’s horses had the actual authority to consent to the sheriff’s entry onto their properties. Defendant didn’t have any authority to exclude the owners from particular parts of the properties where her horses stayed. … Continue reading
fivethirtyeight.com: Internet Tracking Has Moved Beyond Cookies
fivethirtyeight.com: Internet Tracking Has Moved Beyond Cookies by Jody Avirgan:
TX13: Where charged with failure to identify, the lawfulness of the detention can’t be determined by a motion to suppress
Where defendant was charged with failure to identify herself when lawfully detained, this court is bound by the Court of Criminal Appeals in Woods that a motion to suppress can’t be used to litigate the lawfulness of the initial detention. … Continue reading
W.D.Ark.: No QI for officer extending a traffic stop for a drug dog w/o RS
Officer was not entitled to qualified immunity for allegedly extending a traffic stop without reasonable suspicion just to conduct a dog sniff. Gover v. Helder, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 117417 (W.D.Ark. July 29, 2016). Defendant’s call from book-in jail phone … Continue reading
VI: Nervousness is not RS; patdown unjustified and no reason shown
Defendant’s stop was admittedly justified, but the detention was without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Mere nervousness isn’t enough, and the officer didn’t articulate more. A patdown was unreasonable. People v. Hodge, 2016 V.I. LEXIS 123 (Aug. 24, 2016). Defendant showed … Continue reading
MA: That CI’s tip in another case wasn’t good enough doesn’t say much about this one where it was more detailed and better corroborated
The CI’s tip here was detailed and substantially corroborated. As to the CI’s track record, a search was suppressed on his information after this one occurred, but that doesn’t ipso facto impugn his credibility. In the other case, the CI’s … Continue reading
WSJ: Companies Back Microsoft’s Effort to Alert Users When Authorities Seek Their Data
WSJ: Companies Back Microsoft’s Effort to Alert Users When Authorities Seek Their Data by Jay Greene Tech firms including Apple, Alphabet file briefs in support of software giant’s legal case
IA: Driver in college town was much younger than registered owner, owner’s son had suspended DL, stop reasonable
An Iowa State University police officer ran car tags because the car was driving unusually slow when the driver saw the officer. The owner came back as a 60 year old man, but the driver was much younger. This was … Continue reading
NYLJ: Supreme Court Review of Fourth Amendment Questions Sought in Hard Drive Retention Case
NYLJ: Supreme Court Review of Fourth Amendment Questions Sought in Hard Drive Retention Case by Mark Hamblett:
ID: Visitor could be detained when police arrive to arrest occupant and MJ could be smelled in house
Defendant visitor in the apartment who arrived 30 minutes before the police came to arrest the homeowner could be detained and searched when the police came in and smelled marijuana. State v. Williams, 2016 Ida. App. LEXIS 101 (Aug. 26, … Continue reading
AlterNet: Why Baltimore’s Covert Spy Plane Program Is a Major Battleground for Privacy and Free Speech
AlterNet: Why Baltimore’s Covert Spy Plane Program Is a Major Battleground for Privacy and Free Speech by Carl Messineo: Just because our privacy can be violated does not mean we should expect or tolerate such violations.