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- 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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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: October 2019
CA3: A threat to violate the 4A is not a 4A violation; it is contingent for Art. III
“The Probation Department employees’ alleged threat to send Repotski back to jail does not state a constitutional violation cognizable under § 1983. See McFadden v. Lucas, 713 F.2d 143, 146 (5th Cir. 1983) (noting that mere threats do not amount … Continue reading
WaPo: US, UK reach deal to make it easier to get electronic data
WaPo: US, UK reach deal to make it easier to get electronic data by Eric Tucker (“The United States and United Kingdom signed an agreement Thursday that officials say will speed up dozens of criminal and national security investigations and … Continue reading
CA10: Remanded again on QI because the court admittedly wasn’t perfectly clear
Appellate courts can’t always speak with one voice or opinion. The panel in this case previously issued three opinions. Harte v. Bd. of Comm’rs of the Cty. of Johnson, 864 F.3d 1154 (10th Cir. 2017). On remand, then, everybody had … Continue reading
KS applies Krull for GFE to statutory DUI advice of rights later held unconstitutional
The officer gave advice of DUI rights as required by state law later held unconstitutional. Under Illinois v. Krull, the court finds the officer acted in good faith, and the BAC test is not suppressed. State v. Perkins, 2019 Kan. … Continue reading
OH2: Part owner of a business didn’t have standing to challenge seizure of surveillance DVR with video of him committing assault
Defendant was a part owner of a business with computer access cards to get in doors. He still didn’t have a sufficient reasonable expectation of privacy in the computer storage system of a surveillance video system showing where he committed … Continue reading
NY1: Ptf stated claim for unreasonable strip search at stationhouse for a misdemeanor
Plaintiff states a claim for a visual strip in a stationhouse search forbidden for a misdemeanor. There are fact questions for trial as to what the officers knew about alleged possession of contraband. Beauvoir v City of New York, 2019 … Continue reading
W.D.Okla.: Def’s on-again off-again relationship with decedent didn’t give him standing in a search of her premises when they were off-again; he had no key
“Though Defendant may have had an ‘ongoing and meaningful connection to [Zotigh’s] home as a social guest’ at certain times prior to the searches, Zotigh’s termination of their relationship, her refusal to allow Defendant to stay in her mobile home … Continue reading
Justice Department takes another run at encryption backdoors with ‘lawful access’
CSO: Justice Department takes another run at encryption backdoors with ‘lawful access’ by Cynthia Brumfield (“Law enforcement officials and experts on the distribution of child pornography gathered on Friday to make the emotional, if not technological, case that tech companies … Continue reading
ACLU Blog: Rapid DNA Machines in Police Departments Need Regulation
ACLU Blog: Rapid DNA Machines in Police Departments Need Regulation Vera Eidelman & Jay Stanley (“Police departments around the country are beginning to deploy ‘Rapid DNA’ machines, which can take a cheek swab or other genetic sample and automatically generate … Continue reading
Legal Intelligencer: Commentary: What Is a Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in the Digital World? Part II
Legal Intelligencer: Commentary: What Is a Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in the Digital World? Part II by Leonard Deutchman (“In last week’s article, I discussed the findings of the Pennsylvania Superior Court’s nonprecedential decision in Commonwealth v. Mason, in which … Continue reading
CO: Authentication of SW production from Dropbox not self-authenticating as exhibit
Production of records of documents from a Dropbox account by search warrant is not the same as records from a social media account that are more likely to be self- or nearly self-authenticating. Officers can attempt to authenticate the latter, … Continue reading
CA5: USMJ didn’t need to be told in SW application that the computer was small and portable; that’s usually obvious
Six months was not too stale in a child pornography case where the court has approved much longer delays. “The magistrate judge did not need to be told that electronic devices are often small and portable or that they might … Continue reading
Cal.4: Because CA recognizes recreational MJ, possession of a small amount on the person isn’t probable cause to search the car
Because of recreational marijuana in California, hardly any weight can be attached to possession of a small quantity on a person in a car. People v. Lee, 2019 Cal. App. LEXIS 964 (4th Dist. Oct. 3, 2019):
W.D.N.C.: SWs are against a “place to be searched” and name of occupant not a const’l requirement
Search warrants are against the place not the person, and there is no constitutional requirement that the search warrant also name the occupant to be particular. In addition, the good faith exception applies here. United States v. Martin, 2019 U.S. … Continue reading
MA: Traffic stop “morphed” into arrest for no DL, inventory, then automobile exception
Driving on a suspended license is an offense for which (1) search incident is valid, and (2) the driver can’t continue and the vehicle would be impounded and subject to a proper inventory. In this case, the inventory was not … Continue reading
Two on Franks on post-conviction failing for no proper showing
Defendant on 2255 can’t show that defense counsel was ineffective for not filing a Franks challenge. He can’t make either a “substantial preliminary showing” or show prejudice because it would fail on the merits if made. Vanderbeck v. United States, … Continue reading
techdirt: Documents Show The FBI Is Targeting Financial Institutions, Credit Reporting Agencies, And Universities With NSLs
techdirt: Documents Show The FBI Is Targeting Financial Institutions, Credit Reporting Agencies, And Universities With NSLs by Tim Cushing (“We’ve written several times before about the FBI and its unnatural love for National Security Letters. NSLs make the FBI tick. … Continue reading
Forbes: Facial Recognition: A Force For Good … Or Government?
Forbes: Facial Recognition: A Force For Good … Or Government? by Jon Markman (“The world is on the cusp of a massive $12.3 trillion 5G explosion. Former Verizon CEO, Lowell McAdam, says 5G ‘will usher in the Fourth Industrial Revolution … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Violation of an ATF regulation during administrative search of an FFL doesn’t justify suppression without a 4A violation
Defendant had a federal firearms dealer license and he was subjected to an inspection. Firearms dealers, of course, are closely regulated businesses. After the motion to suppress was denied, he decided that ATF regulations were violated. The court concludes, based … Continue reading