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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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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
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)
ACLU on privacy
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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: February 2020
Law.com: Google Hit With Class Action Under Illinois Biometric Privacy Law Over Facial Recognition
Law.com: Google Hit With Class Action Under Illinois Biometric Privacy Law Over Facial Recognition by Ross Todd (“The complaint claims Google ‘failed to obtain consent from anyone’ when it introduced facial recognition to its cloud service for storing and sharing … Continue reading
S.D.Ind.: Lawyer not ineffective for not telling co-def’s counsel of a potential 4A claim
A lawyer can’t be ineffective for not raising a Fourth Amendment claim where there was no standing. In addition, he can’t be ineffective for not telling the lawyer for the person with standing about a search issue. It wouldn’t even … Continue reading
KY: Real time pinging of CSLI requires SW except for exigency
“[W]e hold that individuals have a reasonable expectation of privacy in real-time CSLI and, consequently, the acquisition of such data by the police constitutes a search triggering the protections of the Fourth Amendment. Furthermore, the good faith exception does not … Continue reading
CA5: When appealing PC and GFE, both have to be briefed on appeal or it will be affirmed
When the district court decides a Fourth Amendment case on probable cause and good faith exception, counsel on appeal has to brief both issues. Failure to brief the good faith exception here results in affirmance by waiver of the issue. … Continue reading
MA: Probation search of cell phone photo app was reasonable; could be used in a subsequent prosecution
Defendant’s probation search of a photo app on his cell phone that revealed child pornography and led to a search warrant of his residence was reasonable. The product of all the searches was admissible against him in a subsequent criminal … Continue reading
gizmodo: Feds Find Fourth Amendment Workaround, Buy Phone Locations From Marketing Firms
gizmodo: Feds Find Fourth Amendment Workaround, Buy Phone Locations From Marketing Firms by Dell Cameron (“Sidestepping the need to obtain a search warrant, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reportedly been accessing phone location data belonging to millions of … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: No ex ante opportunity for email account holder to challenge SW
Targets of an email search warrant lack standing to challenge the search warrant ex ante, before execution. They must do so after. In the Matter of the Search of Records, Information, and Data Associated with 14 Email Addresses Controlled by … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Exercising control over cell phone to shield it from being seen by police was showing a subjective REP, right up until def denied it was his
Defendant first sought to shield the cell phone in his hand from view. When the police finally got it from him, he denied it was his. “Through his conduct at the time of the seizure, Mayer arguably exhibited a subjective … Continue reading
N.D.Iowa: Search of defendant’s entire Facebook account was overbroad for lack of temporal limitations
Search of defendant’s entire Facebook account was overbroad for lack of temporal limitations. United States v. Burkhow, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20319 (N.D. Iowa Feb. 6, 2020):
TX14: It was clearly established standing on an arrestee’s face was excessive; here, causation for death not shown
“We conclude that controlling authority’ or ‘a robust “consensus of cases of persuasive authority”’ as of September 2010 make it sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would understand (as did those who testified) that stepping on the nose and mouth … Continue reading
FL1: Leon’s “so lacking in indicia of probable cause” doesn’t seek to determine whether PC actually exists; it’s whether it is conclusory and “bare bones”
Leon’s “so lacking in indicia of probable cause” doesn’t seek to determine whether probable cause actually exists. It’s whether the affidavit is so conclusory it is “bare bones.” Wingate v. State, 2020 Fla. App. LEXIS 1369 (Fla. 1st DCA Feb. … Continue reading
CA5: When USMJ’s findings are based on PC and GFE, def must appeal both or be subject to plain error, and here it’s not
When the USMJ rules on both probable cause and the good faith exception, the objections have to go to both. Here, defendant only objected to the probable cause finding and not the application of the good faith exception, so the … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Def’s car was towed and inventoried, but searching his backpack was unreasonable when he wasn’t arrested
Defendant’s vehicle was being towed because he was an unlicensed driver, and he wasn’t being arrested. He could accompany the vehicle. The officer inventoried the car and then searched his backpack. The backpack search wasn’t reasonable because he wasn’t being … Continue reading
S.D.Fla.: Radio report of a gun brought police to def, and his furtive movement was then RS
Stop and frisk was with reasonable suspicion. “Having received a radio communication that Defendant appeared to be armed and having observed Defendant reaching toward his waist in a manner consistent with reaching towards an area of the body where individuals … Continue reading
CA3: Civil contempt for failing to provide password to computers and other devices for search was limited to 18 months
Petitioner has been held for three years for civil contempt for failure to provide encryption data for his computer and other devices so they could be searched under a warrant. The punishment for civil contempt can’t exceed the life of … Continue reading
CA4: 4A doesn’t require a particular statement of the crime under investigation if it otherwise adequately describes the place to be search or the person or thing to be seized
“More fundamentally, we think that the premise of Blakeney’s argument — that a search warrant always must specify the crime for which the executing officers may seek evidence – is mistaken. The Fourth Amendment ‘specifies only two matters that must … Continue reading
OH8: Trial strategy was that the drugs weren’t def’s; a motion to suppress would have to argue standing; no IAC
Pursuing a motion to suppress would have been contrary to trial strategy that it wasn’t his stuff. “In overruling the first assignment of error, on ineffective assistance of trial counsel for failing to move to suppress, this court noted that … Continue reading
S.D.Ga.: Search incident of def’s room on his arrest was valid even though he’d just been removed
The search incident of defendant’s room was valid because it occurred shortly after his arrest when he was still there, despite his being handcuffed which doesn’t per se make a search incident invalid. “Because defendant failed to allege facts which, … Continue reading
CA9: When arresting a vehicle passenger on a felony warrant, a frisk of others in the car is permissible for officer safety
When executing a felony arrest warrant on an occupant of a car, frisking companions in the car is reasonable for officer safety. United States v. Abbassi, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 3575 (9th Cir. Feb. 4, 2020). “In her informal brief … Continue reading