Archives
-
Recent Posts
- 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
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
-
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
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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)
-
“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: August 2019
CA7: After state court affirms denial of motion to suppress, issue preclusion and abstention bar damages suit
Issue preclusion and full faith and credit deny federal courts the ability to determine a Fourth Amendment damages claim in an action after the state court denied suppression. Wade v. Barr, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 24723 (7th Cir. Aug. 20, … Continue reading
CA5: At summary judgment stage, “[t]his is an obvious case” that can’t be resolved on summary judgment
“The summary judgment facts, as determined by the district court, are that Ryan posed no threat to the officers or others to support firing without warning. The ‘Officers had the time and opportunity to give a warning and yet chose … Continue reading
TX14: Exigency permitted seizure of cell phone where officer thought def was deleting things from it anticipating its search
The officer was justified in seizing defendant’s cell phone when there was probable cause and it appeared that defendant might be deleting things from it. Also, no great detail required to identify a cell phone for a search warrant. Gutierrez … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: Automobile exception permits search of locked box inside vehicle
With probable cause to believe that a vehicle has evidence in it, the automobile exception allows entry into a locked container (here a locked box) inside the vehicle. Also, a police officer following a car is not a seizure. United … Continue reading
MT: Overseizure of contents of cell phone didn’t prejudice def where the overseized information was not offered at trial
Defendant argued that the search of his cell phone violated the Fourth Amendment because more was seized than the warrant allowed. Since none of the excess was offered by the state, he wasn’t prejudiced, and the over seizure didn’t void … Continue reading
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Editorial: Marijuana haze: Police struggle to keep up with new laws on pot
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Editorial: Marijuana haze: Police struggle to keep up with new laws on pot: There is a clear need for better training on medical marijuana and on search and seizure.
NYTimes: Opinion: No, Facebook Is Not Secretly Listening to You
NYTimes: Opinion: No, Facebook Is Not Secretly Listening to You (Except when it is.) by Sarah Jeong
OH3: Removing falsity from SW affidavit that def sold drugs from house still leaves PC that someone did
The affidavit for search warrant misstated that defendant was the person selling drugs out of the house. Even removing that fact from the affidavit, there still remains probable cause to believe that drugs would be found in the house. Those … Continue reading
NC: Police exceeded private search of thumb drive, and it’s suppressed
Defendant’s wife opened a thumb drive in defendant’s briefcase looking for pictures of herself and his housekeeper when he was overseas. She found a picture of her daughter asleep unclothed from the waist up, and took it to the police … Continue reading
NJ: Warrantless entry into common area of a rooming house violated REP; it was private as to the tenants
The officer’s warrantless entry into the common area of a rooming house, even though the door was unlocked, intruded into a private area where defendant retained a reasonable expectation of privacy. This was not an area open to the public. … Continue reading
Bloomberg Law: Location Data Privacy Protection Expanding in Judges’ Hands
Bloomberg Law: Location Data Privacy Protection Expanding in Judges’ Hands by Daniel R. Stoller: Courts have been expanding privacy protections for law enforcement access to real-time cell tower data, a trend attorneys say eventually could include other location-based information. . … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: Looking through porch window was a search, but justified by officer safety
Looking in the porch window is a violation of the curtilage and a search. Here, however, it was justified by the exigency of officer safety. United States v. Macdowell, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 139432 (W.D. Va. Aug. 19, 2019). As … Continue reading
M.D.Ga.: Def handcuffed for officer safety was unMirandized, and his statement admitting to gun that led to search for it suppresses both
Officers had a right during a traffic stop to check criminal history, and that legitimately led to finding defendant’s search waiver. The Georgia search waiver is not complete, however, and more stringent than the one in Samson. He was handcuffed … Continue reading
CNS: Final Warrant Targeting Journalist Deemed Illegal by Judge
Courthouse News Service: Final Warrant Targeting Journalist Deemed Illegal by Judge by Nicholas Iovino:
D.Kan.: In a wiretap case, resort to SWs would tip off the targets to the investigation, so they need not be relied upon first
Defendant challenges his wiretap because the investigators could have conducted more searches with warrants. Search warrants, however, are known to the targets: “However, the Court also credits the Government’s concern that isolated search warrants might have alerted the organization to … Continue reading
CA5: “Legal process” for false arrest starts with the first appearance before a judge, not on actual arrest
A felony arrest without a warrant on probable cause is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. “Legal process” doesn’t “kick in” until the first appearance before a judge or a warrant is prepared for statute of limitations purposes. [This is important … Continue reading
CA7: USDC misapplies Heck by assuming challenged search was reasonable
The district court misapplied the Heck doctrine by assuming the search of plaintiff’s car was reasonable. The real question is whether the suit is to challenge the legality of the search. “On remand, the judge will need to resolve the … Continue reading
Above The Law: I Just Want Your DNA
Above The Law: I Just Want Your DNA by Toni Messina: Even DNA from people who do ancestral testing can find its way into police databases.
S.D.N.Y.: Govt subpoena to photograph gang tattoos of incarcerated def not violation of 4A or 5A
The government seeks a subpoena to photograph defendant’s tattoos in an effort to corroborate gang membership. The motion to suppress is denied. “The Court is persuaded that the Government search contemplated by the description in the August 7 Letter is … Continue reading