Archives
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Recent Posts
- N.D.Tex.: AUSA can summarize what the gov’t knows for SW application
- S.D.N.Y.: No right to quash SCA warrant before execution; remedies are after
- S.D.N.Y.: SW not based on mere speculation
- D.Mont.: Officers had RS for stop; it wasn’t based on the race of the suspects
- M.D.Pa.: SW for phone 19 months after alleged crimes showed PC
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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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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: September 2019
WaPo: DEA, IRS reviewed cache of emails amid ongoing criminal probe into Baltimore lawyers
WaPo: DEA, IRS reviewed cache of emails amid ongoing criminal probe into Baltimore lawyers by Tim Prudente:
WaPo: California could become the largest state to ban facial recognition in body cameras
WaPo: California could become the largest state to ban facial recognition in body cameras by Reis Thebault:
TX remands blood draw from unconscious motorist under Mitchell v. Wisconsin
“Appellee was charged with felony driving while intoxicated after the State took a blood sample from him without a warrant and while he was unconscious. The trial court granted his motion to suppress his blood test results, and the court … Continue reading
IL: Mere presence in a high crime area isn’t RS; action required, too
Mere presence in a Chicago high crime neighborhood is not reasonable suspicion. Otherwise, every resident of the neighborhood would be stopped. It requires some suspicious action as well. People v. Salgado, 2019 IL App (1st) 171377, 2019 Ill. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
The Federalist: DOJ Lawsuit Demands Names Of All People Who Use This App For Their Gun
The Federalist: DOJ Lawsuit Demands Names Of All People Who Use This App For Their Gun by Kyle Sammin:
CA7: Former police officer stated 4A malicious prosecution claim for false and misleading information in arrest and SW
Plaintiff stated a Fourth Amendment (not called malicious prosecution) for false statements and omissions in support of his arrest and search warrant where the alleged probable cause was thin to begin with. He was tried three times, reversed twice, and … Continue reading
Courthouse News Service: Fourth Circuit Takes Up Secretive Raid on Law Firm
Courthouse News Service: Fourth Circuit Takes Up Secretive Raid on Law Firm by Brad Kutner:
D.Nev.: Criminal history didn’t justify extending stop
Officers exceeded the bounds of the traffic stop because they heard defendant’s criminal history and then ordered him out of the car to seek consent to search without any reasonable suspicion. United States v. Coleman, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 152832 … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: PC for search and arrest may be the same
The probable cause for the search of defendant’s car also provided probable cause for his arrest. United States v. Bell, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 154275 (W.D. Ky. Aug. 2, 2019).* Defendant consented to a limited search of his computer and … Continue reading
Vice: These Cops Are Seizing Cash from People Who Smell Like Weed Before They Fly to California
Vice: These Cops Are Seizing Cash from People Who Smell Like Weed Before They Fly to California (“Smelling like cannabis and buying your ticket right before your flight from this Florida airport are apparently great reasons for cops to take … Continue reading
WaPo: A man live-streamed his traffic stop. He recorded police fatally shooting him.
WaPo: A man live-streamed his traffic stop. He recorded police fatally shooting him. By Katie Mettler (“It remains unclear what prompted police to use lethal force.”)
Reason: The Supreme Court’s Next Big Fourth Amendment Case
Reason: The Supreme Court’s Next Big Fourth Amendment Case by Damon Root (“What’s at stake in Kansas v. Glover.”).
MD: Traffic enforcement saturation for seat belt stops wasn’t a checkpoint
A traffic enforcement saturation to stop people only without seat belts on was founded on reasonable suspicion and wasn’t a checkpoint. Johnson v. State, 2019 Md. App. LEXIS 783 (Sept. 9, 2019).* Defendant was stopped for a traffic offense, and … Continue reading
OH2: Officer’s sexual assault of motorist criminally violated 4A
Defendant was a part time police officer conviction of state civil rights violations for sexual assault during frisks of women that clearly exceeded the Fourth Amendment. State v. Sanderson, 2019-Ohio-3589, 2019 Ohio App. LEXIS 3673 (2d Dist. Sept. 6, 2019).* … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: Officer doesn’t have to tell a motorist he smells MJ in the car
The officer recognized defendant as having an arrest warrant on him. When the stop occurred, the officer smelled marijuana and that justified a search of the car. The fact the officer didn’t mention to defendant that he smelled marijuana isn’t … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Older information in SW application substantiated by CI information from day before; not stale
Parts of the information were old, but the search warrant was not stale because a critical part of the affidavit showed that there was credible reason to believe drugs would be found there because of the CI’s observation the day … Continue reading
D.Me.: No withdrawal of plea for alleged 4A IAC where search was valid
Defendant doesn’t get to withdraw his plea to claim ineffective assistance of counsel to his search under a supervised release condition. The search appears lawful. United States v. Goguen, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 152148 (D. Me. Sept. 6, 2019):*
C.D.Cal.: Evidence at trial came from a prior unrelated search; the parties should stipulate that it happened to avoid unnecessary confusion
This is on the government’s motion in limine concerning how evidence at trial should come in. The government had a search warrant for theft, and that was the way into his house. To avoid problematic questions, the court suggests a … Continue reading
OH8: Misstating the owner of a cell phone in warrant application was not material when it was seized as part of a burglary conspiracy
A burglar alarm in an industrial area at 1 am brought the police who saw men scattering, and one vehicle leaving. There was reasonable suspicion for stopping the vehicle. The search warrant for a cell phone was proper because it … Continue reading
IL: Disorderly conduct can justify a Terry stop
Police received a 911 call about a man with a blue hoodie on a bicycle shouting profanities. Because the call was to 911 and recorded and logged with caller ID, it was more reliable. On seeing the man, the officer … Continue reading