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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
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)
ACLU on privacy
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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
N.D.Fla.: Entry into motel room was valid with arrest warrant when officers reasonably believed he would be there
The U.S. Marshal’s fugitive task force, with arrest warrant in hand, was looking for defendant. They were watching his motel room and saw him outside and gave chase. They lost sight of him and circled back to his hotel room … Continue reading
CA7: Hot pursuit of a purported drug dealer into ptf’s house was valid under Santana
The police approached a young man on the street in an area known for drug trade to talk to him. He “turned on his heels” and fled, with the police in pursuit, right to plaintiffs’ house, past one plaintiff out … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Lack of detail in a report on a knock-and-talk didn’t amount to a material omission for Franks purposes
A Franks challenge requires affidavits or other sworn testimony as an offer of proof. Franks, 438 U.S. at 171. Defendant doesn’t provide any. On the merits of the search and seizure claim, it started with a knock-and-talk, and they are … Continue reading
VA: “You can’t do that. You can’t search my car.” not per se violation of 4A and it’s admissible to show possession [by the only person in possession]
There is no per se rule that “You can’t do that. You can’t search my car.” was a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Under traditional 403 probative value v. prejudice balancing, the trial court did not err in admitting it … Continue reading
Texas Observer: Documents: Texas National Guard Installed Cellphone Spying Devices on Surveillance Planes
Texas Observer: Documents: Texas National Guard Installed Cellphone Spying Devices on Surveillance Planes by G.W. Schulz & Melissa del Bosque: The Texas National Guard last year spent more than $373,000 to install controversial cellphone eavesdropping devices in secretive surveillance aircraft.
Hofstra Chronicle: Opinion: Big Brother is watching – The future of police surveillance
Hofstra Chronicle: Opinion: Big Brother is watching – The future of police surveillance by Delilah Gray:
N.D.Cal.: Parking on the wrong side of the street justifies a traffic stop
Defendant’s car didn’t appear (at first because it was compliant) to have a paper temporary tag. It was also parked on the opposite side of the street where it was facing oncoming traffic in violation of the traffic laws. That … Continue reading
OH3: Search incident under Gant isn’t automatic in a DUI arrest; more indicators required
OVI (DUI) is not an offense where there is per se evidence to be found in the vehicle by search incident under Gant (or the automobile exception). Something more than just the offense is required to use the stop to … Continue reading
CA6: Auto exception continues to place of inventory; heroin found by plain feel
Defendant’s car was pulled over for a missing license plate and overtinting. The “plain” smell of marijuana was evident, and he was removed from the car for a patdown. The patdown revealed heroin by plain feel, which was valid. The … Continue reading
Chicago Sun-Times: After body cameras on Chicago cops, could gun cameras be next?
Chicago Sun-Times: After body cameras on Chicago cops, could gun cameras be next? by Mitch Dudek: All Chicago police officers on patrol will be wearing chest-mounted body cameras by the end of the year — but could gun-mounted cameras be next?
Corporate Counsel: The Employee Privacy Risks of Company Chips
Corporate Counsel: The Employee Privacy Risks of Company Chips by Amanda Ciccatelli:
Daily Business Review: The Right To Be Secure Against Unreasonable Search and Seizure of Overseas Electronic Data?
Daily Business Review: The Right To Be Secure Against Unreasonable Search and Seizure of Overseas Electronic Data? by Justin Guido A U.S. based company receives a warrant from the U.S. government issued under the Stored Communications Act. As part of … Continue reading
GA: Reasonable mistake of law doesn’t mean “good working order” statute requires an interior mirror on a truck; nothing at all in statute on that
The reasonable mistake of law field encounters a new one: Does a truck have to have an inside rearview mirror when under the “good working order” statute? No, and concluding otherwise is not reasonable. The statute doesn’t even come close. … Continue reading
OR: Def’s motion to suppress that he was subjected to an “unlawful warrantless arrest” sufficiently put the state on notice that it had to show PC
Defendant was walking four blocks from the area of a disturbance talking on a cell phone. When officers confronted him and commanded he stop, he “bladed up” and reached for a back pocket, making the officers fear he was armed. … Continue reading
D.Mont.: No REP in a jail call
Defendant’s recorded jail call did not afford him an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy. His reliance on a Montana case on another issue not at all like this that did recognize a limited reasonable expectation of privacy under the Montana … Continue reading
EFF: Sen. Feinstein Supports “Backdoor” Warrants, So Why Don’t Reps. Nunes and Schiff?
EFF: Sen. Feinstein Supports “Backdoor” Warrants, So Why Don’t Reps. Nunes and Schiff? by David Ruiz: As the deadline for renewing and reforming key portions of the NSA’s spying apparatus looms less than two months away, two of the most … Continue reading
ID: Trial court suppressed forced catheterization of OUI suspect in hospital (not an issue on appeal)
The trial court suppressed a forced catheterization of defendant in her OUI case as exceeding her consent. It wasn’t clear whether it was for law enforcement or medical purposes. This wasn’t an issue on appeal (for good reason because it … Continue reading
CA9: Def’s wife was a private actor turning over his hard drive to the police
Defendant’s wife was not acting as an agent of the government when she turned over his hard drive to the police. The search warrant they obtained was clearly issued on probable cause. United States v. Wolff, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading