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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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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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: July 2019
NYTimes: How to Protect Your Digital Privacy
NYTimes: How to Protect Your Digital Privacy by Thorin Klosowski: By making a few simple changes to your devices and accounts, you can maintain security against outside parties’ unwanted attempts to access your data as well as protect your privacy … Continue reading
NYTimes: As Cameras Track Detroit’s Residents, a Debate Ensues Over Racial Bias
NYTimes: As Cameras Track Detroit’s Residents, a Debate Ensues Over Racial Bias by Amy Harmon: Studies have shown that facial recognition software can return more false matches for African-Americans than for white people, a sign of what experts call “algorithmic … Continue reading
Reason: Is Facial Recognition the New Fingerprinting—or Something Much Worse?
Reason: Is Facial Recognition the New Fingerprinting—or Something Much Worse? by Ronald Bailey: State DMVs are building a vast national digital identification database for federal law enforcement.
E.D.Ky.: Evicted motel occupant loses REP in the room
Defendant rented a hotel room and apparently was smoking marijuana in the room, and the neighboring renters complained. The hotel manager called the police to help evict, but no one came to the door. They went back to the front … Continue reading
WaPo: DMV databases become part of unprecedented surveillance infrastructure: Facial recognition
WaPo: DMV databases become part of unprecedented surveillance infrastructure by Drew Harwell: The FBI and ICE have turned state driver’s license databases into a facial-recognition gold mine, scanning through hundreds of millions of Americans’ photos without their knowledge or consent, … Continue reading
KS: Random suspicionless drug testing of any probationer is reasonable under special needs
Random suspicionless drug testing of any probationer (even those from nondrug cases), satisfied the Fourth Amendment and state constitution under special needs. State v. Hinnenkamp, 2019 Kan. App. LEXIS 44 (July 5, 2019):
The Hill: Cities lead crackdown on facial recognition tech
The Hill: Cities lead crackdown on facial recognition tech by Emily Birnbaum:
D.Md.: No REP in jail calls even though warning was in English and def didn’t speak English
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in jail calls to nonlawyers. The government didn’t show that defendants could even understand the warning in English on the phone, but it doesn’t matter. United States v. Reyes-Canales, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
ND: Knock on car window when def asleep inside with engine running was within community caretaking function
Defendant was unresponsive in a parked car with the engine running. “The officer’s knocking on Bridgeford’s vehicle window was within the scope of the officer’s community caretaking function. Because the officer was acting within his role as a community caretaker, … Continue reading
The American Conservative: Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s Friendly Police Fantasy
The American Conservative: Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s Friendly Police Fantasy by James Bovard: Better relations will only come when we repeal the legions of laws empowering cops to unjustifiably accost peaceful citizens. You may not agree, but the author has valid … Continue reading
TechCrunch: Amazon responds to a US senator’s inquiry, confirms Alexa voice records are kept indefinitely
TechCrunch: Amazon responds to a US senator’s inquiry, confirms Alexa voice records are kept indefinitely by Sarah Perez: Amazon has responded to a letter of inquiry it received from U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) that asks the company to detail … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Computer search was valid but court requests more comprehensive ex ante review in computer searches
The government obtained a search warrant for defendant’s computer for 18 U.S.C. § 1960 and for operating an unlicensed Bitcoin exchange service. During the search, the officer found an image of child pornography. He stopped the search and applied for … Continue reading
PA applies Carpenter to 2015 CSLI search because no state case dealt with issue until after; applies to realtime CSLI, too
Defendant filed a motion to suppress CSLI from 2015 before Carpenter was even decided. Because no state case held that CSLI was not a search or the good faith exception applied and there were, in fact, cases holding that CSLI … Continue reading
TX: Art. 38.23 does not extend 4A to private searches
“We disavow the idea that Article 38.23 extends the Fourth Amendment to private citizens acting in a private capacity. We reaffirm that the Fourth Amendment is a restraint on government and that it does not apply to private individuals who … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Govt bears burden of showing attachment limiting search was actually attached, and it failed
For the government to rely on the good faith exception by claiming the attachment limiting the warrant was attached to the search warrant, it bears the burden of showing that, and it didn’t. United States v. Chang, 2019 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
CA5: Medical Board violated 4A by demanding immediate compliance with SDT; but they get qualified immunity
The Texas Medical Board violated the Fourth Amendment when conducting an administrative search of a physician’s office because it demanded immediate compliance with its subpoena. The medical industry as a whole was not a closely regulated industry, and the statutory … Continue reading
Leon and the good faith exception is 35 today
Today is the 35th anniversary of United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984), fittingly decided in 1984. As I related many years ago here, I did a CLE for Memphis prosecutors about a year later on how to litigate … Continue reading
IA: State const. search and seizure provision to be interpreted as the 4A; that’s what the state framers wanted
The state constitution does not require a different outcome for pretextual stops than under the Fourth Amendment. It isn’t prudential to do so, and the state’s 1857 constitutional convention wanted the state to follow the Fourth Amendment. State v. Brown, … Continue reading
OH7: No REP in police interrogation room; conversation with wife after statement to police recorded
Defendant gave a statement to the police and then he was left alone in the interrogation room to talk to his wife for 40 minutes. Police recorded the conversation. There was no reasonable expectation of privacy in the room, and, … Continue reading
Reason: Police Agree To Pay Woman $750,000 After Raiding Her House and Killing Her Dog Over an Unpaid Gas Bill
Reason: Police Agree To Pay Woman $750,000 After Raiding Her House and Killing Her Dog Over an Unpaid Gas Bill by Christian Britschgi: The case highlights the dangers of using SWAT teams for anything and everything.