Archives
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Recent Posts
- 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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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)
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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
ABAJ: Will big-data tools make policing less biased–or violate people’s rights? (podcast)
ABAJ: Will big-data tools make policing less biased–or violate people’s rights? (podcast) by Lee Rawles:
Cato: Protecting the Home from Warrantless Searches: Collins v. Virginia
Cato: Protecting the Home from Warrantless Searches by Jay Schweikert:
N.D.Ga.: NY arrest warrant executed in GA violated NY law but not 4A, and suppression of gun found on arrest would not be granted
There was a New York local court arrest warrant for defendant, and he was arrested on it in Georgia, and then indicted in federal Georgia for being a felon in possession. The government conceded that the arrest violated New York … Continue reading
D.Kan.: State law does apply under 4A in parole searches; here, there was a reasonable basis for it
In the Tenth Circuit, the area of state probation and parole search is about the only area where the Fourth Amendment is informed by state law, and state law determines limits on state actors in the first instance, and then … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Def’s claim the officer conducted a pre-search of all bags on a Greyhound bus was based on speculation
The court does not buy defendant’s argument that the officer here waited until all luggage was removed from a Greyhound bus to conduct a feel-up tactile search of the bags in such a way to avoid Greyhound’s surveillance cameras. That’s … Continue reading
LA5: CI’s story provided PC for defendant’s stop for a hand-to-hand transaction police then observed
The CI provided probable cause for defendant’s stop for a hand-to-hand transaction. The CI’s story was that was what was going down, and defendant came up to the car and leaned in. While the officers didn’t see what happened in … Continue reading
Techdirt: Investigation Finds Google Collected Location Data Even With Location Services Turned Off
Techdirt: Investigation Finds Google Collected Location Data Even With Location Services Turned Off by Tim Cushing: This does raise some interesting Fourth Amendment questions, even if the circumstances under which the collection occurred make it unlikely these factors will ever … Continue reading
M.D.N.C.: To credit def’s 2255 was to then show he repeatedly lied to arresting officers; denied
Defendant’s 2255 version of events was implausible because, to prevail on this claim, he’d have to admit that he repeatedly lied to the officers who interviewed him when he consented to a search of his computers. That’s reason enough to … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Def was detained at the border and inside a building, but he wasn’t “in custody” for Miranda purposes
Defendant was detained at the border and inside a building, but he wasn’t “in custody” for Miranda purposes. “Bustillos-Ramirez’s time seated at the table presents a situation similar to those cited in which the courts found that the defendant was … Continue reading
NE: SW for “any and all firearms” from def’s place in a murder investigation wasn’t constitutionally imparticular
The search warrant here sought “any and all firearms” from defendant’s place. The police didn’t know whether a rifle or a handgun did the killing, but it was possible it was a rifle stuffed in his pants leg. The search … Continue reading
WaPo: The Volokh Conspiracy Blog: Four thoughts on the briefing in Carpenter v. United States
WaPo: The Volokh Conspiracy Blog: Four thoughts on the briefing in Carpenter v. United States by Orin Kerr: The Supreme Court will hear argument on Nov. 29th in Carpenter v. United States, a case on whether the Fourth Amendment applies … Continue reading
VA: RS not required for a jail book-in strip search
Reasonable suspicion is not required for a jail book-in strip search. Defendant was arrested for a drug offense, and he was freely moving around in book-in, but a search ultimately happened, and a baggie of cocaine was protruding from his … Continue reading
CA11: Failure to object to R&R was waiver of search issue
Defendant didn’t object to the magistrate’s R&R. The stop was found valid in the district court for having a tag light out and then consenting to a search. United States v. Jackson, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 23048 (11th Cir. Nov. … Continue reading
The Marshall Project: A ‘Routine’ Stop Almost Ended My Career Before It Started
The Marshall Project: A ‘Routine’ Stop Almost Ended My Career Before It Started by Johnathan S. Perkins: Sometimes there’s danger in speaking out against perceived police misconduct.
CA3: Pointing a gun at ptf during arrest and making him lie on the ground is not excessive force
“Krasley is alleged to have pointed a gun at Pearson and required him to lie on the ground, but the charge of promoting prostitution was serious, Pearson was in a vehicle and thus could have fled, and Pearson was uninjured. … Continue reading
CA10: Jury instruction that search issue was for the court and not the jury didn’t lessen the govt’s burden of proof
Defendant’s challenge to the investigative techniques in this child rape case led the district court to instruct the jury that the propriety of searches and seizures were questions for the court. The defense objected that the instruction lessened the government’s … Continue reading
NY, Kings Co.: Use of a Stingray violates defendant’s REP in his cell phone
Use of a Stingray violates defendant’s reasonable expectation of privacy in his cell phone. It cannot be compared at all to a pen register. People v. Gordon, 2017 NY Slip Op 27364, 2017 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 4285 (Kings Co. Nov. … Continue reading
OH12: Def’s petition for discretionary review dismissed for failure to file briefs leaves appellate result intact
The trial court suppressed but the court of appeals reversed. The supreme court granted discretionary review, but it was dismissed for defendant’s failure to file a brief. The case was remanded back to the trial court, and the appellate reversal … Continue reading