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- OH10: Parole search of cell phone can occur even when it’s taken from the property room at jail
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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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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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"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: December 2016
TN adopts good faith exception for unsigned affidavit but sworn officer in 2007 DP case
The officer in this case hurriedly prepared an affidavit and warrant to search defendant’s property. When printing it, he didn’t notice that the document was typed for legal size paper but the printer had only letter size in it. He … Continue reading
Reveal: Cop camera footage: Public record or police property?
Reveal: Cop camera footage: Public record or police property? by Miranda S. Spivak: “Under what circumstances should footage from police body and dashboard cameras be made public, and how much?”
E.D.Wis.: Software to monitor computer usage of person on supervised release not unreasonable if necessary in the first place
Defendant was under court ordered computer monitoring as a condition of his supervised release, and software was installed on his computer and then his cell phone to monitor his text messages and internet searches. Seventh Circuit precedent forecloses defendant’s argument … Continue reading
MA: Admin search doctrine or special needs didn’t permit a discretionary suspicionless search of a car on a prison parking lot
The trial court judge properly allowed defendant’s pretrial motion to suppress evidence seized during a warrantless search of his motor vehicle while it was parked in a parking lot outside a correctional facility, where, at the time a police officer … Continue reading
OH11: Uncorroborated anonymous call about suicide threat brought police to house; entry unjustified
Defendant was arrested for obstructing because he told officers to come back with a warrant after they showed up at his house at midnight to check on defendant’s son. The police received an anonymous call that defendant’s son had a … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Post-release supervision home search before dawn wasn’t reasonable
Defendant was subject to home post-release supervision visits conducted at reasonable times. This one was 6:00-6:15 am when sunrise was nearly 7 am. This was effectively a nighttime search of his house and was thus unreasonable. Suppressed. United States v. … Continue reading
WA: Arrest on def’s porch does not justify protective sweep of his house
Defendant stepped out of his house onto a small covered porch where he was arrested. The protective sweep of the house violated the state constitution. The officers could see a woman inside. Nevertheless, a protective sweep of a house after … Continue reading
M.D.La.: Later suppression of drugs that led to indictment and finding more drugs on arrest doesn’t suppress the second find
Defendant was subjected to a search and arrested with drugs. He was indicted on that. When executing the arrest warrant, officers found defendant with more drugs. After that, defendant succeeded in suppressing the evidence in the first case that led … Continue reading
DE: Search incident of book bag left in car for FTA arrest violates Gant
Defendant was a passenger in a vehicle stopped for a brake light violation. The officer found an outstanding warrant for failure to appear and defendant was arrested and put into the patrol car. The search of defendant’s book bag back … Continue reading
Reuters: Yahoo email scan shows U.S. spy push to recast constitutional privacy
Reuters: Yahoo email scan shows U.S. spy push to recast constitutional privacy by Joseph Menn: Yahoo Inc’s secret scanning of customer emails at the behest of a U.S. spy agency is part of a growing push by officials to loosen … Continue reading
CA1: Arrest of removable alien was without RS, but because no flagrant violation of 4A, no suppression
Respondent was ordered removed from the country after ICE agents encountered him at work. They thought he was somebody else, and he was handcuffed and questioned. It became apparent that he wasn’t the man they were looking for, but he … Continue reading
OH11: Hot pursuit into a house after a misdemeanant reasonable
A man and a woman were walking in the middle of the road, and the woman was having difficulty standing up. This was a potential violation of statute, plus the officer had some possible concerns with the medical condition of … Continue reading
AK: Reconsideration of finding of no PC granted; def never really put lack of PC in issue
At issue was a seizure and then warranted search of defendant’s cell phone looking for an incriminating text message that was already seen by the police on the recipient’s cell phone. At the hearing, the Superior Court granted a motion … Continue reading
NPR: This Doll May Be Recording What Children Say, Privacy Groups Charge
NPR: This Doll May Be Recording What Children Say, Privacy Groups Charge by Brian Naylor: It’s called My Friend Cayla. It’s a doll and looks pretty much like most dolls do. She is available in various skin tones and hair … Continue reading
MN: Search was valid as a protective frisk even though it was raised for first time on appeal
The court of appeals adopts an alternative ground for a search raised for the first time on appeal finding the record sufficient to make a determination. Defendant was awakened on a couch, handcuffed, and frisked for a weapon. The state … Continue reading
CA6: Shooting dogs during drug raid was a seizure, but here it was reasonable
Officers executing a high risk warrant on plaintiff’s house shot and killed two pit bulls, one of which was standing in a corner of the basement not yet attacking. The warrant was considered high risk because the target of the … Continue reading
Tenth Amendment Center: South Carolina Bill Would Ban Stingray Spying, Hinder Federal Surveillance Program
Tenth Amendment Center: South Carolina Bill Would Ban Stingray Spying, Hinder Federal Surveillance Program: COLUMBIA, S.C. (Dec. 19, 2016) – A bill prefiled in the South Carolina House would ban the use of “stingrays” to track the location of phones … Continue reading