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Recent Posts
- 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
- D.Utah: Minor time detours to writing up a traffic ticket didn’t unreasonable extend this stop; the dog was quickly on its way
- KY: Despite lack of nexus, SW sustained under GFE
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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)
--Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (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: September 2018
M.D.Tenn.: A delivery one week before the SW was supported by 3 known prior sales in 4 months
“Here, the last purchase was made one week before the application for the search warrant. By itself, this does not render the information from the CI stale. … Besides, ‘even if a significant period of time elapsed, it is possible … Continue reading
WaPo: Two black pastors wanted help with a flat tire. A sheriff’s deputy asked if they had guns or drugs.
WaPo: Two black pastors wanted help with a flat tire. A sheriff’s deputy asked if they had guns or drugs. by Taylor Telford: Now an investigation of possible profiling.
S.D.N.Y.: Def has to show standing, and he can’t rely on affidavit for SW to do it
Defendant moved to suppress a Facebook search warrant for an account ostensibly in his name. A total of ten Facebook warrants were issued. Defendant did not file an affidavit claiming the Facebook account was his, and he cannot rely on … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: Stopping ptf for giving cop “the finger” violates clearly established 4A law
Stopping plaintiff merely for giving a police officer the finger violates clearly established Fourth Amendment law. Clark v. Coleman, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 136749 (W.D. Va. Aug. 14, 2018):
engadget: New lawsuit shows your phone is unsafe at American borders
engadget: New lawsuit shows your phone is unsafe at American borders by Violet Blue: CBP = Customs and Border Profiling
NYLJ: NYPD Stop-and-Frisk Litigation Plaintiffs Say Confidentiality Order Would Erode Transparency
NYLJ: NYPD Stop-and-Frisk Litigation Plaintiffs Say Confidentiality Order Would Erode Transparency by Andrew Denney: Plaintiffs in the stop-and-frisk litigation against the New York City Police Department said that a federal monitor’s proposed confidentiality order would hide key data, such as … Continue reading
PA grants review on whether executed SWs are public records under common law right of access
In re 2014 Allegheny County Investigating Grand Jury, 2018 Pa. LEXIS 4488 (Aug. 29, 2018):
TN: Because a probation search doesn’t require PC, staleness of information is not an issue
A probation search does not require probable cause, so staleness is not an issue. State v. Ward, 2018 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 666 (Aug. 30, 2018). Defendant had a GPS put on his vehicle and thermal imaging of his building, … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Facially valid arrest warrant not undermined by def’s claim he had an alibi for crime
Defendant argues that the execution of the arrest warrant on him in his own house was invalid because he had an alibi for the time of the crime. That’s not up to the executing officers. The warrant was facially valid. … Continue reading
ME: Def’s jacket she was sitting on when arrested was properly subject to search incident
Defendant’s jacket was still associated with her when she was arrested, and it was properly subject to a search incident even though she was handcuffed and sitting on it. The validity of the search incident, however, did not translate into … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: The apparent layout and size of house and speed with which a protective sweep was conducted shows it reasonable
The place of arrest at the threshold, the layout of the house as seen from the front door, the size of the house, and the speed with which the protective sweep (one minute and 15-30 seconds) shows that it was … Continue reading
TX14: The fact home surveillance systems are cheap now isn’t PC to get a SW for one in a home without some fact or inference one will be found
To get a search warrant for home surveillance equipment, the affidavit for the warrant has to show some inference or fact that there is, in fact, one to be found there. The mere fact they are a lot cheaper these … Continue reading
PA: Nexus to house shown by def leaving home for a controlled buy
Nexus was shown for defendant’s house by his leaving the house to go a controlled buy. A frisk of defendant when he was home for the execution of the search warrant is valid. Commonwealth v. Kemp, 2018 PA Super 237, … Continue reading
CA5: Texas medical board’s forthwith subpoena was shown not to be pretextual for criminal investigative purpose
Plaintiff is a doctor running a clinic dispensing opiods, and the Texas medical board got a forthwith administrative subpoena out for him and seized records. The defendants get qualified immunity. It’s not clear that doctors are a closely regulated industry … Continue reading
CA4: Where CI only provided info for SW, he wasn’t a material witness for trial so no reason for disclosure shown
Defendant didn’t make a showing to get the CI’s identity under Roviaro. The CI was merely the source of information to get the search warrant and he wouldn’t be a witness at trial. There wasn’t even a sufficient showing to … Continue reading
WaPo: Police seized $10,000 of a couple’s cash. They couldn’t get it back — until they went public.
WaPo: Police seized $10,000 of a couple’s cash. They couldn’t get it back — until they went public. by Deanna Paul. They won it gambling in a casino. The police didn’t bother to check. Or care.
SC: GPS on a probationer has to be properly authenticated, and PO isn’t the way
Defendant was accused of robbing a Zaxby’s restaurant with a probationer wearing a GPS monitor. The probationer pled. Defendant went to trial, and the probation officer was used to authenticate the GPS information. It was inadequate. However, the court applies … Continue reading
NE: Def was stopped on street bloody and highly agitated; he was detained and then officers were going to transport him away from area but not arrest him; patdown validly produced brass knuckles
Police responded to a call and found defendant on the street, and he’d apparently been involved in an altercation. He and his hands were bloody and he was highly agitated. Ultimately, the police handcuffed him until he calmed down while … Continue reading
MA: Officer’s observation of text message just received on a screen of seized cell phone was admissible
Defendant was arrested after the police observed a buy and defendant fled and was arrested. Officers took his phone off of him but hadn’t searched it. While the officer was at the police station, the phone received a text message, … Continue reading
CA6: Potential overbreadth issue is severed from SW and it’s still sufficient
The search warrant could have been way more clear that it was seeking child pornography. It did say that it was looking for evidence of coercion and enticement of a minor and transfer of obscene materials. Taken as a whole, … Continue reading