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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
TX13: Search incident can occur before formal arrest as long as both are justified
Search incident can occur before formal arrest as long as both are justified. Hill v. State, 2017 Tex. App. LEXIS 10749 (Tex. App. – Corpus Christi – Edinburg, Nov. 16, 2017) (memorandum).* Appellant’s claims that VA attorneys hacked her computer … Continue reading
CA9: Long protective weapons search wasn’t justified by RS weapons could be found
“Although Officers Ellis and Prince may have reasonably believed that Perryman and his cousin, Anthony Perryman (“Anthony”), were dangerous, the evidence does not support the district court’s conclusion that the officers reasonably believed that Perryman or Anthony would gain immediate … Continue reading
WaPo: Senate bill would impose new privacy limits on accessing NSA’s surveillance data
WaPo: Senate bill would impose new privacy limits on accessing NSA’s surveillance data by Karoun Demirjian and Ellen Nakashima:
NY: Officer safety a mixed question of law and fact with record support; affirmed
“The issue whether ‘the likelihood of a weapon in [defendant’s] car [was] substantial and the danger to the … safety [of the officers who stopped that vehicle was] “actual and specific”’ … presents a mixed question of law and fact … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Govt’s rationale for impoundment failed: car was in a safe residential neighborhood in front of a friend’s house who said he’d watch it
Defendant was buying the car searched from his sister, although it was still in her name and registered to her. He had standing to challenge its search. The government’s rationale for impoundment was community caretaking, but the car was parked … Continue reading
Techdirt: Most Senate Intelligence Committee Members Are Fine With Domestic Surveillance By The NSA
Techdirt: Most Senate Intelligence Committee Members Are Fine With Domestic Surveillance By The NSA by Tim Cushing: The Senate Intelligence Committee has released its report [PDF] on its Section 702 reauthorization plan. Rather than adopt any serious reforms — like … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Officers did not have reason to believe defendant was the person named in his arrest warrant when they detained him; arrest suppressed
The US Marshals did not have a reasonable articulable basis that defendant was the person named in their arrest warrant at the time they detained him on it, and the product of the arrest is suppressed. United States v. Morales, … Continue reading
LA: Search incident can occur before formal arrest
The trial court denied the motion to suppress and the court of appeals reversed. When defendant’s name came back as having a warrant, the fact the search occurred before the formal arrest doesn’t matter. State v. Owens, 2017 La. LEXIS … Continue reading
TX4 seemingly applies wrong standard of review to RS
Defendant wasn’t seized just because he and an officer were conversing. On the totality, the trial court reasonably concluded that the officer had reasonable suspicion to continue it and ask for consent to search defendant’s wallet. [The court says, however: … Continue reading
TN: Def had no standing in wife’s journal
Defendant’s wife’s journal was found by her son and delivered to the police, and it mentioned defendant’s sex crimes against their daughter. He had no standing to challenge the seizure, and it was a private seizure at that. State v. … Continue reading
Reason: The Senate Intelligence Committee Really Wants to Secretly Snoop on Americans
Reason: The Senate Intelligence Committee Really Wants to Secretly Snoop on Americans by Scott Shackford: Every attempt to restrain and reform unwarranted domestic surveillance batted away.
PA: Riley doesn’t apply to parole searches of cell phones
Riley doesn’t apply to parole searches of cell phones. Commonwealth v. Murray, 2017 PA Super 363, 2017 Pa. Super. LEXIS 928 (Nov. 15, 2017):
Houston Public Media: Report On Body Cameras Asks That Police Officers File Initial Reports Without Reviewing Footage
Houston Public Media: Report On Body Cameras Asks That Police Officers File Initial Reports Without Reviewing Footage by Al Ortiz: It contends the policy used by HPD and other departments can cause inaccuracies
WaPo: Body searches of 900 Georgia students by sheriff’s office leads to $3 million settlement
WaPo: Body searches of 900 Georgia students by sheriff’s office leads to $3 million settlement by Susan Hogan:
D.Colo.: Officer’s near complete failure to follow inventory policy showed it was an investigative search
The inventory of defendant’s car was clearly an investigative search, and the lack of any paper inventory and the body camera video prove it. Defendant’s cell phone wasn’t logged in, the officer said, because it was taken into the station … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: PO seeing an “unregistered” cell phone was seizure in plain view
Defendant was on supervised release for child pornography and he had a cell phone not listed with US Probation. The phone was seen during a home visit. The PO picked up the phone and turned it on and a picture … Continue reading
TechDirt: Opinion: DOJ: Civil Asset Forfeiture Is A Good Thing That Only Harms All Those Criminals We Never Arrest
TechDirt: Opinion: DOJ: Civil Asset Forfeiture Is A Good Thing That Only Harms All Those Criminals We Never Arrest by Tim Cushing: In most cases, the agency performing the seizure is allowed to directly benefit from it. Whether it’s used … Continue reading