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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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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)
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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: July 2020
CA9: UA in prison is reasonable
“It is undisputed that urinalysis testing is a search under the Fourth Amendment and that drug testing in the prison context is generally constitutional unless it is conducted in an unreasonable manner. See Thompson v. Souza, 111 F.3d 694, 701 … Continue reading
Boston CBS: Justice Department: Springfield Police Narcotics Bureau Regularly Used Excessive Force
Boston CBS: Justice Department: Springfield Police Narcotics Bureau Regularly Used Excessive Force (“SPRINGFIELD (CBS) – The Justice Department says an investigation has revealed “reasonable cause” to believe the Springfield Police Department’s Narcotics Bureau regularly used excessive force, it announced Wednesday. … Continue reading
Gizmodo: Law Enforcement Is Buying Its Way Into Our Breaches
Gizmodo: Law Enforcement Is Buying Its Way Into Our Breaches by Shoshana Wodinsky:
MT: Field test of seized drugs is a reasonable search
A field test of drugs seized off defendant’s person finding them presumptively methamphetamine is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment and the state constitution. There is no enlarged reasonable expectation of privacy as to them when seized. State v. Funkhouser, 2020 … Continue reading
CA11: Govt waives abandonment by not pleading it in the district court
Government waives abandonment by not pleading it in the district court. United States v. Ross, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 21028 (11th Cir. July 7, 2020), on remand from United States v. Ross, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 19642 (11th Cir. June … Continue reading
D.C.Cir.: Applications for orders under SCA and ECPA presumptively public judicial records
Applications for orders under the Stored Communications Act and Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 are judicial records subject to public view under the common law. Pen register records are presumptively sealed under Title III. In the Matter of the … Continue reading
CA3 still doesn’t adopt standard of review for Franks challenges
The Third Circuit notes that it has yet to adopt a standard of review for Franks claims; see United States v. Pavulak, 700 F.3d 651, 665-66 (3d Cir. 2012); and it doesn’t have to here because, whichever applies, defendant loses. … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: Question for Stone v. Powell is: does the state provide a mechanism for “full and fair litigation” of a 4A claim, not whether def took advantage of it
The question for Stone v. Powell is: does the state provide a mechanism for “full and fair litigation” of a Fourth Amendment claim, not whether defendant took advantage of it. Barrera v. Sherman, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 118199 (E.D. Cal. … Continue reading
PA: Police getting SW for CSLI they already had after Carpenter was reasonable
Carpenter was decided three weeks before defendant’s trial. The state then sought a search warrant to supplement its having already obtained the CSLI. Defendant’s motion to suppress on the eve of trial was denied. The search warrant was adequate for … Continue reading
IN: Def’s sitting inside in front of open door visible outside had reduced REP compared to exigency for his arrest
Defendant’s door was wide open, and officers could see him sitting inside directly in front of the door. They had an arrest warrant for him. Based on the “particular facts” here, officers had exigency combined with defendant’s reasonable expectation of … Continue reading
IN: Law firm’s suit over fees for work complying with GJ subpoena to client leads to reduced fees
The law firm sued over its attorneys fees in complying with federal grand jury subpoenas for a client after a search warrant directed to the client. The trial court made findings of fact finding the reasonable fee one-third of what … Continue reading
ABAJ: County subpoenas partygoers who didn’t cooperate in COVID-19 contact tracing
ABAJ: County subpoenas partygoers who didn’t cooperate in COVID-19 contact tracing by Debra Cassens Weiss
MA: When seizing digital devices under SW, looking at camera pictures didn’t require exclusion where not mentioned in SW for camera
During a search of defendant’s house under a warrant that included seizing digital devices, the officer turned on a camera and scrolled through the pictures. When the warrant was sought for the camera, no mention was made, and inevitable discovery … Continue reading
CA8: Officer approached who he thought was a crime victim and answers to questions gave RS he was the culprit
Officer responded to a call about shooting of a car thinking defendant might have been a victim. When he inquired, “Aguilar responded that he ‘didn’t shoot nobody’s windows out.’” Reasonable suspicion developed on the totality. United States v. Aguilar, 19-3008 … Continue reading
NE: SW’s cut and paste error on what to be searched could be overlooked here
A cut and paste error in a search warrant that referred to other property could be overlooked when the true particularity could be seen. State v. Said, 306 Neb. 314 (July 2, 2020):
NPR: Police Body Cam Footage Is Being Used For Surveillance, Activists Say
NPR: Police Body Cam Footage Is Being Used For Surveillance, Activists Say by Heather Van Blokland (“Police reform bills from both parties include requirements for police body cameras. The ACLU and others worry camera footage might be used for inappropriate … Continue reading
WI: Officer can ask about weapons and for consent in any traffic stop without extending it
In an ordinary traffic stop, an officer may ask about weapons and even seek a consent to search without reasonable suspicion and thus without extending the stop. State v. Brown, 2020 WI 63, 2020 Wisc. LEXIS 140 (July 3, 2020):
AP: Geofence warrants to be tested in VA bank robbery case
AP: Geofence warrants to be tested in Virginia bank robbery case (“Surveillance video gave authorities a lead, showing a man holding a cellphone outside the Call Federal Credit Union in Midlothian on May 20, 2019. So like a growing number of … Continue reading
CA4: Tip describing man with a gun found a block away walking away was RS
Bystander’s tip that a black man in red pants and a black shirt had left a large fight at a West Virginia bar going east after having displayed a gun. A block away to the east, officers found defendant walking … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Late night stop, no DL, digital scale on floor is RS
This late night stop was reasonably extended because the driver didn’t have a DL on him and there appeared to be a digital scale on the floor. United States v. Henry, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 115939 (D. Minn. May 20, … Continue reading