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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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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)
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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: July 2017
IA declines to abandon automobile exception just because of availability of electronic warrants
Iowa declines to abandon the automobile exception just because technological advances make it possible to apply for telephone or email warrants from the scene of a search. Other states attempted that and reverted back to the automobile exception. State v. … Continue reading
OH2: Motion to suppress was vague and def didn’t clarify at hearing; appeal argument waived
The motion to suppress was vague, and defendant got a hearing. When the prosecutor complained about the vagueness and what the issues were, defense counsel didn’t elaborate. On appeal, the issues were more focused. The court of appeals takes this … Continue reading
IA: Breath test of boater was valid as search incident under 4A but not state const.
“[T]he breath test [of a boater] constituted a search incident to arrest excepted from the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement under Birchfield.” State v. Pettijohn, 2017 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 78 (June 30, 2017):
CA11: No CoA for 2255 where no 4A IAC because search was valid
CoA denied 2255 petitioner because the search was valid on the merits, so defense counsel couldn’t be ineffective. Smith v. United States, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 11902 (11th Cir. Jan. 9, 2017) (order).* State law governs state officers; federal law … Continue reading
The New Yorker: The Bootlegger, the Wiretap, and the Beginning of Privacy
The New Yorker: The Bootlegger, the Wiretap, and the Beginning of Privacy by Karen Abbott
CA11: Recent murder-robbery made entry into defendant’s house “sufficiently exigent”
The police knew that defendant had “recently” committed an armed robbery and murder, and that he was in his house and armed. They determined to enter and arrest him, and they did. The protective sweep and consent after that was … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Doesn’t matter that Google stores E-mails offshore
The fact the server on which the emails sought by the government are outside the United States doesn’t mean that the government can’t get them by valid process. The court declines to follow Matter of Warrant to Search a Certain … Continue reading
Army CCA: Def showed IAC from defense counsel’s decision to forgo a motion to suppress; failure to show nexus was unreasoned and entitled to no Strickland deference
Defendant on post-conviction showed that trial defense counsel’s decision to forgo a motion to suppress for failure to show nexus was unreasoned and entitled to no Strickland deference. United States v. Close, 2017 CCA LEXIS 432 (Army Ct. Crim. App. … Continue reading
CAAF: Attenuation not shown and ER applies: officer conducted ‘unwise, avoidable, and unlawful’ investigation and arrest
Defendant’s arrest was unlawful and the government failed to show attenuation. “However, we do not think it necessary that the agent’s misconduct be outrageous for the third factor in Brown to apply. Though there is no evidence of bad motive … Continue reading
Two rejected IAC claims, one for lack of a record yet
Defendant’s Fourth Amendment claim was not presented to the trial court, and the court declines to reach it on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim for lack of a record. He can do that later. Shinstock v. State, 2017 Miss. … Continue reading
IN recognizes a temporal limit on delaying stops with RS
Defendant was seen in a park wearing a gang color shirt and was a suspected truant, although the officer didn’t act on it. Hours later, after school, defendant was seen again with a group wearing red except his red shirt … Continue reading
NH: Limited state auto exception recognized where plainly visible contents are contraband
NH recognizes limited state automobile exception under state constitution where a warrant is not required where “the police have probable cause to believe that a plainly visible item in the vehicle is contraband.” State v. Cora, 2017 N.H. LEXIS 132 … Continue reading
CA9: Def’s possession of ammo was independent basis to issue SW
Police were called to defendant’s home in a domestic call that he was holding his wife and her child against their will. They entered and handcuffed him. A patdown of his person produced ammunition. Officers looked in a stack of … Continue reading
OH5: Plain view didn’t apply to a firearm where it wasn’t readily obvious it was stolen
The plain view doctrine did not apply because the firearm was not immediately apparent as incriminating evidence or contraband, and testimony at the suppression hearing established the officers could not readily identify the firearm as stolen. State v. Elschlager, 2017-Ohio-5545, … Continue reading
MA: A civil abuse order of protection cannot be served by a traffic stop under the Fourth Amendment and the Massachusetts Constitution
A civil abuse order of protection cannot be served by a traffic stop under the Fourth Amendment and the Massachusetts Constitution. Commonwealth v. Sanborn, 2017 Mass. LEXIS 496 (June 29, 2017):
FL declines to to apply Davis GFE where cell phone search issue was being actively litigated all over
Where everybody knew that the law wasn’t settled at the time of the search of defendant’s cell phone before Riley because the issue was being litigated everywhere and in this state, the state doesn’t get the benefit of the Davis … Continue reading