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- The Guardian: ‘We should be worried’: report sheds light on ICE’s booming arsenal of hi-tech surveillance tools
- 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
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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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Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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"On the Docket"–Medill
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General (many free):
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www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
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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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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: December 2021
S.D.N.Y.: Press motion for disclosure of SW affidavit denied because investigation ongoing
“The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (‘RCFP’), claiming rights of access grounded in the common law, asks the Court to unseal documents relating to a search warrant dated November 5, 2021 (the ‘Search Warrant’), which was executed at … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Stop was completely lacking in RS
This black defendant’s stop six minutes after a shooting call in a heavily black neighborhood (2,000 within a half mile radius) was completely lacking in reasonable suspicion. The court goes on for many pages about the government’s proffered reasonable suspicion … Continue reading
NC: This traffic stop was not based on an objectively reasonable view of statute; stop suppressed
The officer’s mistaken view of the law allegedly justifying the stop was not objectively reasonable under Heien and thus completely without reasonable suspicion. State v. Jonas, 2021-NCCOA-660, 2021 N.C. App. LEXIS 678 (Dec. 7, 2021). This probation search was valid: … Continue reading
MS: No REP in contraband cell phone in prison
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a contraband cell phone in prison. United States v. Jackson, 866 F.3d 982 (8th Cir. 2017). Walker v. State, 2021 Miss. App. LEXIS 502 (Dec. 7, 2021). Accord: United States v. Basaldua, … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: 2254(d) “unreasonable application” review considered whether correct case law applied
In this 2254, the argument was that the state court’s application of law violated 2254’s “unreasonable” application standard, but it didn’t. The question was whether Michigan v. Long or Arizona v. Gant applies. “In sum, the State courts’ reliance on … Continue reading
LA5: Two CIs provided RS for def’s vehicle stop without need for traffic offense
The trial court’s denial of suppress is affirmed. There were two CIs. One provided details about defendant’s drug operation and the places and vehicles involved. The other provided predictive information that panned out. By the time defendant’s vehicle was stopped, … Continue reading
DE: Mere citation of a case in motion to suppress didn’t put state and court on notice as to other issues
Defendant’s citation of a case in his motion to suppress that was on point to only one issue but not the others was insufficient to put the state and court on notice as to the others. State v. Hollar, 2021 … Continue reading
LA1: Subjective beliefs of officer irrelevant when PC exists
The trial court is reversed. There was probable cause for defendant’s stop. “Under the law, ‘the subjective beliefs or expectations of the detaining officer’ are irrelevant.” State v. Lee, 2021 La. App. LEXIS 1840 (La. App. 1 Cir. Dec. 6, … Continue reading
Reason: Dallas Police Took $106,000 From a Traveler. They Haven’t Explained Why.
Reason: Dallas Police Took $106,000 From a Traveler. They Haven’t Explained Why. (“A police dog’s alert prompted the search, and the money was seized via civil asset forfeiture.”)
CNS: State court could put cellphone ‘dragnets’ in knots
Courthouse News Service: State court could put cellphone ‘dragnets’ in knots (“Cops want to use phone data to identify everyone who was nearby when a crime happened — a system that for civil libertarians comes at too high a privacy … Continue reading
TN: No standing in text messages on codef’s cell phone
Defense counsel could not be ineffective for not moving to suppress text messages on the codefendant’s cell phone where defendant had no standing. Wells v. State, 2021 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 553 (Dec. 7, 2021). There is no reasonable expectation … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: For § 1988 fee shifting, SCOTUS expert fees not awarded, only local rate
The fact expert Fourth Amendment counsel would have charged the client $1,000-1,800 before SCOTUS isn’t binding on the district court for fee shifting. The local rate is what’s reasonable. Agudath Israel of America v. Hochul, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 233088 … Continue reading
S.D.Ohio: Alleged 4A violation doesn’t create a lack of subject matter jurisdiction
A Fourth Amendment violation in a case, among other things, does not create a lack of jurisdiction. Forrest v. United States, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 232495 (S.D.Ohio Dec. 6, 2021). [Prospective clients still ask this here, as little as a … Continue reading
CA7: Malicious prosecution case is based on a lack of PC
Malicious prosecution claim is ultimately based on a lack of probable cause. Summary judgment here inappropriate. Gupta v. Melloh, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 35934 (7th Cir. Dec. 6, 2021):
CA4: After an agreed remand for a Franks hearing, no materiality found
The parties previously agreed to a remand for a Franks hearing. Now it’s back. “None of these omissions-even when viewed together-change the probable-cause determination. At the outset, Hall’s identified omissions are problematic for him to rely upon. For omissions about … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Evil intent irrelevant in excessive force case if it all still objectively reasonable
“Issues of motive and intent are essentially irrelevant in [an excessive force] case. The test in an excessive force case is an objective one. Thus, ‘[a]n officer’s evil intentions will not make a Fourth Amendment violation out of an objectively … Continue reading
IL: Lack of PC to arrest voids search incident to it
A lack of probable cause to arrest leads to voiding the search incident to arrest. People v. Freeman, 2021 IL App (1st) 200053, 2021 Ill. App. LEXIS 655 (Dec. 6, 2021). While marijuana seeds and stems aren’t federal contraband, searching … Continue reading
MI: Inventory was reasonable and not pretextual
Defense counsel wasn’t ineffective for not challenging the inventory search of defendant’s car because the inventory was reasonable. After the arrest of the occupants, the vehicle had to be towed, and the inventory was within policy and not a pretext … Continue reading