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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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"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: December 2020
TX14: SW for car with only color, 4 doors, and race and gender of driver in Houston was not particular
All the police had was the color of the sedan, its number of doors, and the race and gender of its driver to indicate that the sedan in the affidavit was the same sedan as the one seen in the … Continue reading
NE: Search of def’s car valid under automobile exception where he was late for third controlled buy
When defendant didn’t show up for his third controlled buy, police went to him and searched his car finding the drugs. They had probable cause for that search under the automobile exception. State v. Garza, 29 Neb. App. 223 (Dec. … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Seizure under SW not 5A taking
A seizure under a search warrant is not a Fifth Amendment taking. Woods v. Milwaukee Cty. Dist. Atty’s Office, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 231416 (E.D. Wis. Dec. 9, 2020). Defense counsel was not ineffective for not raising defendant’s search issue … Continue reading
W.D.Tenn.: Asking a series of questions during a stop didn’t unreasonably lengthen it
“Detective Redding then asked Mason whether he had anything in the Vehicle that the officers should know about, and Detective Kent asked Defendant what he was doing, where he had been, where he was going, whether he had been previously … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Traffic stop may be highly technical, but it still has a factual and legal basis
“Although many reasonable people may agree that the stop at issue here was a highly technical, ‘ticky-tacky’ sort of traffic stop, there is no doubt that Florida law requires a driver to stop at a clearly marked stop line before … Continue reading
NY2: State couldn’t concede no PC in trial court but argue there was on appeal
The state conceded a lack of probable cause in the trial court when the automobile exception was at issue. On appeal, they argued against that concession, which they could not do. “Accordingly, the Supreme Court should not have denied the … Continue reading
techspot: Schools are using FBI hacking tools to access students’ phones
techspot: Schools are using FBI hacking tools to access students’ phones by Isaiah Mayersen (“A damning Gizmodo report has revealed that numerous school districts have purchased the digital tools the FBI use, and are leveling them against students. Even without … Continue reading
CA8 finds stop valid for grounds not relied on by Dist. Ct.
“The government defends the district court’s rationale, but argues alternatively that other facts independently provided reasonable suspicion to seize LaGrange in the restaurant parking area. We may affirm the district court’s denial of a motion to suppress on any ground … Continue reading
CO: Judicial officer who leaked info about SW he signed was censured, but only after removal from office, a federal obstruction conviction, and disbarment
The respondent former judge told a friend to avoid a certain person when a drug task force search warrant was signed by him for the target. He was federally charged and pled guilty to obstruction of justice and was disbarred … Continue reading
SD: Impending surgery exigency for warrantless blood draw
Defendant’s impending surgery was an exigent circumstance for a warrantless blood draw. “We have held that imminent medical care that threatens to destroy BAC evidence through blood transfusions, intravenous fluids, or natural dissipation over time may create exigent circumstances. … … Continue reading
CA9: Gratuitous dog bite can be excessive force; no QI here
“Our precedent clearly establishes that releasing a police dog to bite a person who neither endangers officers nor attempts to flee or resist arrest violates that person’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizure. … Viewing the evidence … Continue reading
W.D.Va.: Assumption def had guest standing undermined at hearing; additional briefing ordered
While it was assumed by everyone that defendant was an overnight guest, the proof at the hearing was wanting that he was. “Here, Morris testified that she had four bedrooms in her house, two upstairs and two downstairs along with … Continue reading
NPR: Virginia Gov. Northam Signs ‘Breonna’s Law’ Banning No-Knock Warrants
NPR: Virginia Gov. Northam Signs ‘Breonna’s Law’ Banning No-Knock Warrants by Daniella Cheslow (“Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam ceremonially signed a law Monday that will prohibit police from using no-knock warrants, which allow police to enter and search a home without … Continue reading
CA9: Husband hacking wife’s work emails for divorce advantage violated SCA
Husband’s interception of his wife’s work emails for advantage in their divorce case violated the Stored Communications Act as well as her right of privacy. The district court erred in granting him summary judgment. Clare v. Clare, 19-36039 (9th Cir. … Continue reading
CA11: Even if warrantless monitoring of a package in def’s home violated 4A, inevitable discovery applies
Even if warrantless monitoring of a package into defendant’s house violated the Fourth Amendment, inevitable discovery applies. There was an intensive investigation and time was of the essence. The exclusionary rule should not be applied. United States v. Watkins, 2020 … Continue reading
LATimes: The untold story of how the Golden State Killer was found: A covert operation and private DNA
LATimes: The untold story of how the Golden State Killer was found: A covert operation and private DNA by Paige St. John:
CA3: Presumption of QI where magistrate issues SW
There is a presumption qualified immunity applies where a magistrate has signed off on a search warrant. Handy v. Palmiero, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 37862 (3d Cir. Dec. 4, 2020):
D.Mont.: PC for SW based on CIs was lacking, but not so bad GFE shouldn’t apply
The affidavit for search warrant actually was deficient in showing probable cause from the CIs and the concerned citizen, but it wasn’t so lacking in probable cause that the good faith exception should not apply. United States v. Stanley, 2020 … Continue reading
OH2: Officer’s asking for consent to search before inventory doesn’t make it pretextual
“Although Officer Lindsey asked White if he (the officer) could search the vehicle prior to deciding to tow the vehicle, that question alone did not require a conclusion that the subsequent inventory search was pretextual. The Dayton Police Department tow … Continue reading