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- 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
- CA8: Nebraska statute allowing SWs to cross state lines doesn’t violate 4A
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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: April 2019
NPR: This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—April 7
“Judicial activism” is determined only by whether your side won: NPR: This Day in Liberal Judicial Activism—April 7 by Ed Whelan:
Cato blog: A Pretextual Traffic Stop Should Require Sufficient Pretext
Cato blog: A Pretextual Traffic Stop Should Require Sufficient Pretext by Jonathan Blanks:
NYLJ: Queens Attorney Convicted in Scheme to Reduce Client’s Prison Sentence
NYLJ: Queens Attorney Convicted in Scheme to Reduce Client’s Prison Sentence by Dan M. Clark. A call was recorded between the defendant defense lawyer and the client calling on a smuggled cell phone from jail.
Techdirt: Appeals Court Says It’s OK For Cops To Steal Stuff From Citizens
Techdirt: Appeals Court Says It’s OK For Cops To Steal Stuff From Citizens by Tim Cushing:
NPR: Motel 6 To Pay $12 Million After Improperly Giving Guest Lists To ICE
NPR: Motel 6 To Pay $12 Million After Improperly Giving Guest Lists To ICE by Francesca Paris:
D.Md.: Recorded call about a murder was PC for search of phone for evidence of the call
A recorded telephone call with the defendant allegedly discussing a murder supported probable cause to search his cell phone for evidence of the call. United States v. Worthy, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 56275 (D. Md. Apr. 2, 2019). Defendant was … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: No damages collectable in a motion for return of property
One can’t get damages in a Rule 41(g) motion for return of property. Hall v. United States, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 56524 (D. Ariz. Apr. 2, 2019). There was probable cause for search of the premises, and defendant lacks standing … Continue reading
CA11: Warrantless search of crawlspace after hostage standoff was reasonable
After a hostage standoff, police officers’ warrantless search of defendant’s crawlspace for other potential hostages was reasonable based on what they knew and didn’t know. United States v. Cooks, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 9775 (11th Cir. Apr. 2, 2019):
IL: Odor of marijuana detected during a knock-and-talk was reasonably obtained
Odor of marijuana detected during a knock-and-talk was reasonably obtained. People v. Brandt, 2019 IL App (4th) 180219, 2019 Ill. App. LEXIS 224 (Apr. 2, 2019). There was probable cause for plaintiff’s arrest for constructive possession. He was long time … Continue reading
CA2: Unlicensed and unauthorized and driver of rental car had no standing under Byrd
Unlicensed and unauthorized driver of rental car had no standing under Byrd. United States v. Lyle, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 9457 (2d Cir. Apr. 1, 2019). Defendant signed a search waiver as a condition of community control, and that was … Continue reading
CA8: Def’s lie about cell phone password in response to SW for phone warranted obstruction of justice enhancement
Defendant’s lying about his phone password in response to a search warrant for the phone warranted an obstruction of justice enhancement on the Sentencing Guidelines. United States v. Beattie, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 9462 (8th Cir. Apr. 1, 2019):
TN: Credibility determinations in motions to suppress are the province of the trial court
Credibility of the witnesses at a suppression hearing is entrusted to the trial court, and it isn’t subject to review on appeal. State v. Belt, 2019 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 208 (Apr. 1, 2019). A conclusory or general objection to … Continue reading
N.D.W.Va.: Factual mistakes in the affidavit for SW didn’t undermine the factual showing; the GFE also applies
There were factual mistakes in the affidavit for search warrant, but it doesn’t undermine the probable cause showing. In any event, the mistakes are in good faith and the good faith exception applies. United States v. Naum, 2019 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
D.R.I.: Officers don’t actually have to be applying for a SW for inevitable discovery to apply if they have PC
The court finds the consent to search given by a woman in the house was voluntary and wasn’t based on a threat to take her child away by DCYF. She drew that conclusion herself because she was concerned about it. … Continue reading
CNET: US border search demand violated Apple employee’s constitutional rights, ACLU says
CNET: US border search demand violated Apple employee’s constitutional rights, ACLU says by Steven Shankland:
EFF: Your Fourth Amendment Rights Should Not be Limited by Terms of Service
EFF: Your Fourth Amendment Rights Should Not be Limited by Terms of Service by Jennifer Lynch: Last week, we filed an amicus brief in U.S. v. Wilson, a federal appellate case, in which we argued that email providers’ terms of … Continue reading
Business Insider: Your iPhone keeps a detailed list of every location you frequent
Business Insider: Your iPhone keeps a detailed list of every location you frequent — here’s how to delete your history and shut the feature off for good by Paige Leskin:
W.D.Pa.: State court’s resolution of consent issue wasn’t “unreasonable application” of precedent in 2254 proceeding
The state court’s resolution of the consent to search issue was not an “unreasonable application” of precedent in a 2254 proceeding. “In order to overcome AEDPA’s standard of review, Petitioner must show that the state court’s decision ‘cannot reasonably be … Continue reading
Courthouse News Service: Deportation Case Stirs Division in Ninth Circuit
Courthouse News Service: Deportation Case Stirs Division in Ninth Circuit by Maria Dinzeo:
InfoSecurity: Congress Stops NSAs Collecting Phone Records
InfoSecurity: Congress Stops NSAs Collecting Phone Records by Kacy Zurkus. It’s a bill, not an act: The US Congress has proposed an act that would repeal the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) authority to access basic business records and the phone … Continue reading