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- 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
- CO: DNA could be seized from trash
- CA8: Nebraska statute allowing SWs to cross state lines doesn’t violate 4A
- WA: Sweat patch as condition of release violated state constitution’s privacy provision
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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)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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 2018
D.V.I.: Package shipped from SC to VI did not cross “border”
Defendant mailing packages from South Carolina to the Virgin Islands under an alias has standing because the government alleges the alias on the package is defendant. The sealed packages have Fourth Amendment protection and a reasonable expectation of privacy. The … Continue reading
Book 30% off this week
Book on sale at 30% off all week.
S.D.Cal.: Yahoo’s intensive internal investigation into CP trafficking reported to NCMEC and then law enforcement was purely private search
Yahoo conducted an extensive internal investigation with public source information and its own records to identify accounts trafficking in child pornography from the Philippines. They reported twice to law enforcement and to NCMEC, and then law enforcement got involved. Yahoo’s … Continue reading
KS: Searching purse of driver taken away by ambulance from a car wreck was unreasonable
Police conducted an unreasonable warrantless search of defendant’s purse for her DL when she was taken from the scene of an accident by ambulance. No exception to the warrant requirement applies. State v. Evans, 2018 Kan. LEXIS 580 (Nov. 21, … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Supervised release search of home unreasonable because govt lacked PC he lived there
The government argued that a person on supervised release had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his own apartment, which the court roundly rejects. Yet, the government lacked probable cause to believe that defendant was residing in the home at … Continue reading
AK: Search of tenant’s computer found during SW for landlord’s computer was unreasonable
Alaska State Troopers had a search warrant for a computer in a house. While there, they find a computer that belonged to another who was the target’s tenant, so they decided to seize that computer, too, and search it. The … Continue reading
CA6 on remand of Byrd remands to trial court for more factfinding on three issues
On remand from Byrd v. United States, 138 S.Ct. 1518 (2018), CA6 sends the case back to the district court to resolve the three issues that still need factual development. Was there probable cause, does the strawman rental actually deprive … Continue reading
IN: Seizure of only cash under SW for drugs and cash from drug sales was unreasonable and without PC
When police had a search warrant for a package that included cash for drug purposes in the particular description, the seizure of only cash wasn’t justified. Nothing showed that the money was related to crime. Hodges v. State, 2018 Ind. … Continue reading
NYTimes: Marijuana Legalization Threatens These Dogs’ Collars
NYTimes: Marijuana Legalization Threatens These Dogs’ Collars by Stacy Crowley: Drug-sniffing dogs that are trained to detect marijuana are complicating searches where pot has been legalized. That’s forcing some into early retirement.
AK: Initial warrantless entry after attempted warrantless arrest, standoff, then arrest was saved by inevitable discovery with later warrant
Alaska State Troopers developed information that two men were involved in burglaries and travelled far to arrest them, albeit without a warrant. They ordered the men out of their rented cabin, and that would have been an illegal arrest, but … Continue reading
N.D.Fla.: Rehearing denied; interruptions of counsel during suppression hearing were because counsel was wasting time asking repetitive questions; she lost on merits, not because of interruptions
Defendant’s motion for rehearing of the motion to suppress is denied. Defense counsel was interrupted during the witness examination, but it was because the questioning was repetitive and beating a dead horse. She lost on the merits and lack of … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Two month delay in getting SW for def’s storage unit wasn’t with bad faith and didn’t prejudice him
There was a two month delay between the seizure of defendant’s storage unit and the search warrant for it. There was no bad faith here. At worse, getting a search warrant fell through the cracks. The officers had probable cause … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: PC was a close call, so the court finds GFE applies instead
Probable cause is a close call here. The USMJ found probable cause and that the good faith exception applied. On review of the R&R, the court applies only the good faith exception to find the search valid. United States v. … Continue reading
FL4: Violating statute obtaining CSLI in 2001 suppressed, and no GFE
Police obtained defendant’s CSLI in 2001 by subpoena and without a court order contrary to statute. Defendant argued a search warrant was required. Then Carpenter was decided in 2018 requiring a warrant. The state violated the statute requiring a court … Continue reading
Three 2255s alleging IAC for no motion to suppress fail
One of defendant’s 2255 claims was that defense counsel was ineffective for not filing a motion to suppress when he doesn’t allege anything about it and he plead guilty. Pullu v. United States, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 197809 (S.D. Fla. … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: No REP in a police interrogation room
Defendant had no expectation of privacy in a police interrogation room that had a camera and microphone hidden in its smoke detector. He was overheard talking to his sister admitting that there was a gun linked to the crime. The … Continue reading
MD: Phone call recorded on cell phone that was searched not protected by state wiretap act
Defendant recorded a drug transaction on his cell phone. When his phone was seized and then searched during his arrest, the recording was found. It was legitimately seized, and the defendant can’t claim the state wiretap act protected him as … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: SW to Skype produced no verifiable information ptf was account user; no PC for a SW based on that information
A search warrant to Skype that produced vague information about its account holder that essentially could have been anyone because there was no verification by Skype was insufficient to show probable cause, and plaintiffs get summary judgment on that question. … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Parking across def’s driveway wasn’t his seizure when he was hiding under a trailer
The officer parking across defendant’s driveway wasn’t his seizure. Defendant wasn’t seized until he came out from under a trailer. When he was seized, it was with reasonable suspicion. United States v. Shelton, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 197713 (D. N.M. … Continue reading