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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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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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Section 1983 Blog -
"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
E.D.La.: Probation search of a cell phone is permitted under the search condition for searching “personal effects”
A probation search of a cell phone is permitted under a provision in the search condition for searching “personal effects.” United States v. Ard, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 187125 (E.D. La. Nov. 1, 2018). There’s no evidence that NCMEC’s search … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Thermal imaging SW was based on probable cause because CI corroborated
“The Chardon Municipal Court Judge had a substantial basis for concluding that probable cause existed in issuing the warrant for a thermal image search of 7071 Ledge. The Government must obtain a search warrant before use of thermal imaging equipment … Continue reading
The Recorder/Law.com: NITs to Pick: An EFF Attorney Riffs on a Recent Ninth Circuit Malware Decision
The Recorder/Law.com: NITs to Pick: An EFF Attorney Riffs on a Recent Ninth Circuit Malware Decision by Ian Lopez: The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Andrew Crocker says that a controversial warrant employed in an FBI child pornography sting also recently waived … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: With PC to arrest because of prior immigration removal, distance from border doesn’t matter
Even though they were more than 100 miles from an international border, ICE officers had probable cause (which was conceded) to believe that defendant was in the U.S. despite having been previously removed. Therefore, the stop was valid. United States … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Officers called to noise complaint could ask for ID even though noise had stopped
Officers investigating a noise complaint ended up talking to defendant in a parked car. They could ask for his DL despite the noise having abated. While that was going on, one officer could see marijuana hidden under the edge of … Continue reading
CA6: Affidavit for SW failed both PC and nexus, but GFE applied: affidavit was detailed and 62 pages
The affidavit for the search warrant here failed to show both probable cause and nexus, and the court details why. However, the 62 page detailed affidavit detailing the whole investigation was not bare bones by any means, and the good … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Stop of wrong man on mistaken identity was objectively reasonable
Officers approached the defendant reasonably believing he was somebody else, and he ran. When they finally caught him and rolled him over, they realized they had the wrong person. Nevertheless, the stop was objectively reasonable despite mistaken identity. United States … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Rodriguez doesn’t start to apply until the stop occurs
Defendant was surveilled in a funeral home at a funeral, and he was stopped later. Rodriguez does not apply before the stop actually occurred. United States v. Thompson, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 185267 (W.D. Ky. Oct. 30, 2018). “Such specific … Continue reading
FL1: Def’s car search outside his chain link fence was outside the curtilage
Defendant was stopped for a traffic offense, but he made it to his mobile home and parked outside the chain link fence. The court finds the car was outside the curtilage under Dunn when the stop and dog sniff occurred. … Continue reading
CA9: Forced sex abuse exam of children without parental consent or court approval violates 4A
Children were removed from the home because of suspected child abuse and subjected to forced gynecological and rectal exams without any court authorization or parental knowledge or consent. The court assumes the “special needs” doctrine applies and then finds it … Continue reading
Charlottesville: City police purchase equipment to crack locked iPhones
Charlottesville: City police purchase equipment to crack locked iPhones by Bryan McKenzie: A device specifically designed to break into iPhones and Apple operating systems and allow access to encrypted files has been approved for purchase by the Charlottesville Police Department.
S.D.Fla.: A protective sweep doesn’t permit a look in a toilet tank
A protective sweep doesn’t permit a look in a toilet tank. United States v. Brown, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 185187 (S.D. Fla. Oct. 29, 2018). Plaintiffs’ 1983 search case fails. There was probable cause for issuance of the search warrant … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Inventory of a locked backpack was reasonable and within dept regs
The inventory of defendant’s locked backpack when he was taken into custody was within departmental policy which was followed and was otherwise reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. United States v. Trujillo, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 184486 (D. N.M. Oct. 29, … Continue reading
D.D.C.: FBI Agent’s tampering with evidence in def’s case doesn’t lead to dismissal; not significant enough to case
Defendant’s 2255 for proven misconduct by an FBI agent involved in his case of tampering with evidence during the search that surfaced after defendant’s guilty plea does not lead to overturning his conviction. While the agent’s misconduct in another case … Continue reading
Wired: The Privacy Battle to Save Google From Itself
Wired: The Privacy Battle to Save Google From Itself by Lily Hay Newman: Google is not a consumer software company, or even a search company. It’s an ad company. It collects exhaustive data about its users in the service of … Continue reading
S.D.Tex.: Carpenter applies to a 2015 CSLI application because the case is still pending
Carpenter applies to defendant’s CSLI because his case is still pending despite the fact the CSLI was obtained in 2015. Suppressed. United States v. Beverly, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 183539 (S.D. Tex. Oct. 26, 2018). Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for … Continue reading
IL: Dog sniff at motel room door violates 4A
A 2014 dog sniff at a motel room door violates the Fourth Amendment, and a reasonably well-trained officer in Illinois would know that. Suppressed. People v. Lindsey, 2018 IL App (3d) 150877, 2018 Ill. App. LEXIS 807 (Oct. 30, 2018). … Continue reading