Archives
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Recent Posts
- 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
- CO: DNA could be seized from trash
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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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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)
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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: February 2019
D.Neb.: No REP in psych hospital’s bathroom stalls
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a psych hospital’s bathroom stalls where plaintiff was involuntarily committed. Narcisse v. Kubes, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16111 (D. Neb. Feb. 1, 2019). There was reasonable suspicion to stop and detain defendant … Continue reading
CA3: Ptf adequately pled City had a pattern of illegal searches to state a § 1983 claim
Plaintiff was imprisoned for six months on a drug charge. After a successful motion to suppress, the charges were dropped. His § 1983 case against the officers fails, but it survives challenge against the city. “He has adequately alleged that … Continue reading
ME: SW for all computers in house in a CP case wasn’t overbroad; digital images are easily moved and secreted
In a search warrant for child pornography, a request for all computers and electronic media on the premises wasn’t unreasonable, considering the ease with which digital images can be moved from one device to another and hidden. State v. Roy, … Continue reading
S.D.Ind.: Towing and inventory objectively reasonable; subjective motive doesn’t matter
The towing and inventory of defendant’s vehicle was objectively reasonable. His later assertion that he uncovered evidence of a subjective motivation for towing and inventory is insufficient to overcome the objective basis. United States v. Vales, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
A.F.Ct.Crim.App.: Forced catherization violated MRE 312(f) and exclusionary rule applied
Appellant was a JAG officer under medical treatment taking drugs, but those drugs interacted with alcohol and led to a DUI and a charge of being drunk on duty. A blood sample was obtained by medical personnel. Her urine, however, … Continue reading
AK: SW for tenant space led to search of computer in landlord’s apt, and that was without PC
Computers are entitled to the same sensitive Fourth Amendment analysis that cell phones got in Riley. Here, Pohland was an Assistant AG of Alaska involved in labor relations matters for the state. McRoberts and her husband were tenants of hers, … Continue reading
D.N.M.: The fact a SW might be invalid isn’t grounds for an injunction for return of property where prosecution was still contemplated
Plaintiff seeks an injunction contending that the seizure of tax resister literature violated the First and Fourth Amendment. The seizure was based on a warrant that it is evidence of a crime not yet prosecuted. The fact the Fourth Amendment … Continue reading
WA: Sitting in a car in a parking lot holding a gun is not RS that a crime is going to occur
A report to the police of a man sitting in a car holding a gun in his lap was not reasonable suspicion, and it could not be the basis of a stop. Just holding a gun is not an indication … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: Govt doesn’t get to photograph all tattoos on defs’ bodies, despite what’s available on social media; just those normally visible
The government can photograph defendants’ tattoos that are normally visible in daily use. The government cannot, however, photograph tattoos usually covered by clothes despite the fact they were occasionally revealed on social media pages. That’s not a waiver as to … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: It’s settled one can’t relitigate merits of 4A claim via 2254 habeas
This 2254 is merely an attempt to relitigate his Fourth Amendment claim in habeas, and thus it’s barred. “In his traverse, Thomas has not argued or attempted to demonstrate that there was a subversion of the hearing process in state … Continue reading
Digital Trends: As law enforcement gets increasingly high-tech, is privacy being compromised?
Digital Trends: As law enforcement gets increasingly high-tech, is privacy being compromised? by Jules Suzdaltsev:
D.D.C.: Officers’ testimony about smell of PCP was too equivocal to be reliable
The officers’ testimony about allegedly smelling PCP when they stopped defendant was too equivocal through the hearing to be reliable. A patdown of defendant off that alleged smell produced a gun in his pocket. Defendant’s alleged consent to the patdown … Continue reading
ABAJ: Lawyer’s suit says FaceTime bug allowed secret recording of deposition, caused emotional trauma
ABAJ: Lawyer’s suit says FaceTime bug allowed secret recording of deposition, caused emotional trauma bY Debra Cassens Weiss:
CA9: The federal appropriation statute against prosecution in MMJ cases is not an immunity from SW
In the face of the state’s medical marijuana law, the search warrant for defendant’s property was based on federal law not state law. The federal appropriations clause against prosecution in medical marijuana cases is not immunity. “The two cases that … Continue reading