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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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: December 2017
W.D.N.Y.: Sealed indictment attached to affidavit for SW helped show PC for issuance
The affidavit for the search warrant attached defendant’s sealed indictment. Together they showed probable cause. Defendant doesn’t get a Franks hearing because of the omission that he was in the military. United States v. Owens, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 199143 … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Any reasonable person on supervised release would know a computer search condition extended to a cell phone
Defendant was on supervised release, and he had a computer search condition. The court concludes that any reasonable person would understand a cell phone would be a “computer” for the search condition. In any event, it had already been searched … Continue reading
The Register (UK): Looking through walls, now easier than ever
The Register (UK): Looking through walls, now easier than ever by Thomas Claburn: Boffins working to put everyone in glass houses [Kyllo redux, with better technology]
Techdirt: Things The Intelligence Community Is Cool With: Backdoor Searches, Skirting Reporting Requirements, Parallel Construction
Techdirt: Things The Intelligence Community Is Cool With: Backdoor Searches, Skirting Reporting Requirements, Parallel Construction by Tim Cushing:
MSNBC: FBI Director seems to confirm use of FISA warrants in Russia Probe
MSNBC: FBI Director seems to confirm use of FISA warrants in Russia Probe (video) No wonder the President wants a private CIA.
NYTimes: Warrantless Surveillance Can Continue Even if Law Expires, Officials Say
NYTimes: Warrantless Surveillance Can Continue Even if Law Expires, Officials Say by Charlie Savage: The Trump administration has decided that the National Security Agency and the F.B.I. can lawfully keep operating their warrantless surveillance program even if Congress fails to … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: CI “working off” his own case is not inherently unbelievable because he needs substantial assistance for a 5K1.1
A CI “working off” his own case is not inherently unbelievable. If anything, such a CI has an incentive to be truthful because, if he’s not, he could lose a USSG § 5K1.1 reduction for not substantially assisting the government. … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: Six month old information in gun sale case wasn’t stale
Defendant was alleged to have sold quantities of firearms more than once. Six month old information in a gun sale case was not stale. United States v. Fisher-Bland, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 199259 (N.D. Ga. Nov. 16, 2017), adopted, 2017 … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: 16 day delay in search of cell phone under SW not unreasonable
After a lawful seizure of a cell phone and issuance of a search warrant to search it, a 16 day delay in actually searching the phone did not make it unreasonable. United States v. Brantley, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 198432 … Continue reading
Guam: If no criminal case pending, motion for return of property can be treated as a new civil action
If a criminal case is not pending, a motion for return of property is treated as a new civil action, and should proceed accordingly (following state and federal cases, most recently Pristine Pre-Owned Auto, Inc. v. Courrier, 236 W. Va. … Continue reading
WaPo: Amazon wants a key to your house. I did it. I regretted it.
WaPo: Amazon wants a key to your house. I did it. I regretted it. by Geoffrey Fisher: Amazon Key might help you avoid package theft, but the smart lock and camera aren’t good enough to warrant giving Amazon control of … Continue reading
CA2: Traffic stop ignored traffic inquiries and went into carrying drugs within 5 minutes; unreasonable under Rodriguez but valid at time, so GFE applies
“This appeal arises out of a traffic stop of Defendant-Appellant Brayan Gomez and his resulting judgment of conviction for heroin-trafficking …. During the five-minute traffic stop prompted by multiple traffic violations, the officers prolonged Gomez’s seizure by asking him narcotics-related … Continue reading
CA4: Officer who obtained court order for minor ptf to be detained and to get an erection so police could photograph it gets no QI; this isn’t remotely reasonable
Plaintiff was a 17 year old that allegedly sent a picture of his erection to his 15 year old girlfriend. Defendant obtained a court order for plaintiff to be transported to a juvenile detention center to masturbate to get an … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Police officer’s presence at repossession doesn’t make it state action
A police officer’s presence at the scene of a vehicle repossession doesn’t turn an otherwise private action into a Fourth Amendment seizure. King v. Blackhawk Recovery & Investigations, LLC, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 198373 (E.D. Mich. Dec. 3, 2017). “As … Continue reading
UT: There was PC for the warrant, and whether there is a state exclusionary rule doesn’t have to be decided
The trial court erred in concluding there was no probable cause for the issuance of the search warrant, but the good faith exception applied. Instead, there was a substantial basis for issuance of the search warrant, and the exclusionary rule … Continue reading
techdirt: Intelligence Director Says Gov’t Can Demand Encryption Backdoors Without Having To Run It By The FISA Court
techdirt: Intelligence Director Says Gov’t Can Demand Encryption Backdoors Without Having To Run It By The FISA Court by Tim Cushing:
NBC News: FDA Approves Pill That Tracks Whether You Took Your Meds
NBC News: FDA Approves Pill That Tracks Whether You Took Your Meds by Maggie Fox: The Food and Drug Administration approved a new pill [on November 14] that can track whether people have taken their medications – and report back … Continue reading
MassPrivateI: Police in two states use hospitals to take motorists blood without a warrant
MassPrivateI: Police in two states use hospitals to take motorists blood without a warrant:
Lexis’s U.S. Dist. database will hit 200,000 in 2017 today
… for the first time. They’re clearly trying to include more stuff from the U.S. District Courts. Some of it is meaningless, I know and I see, but there is more substance being posted. This is about 4 times the … Continue reading
OH12: 911 call about overdose brought narcs and EMS; entry justified and plain view sustained
Defendant was making methamphetamine in his garage, and he overdosed on heroin. His mother found him and called 911. A narcotics officer arrived shortly before EMS, and he saw defendant on the floor with a used syringe near him. EMS … Continue reading