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- CA11: Service of SW without attachments isn’t 4A violation
- KS: Running warrants on a passed out person is reasonable
- M.D.Fla.: Unidentified pills in driver’s lap may have been RS but it wasn’t PC for arrest
- D.C.Cir.: It was reasonable for officers to conclude that evidence or instrumentalities of the crime would be found in the car used in a robbery
- CA7: Officer’s warrantless view of CSAM flagged by hash value was not unreasonable
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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: November 2017
LawFare: The Fourth Amendment Doesn’t Recognize a General “Right to be Secure”
LawFare: The Fourth Amendment Doesn’t Recognize a General “Right to be Secure” by Orin Kerr:
WaPo: Man investigated after Best Buy technicians tipped off FBI has child pornography case dismissed
WaPo: Man investigated after Best Buy technicians tipped off FBI has child pornography case dismissed by Tom Jackman:
PA: The automobile exception does not apply in one’s own driveway
“We granted the petition for allowance of appeal filed by Daniel F. Loughnane to determine whether the Superior Court erred by holding that the federal automobile exception, adopted by this Court in Commonwealth v. Gary, 625 Pa. 183, 91 A.3d … Continue reading
CA8: Def failed to show omission of CI’s background would have vitiated PC
“Claybron argues that the omission of the confidential informant’s background information weighed so heavily on her credibility that, had it been considered, the warrant would not have issued. ‘We review the trial court’s findings of fact for clear error and … Continue reading
CA3: Entry onto ptfs’ rural land to serve a small claims complaint was over open fields
Defendant is a deputy sheriff who had a summons and complaint for a small claims case. He came by plaintiffs’ rural property three prior times to serve it. They lived on 75 acres and the house and a law office … Continue reading
CA6: 53 days after an occurrence is hardly exigent
Detroit has a stray dog problem and passed an ordinance in 2004. The ordinance allowed warrantless entries into yards to search for and seize dogs. The district court enjoined that, and the city did not appeal. On individual claims, an … Continue reading
HI: Fly-over of curtilage at 420′ violated REP under state constitution
Three fly-overs over the curtilage, one at 420′, was a violation of the Hawai’i Constitution, following the California Supreme Court in People v. Cook (1985). The Hawai’i Supreme Court differs from the Intermediate Court of Appeals on its analysis going … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Klayman v. NSA finally ends in the District Court
Klayman v. NSA finally ends in the District Court, the court finding no jurisdiction (despite prior injunctions) and because Congress ended the program sued over before the suit was even filed and then the NSA was ordered to retain data … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Google is a private actor when it scans email for CP and then turns it over
Google is a private actor when it scans emails looking for child pornography by the images’ hash values. Google has an important interest in keeping CP off the internet and not being the vehicle for its transmission. There was no … Continue reading
D.Minn.: PO knowing def’s history saw a bulge in def’s pocket, and this was justification for a search
Defendant was on supervised release. The officer “then saw a bulge in Becerra’s pocket that he suspected could be a weapon. [He thus] had probable cause at the time he arrested Becerra to believe that Becerra was violating his supervised … Continue reading
OR: Exigency-based entry into house for DUI arrest requires proof of exigency, and here it was lacking
Here the officer entered defendant’s home in a DUI case to seize him for evidence of his intoxication. Exigency can permit an entry, but the state has the burden of proof on exigency, and here it failed to prove the … Continue reading
techcrunch: Authorities serve Apple a warrant for Texas shooter’s iPhone
techcrunch: Authorities serve Apple a warrant for Texas shooter’s iPhone by Brian Heater:
E.D.Mich.: Def was alleged to be involved in a pill mill, but SW was for his home; affidavit showed nexus to home for instrumentalities of crime
Police got a search warrant for defendant’s home in a pill mill case. “This affidavit did not attempt to establish probable cause to believe Knight was conducting prescription drug deals at his home. Instead, it attempted to establish probable cause … Continue reading
TN: Disclaiming any interest in the contents of a car means no standing in the contents
Defendant told the police that nothing in the car was his, so he didn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents. Therefore, his defense counsel couldn’t be ineffective for not filing a motion to suppress the search. Dunn … Continue reading
MA: Def counsel gave IAC for not moving to suppress cell phone data; just because it might be interesting isn’t PC
Defendant received ineffective assistance of counsel by counsel’s failure to file a motion to suppress the search of defendant’s cell phone. The affidavit for the search warrant did not establish probable cause to search the phone. The mere fact two … Continue reading
TX13: If a motion to suppress was made under McNeely it would have been granted; def received IAC
Defense counsel’s misapprehension of the application of McNeely to blood test results was ineffective assistance of counsel. If a motion to suppress had been made, it would have been granted. Briggs v. State, 2017 Tex. App. LEXIS 10891 (Tex. App. … Continue reading
Vox: The police can search your email without telling you. That’s nuts.
Vox: The police can search your email without telling you. That’s nuts. by Hannah Bloch-Wehba: So much of our lives today are conducted online that it’s essential that we know who has access to our information. And that’s especially true … Continue reading
BuzzFeed: DHS Has Used A Controversial Cell Phone–Tracking Device More Than 1,800 Times
BuzzFeed: DHS Has Used A Controversial Cell Phone–Tracking Device More Than 1,800 Times by Adolfo Flores: The information, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows that Homeland Security Investigations, a major investigative arm of DHS, used what’s known … Continue reading
NPR: Eliminating Police Bias When Handling Drug-Sniffing Dogs
NPR: Eliminating Police Bias When Handling Drug-Sniffing Dogs by Martin Kaste: Police dogs searching for drugs sometimes find them when they’re not there. Some people want to eliminate the influence of their handlers’ beliefs to make it more fair.