NOTES ON USE
A. Ground Rules:
1. THIS WEBSITE IS NOT A REPLACEMENT FOR THE BOOK. It is: (a) a daily summary of search and seizure cases and news, and (b) an aid to owners of the book to supplement it. See ¶s 5-6 of the disclaimer in part B at the end of this page. [I get feedback from those how tell me that some users of this website find that "has too much information" and "is unusable." These users do not know what this website is for, they never paid attention to the first sentence above when it was on the home page, and they cannot be helped if they think this substitutes for the book.] Let's be realistic here: I get royalties from the book and supplement, and I am not about to compromise Lexis' ability to sell them which hurts both of us.
2. Acronyms: These should be obvious to those involved in the criminal justice system:
BOLO = be on the look out
CI = confidential informant
DL = driver's license
GFE = good faith exception
IAC = ineffective assistance of counsel
LEO = law enforcement officer (a police term, not a lawyer term)
MSJ = motion for summary judgment
PC = probable cause
PO = probation or parole officer
QI = qualified immunity
REP = reasonable expectation of privacy
RS = reasonable suspicion
SI = search incident
SJ = summary judgment
SW = search warrant
UA = urinalysis
* = a case unlikely to make it to the supplement because it involves a basic RS or PC finding or is factbound or redundant.
2. A footnote ending in ".1" or the like indicates new text in the supplement. Not having the book and current supplement will make one's research incomplete.
3. Timing of Postings:
a. Case citations come to me through a Lexis Eclipse® search arriving around 5:30 a.m. Central Time. Postings to this website are made usually, depending upon various factors in my real work schedule and life, within three hours of receipt from Lexis. I am a practicing criminal defense lawyer, and I cannot bring myself to work on the web site on days I am in trial or having an appellate argument first thing in the morning. I can tell from usage statistics that the first peak in usage is around 9 a.m. Eastern Time, and I try to meet that goal, but I cannot guarantee it.
b. Supreme Court cases are noted as soon as I find out about them and I can get the syllabus either from the Court's website or Lexis. If I am in court or on the road when that happens, that posting will be late, but it will be up as soon as possible. I have occasionally beat the news services in posting cases because I was looking for a case and quickly found it posted, but I also find out about most from list servs and news reports. If, however, I am in trial, I can't be posting immediately. (The day the Supreme Court called in 1995 to say I won Wilson v. Arkansas I was in trial until 6 p.m. that evening.) This website did not exist back then, but that is an example.
c. Every once in a while, a case either slips through the Eclipse search, I must have overlooked it, or it becomes published after it was passed over because I believed it was unpublished or it slipped through the Eclipse net. In those cases, the case is noted as soon as it is found. Some courts have cases in the hands of Lexis overnight, but some take months. I see a pattern developing, but I'm not yet revealing what the states are. You can see some at change of the new year. Sometimes states take several months to get their cases to Lexis.
d. Updated citations are posted as long as new citation comes out while the case is still on the home page. Periodically, time permitting, all citations are run through Lexis Shepards® to insure completeness.
4. Unreported cases: Unreported cases do not get posted because they usually lack authority in their local jurisdiction. I simply do not have the time to read unreported cases, too. I already average 8 hours a week on this website, and nonpublished cases just aren't relevant 99.5% of the time. Once in a while, a court buries a good case in unpublished, and I find out about it and use it. Some states don't publish, but everything is potential authority. Ohio, for example.
5. The author is a practicing criminal defense lawyer whose expertise in search and seizure cases is available for retained consultation and representation. The author does, however, provide free limited consultation for criminal defense lawyers who are members of NACDL. If you think I am too expensive, you should consider hiring my associate, Patrick J. Benca. Within five years of passing the bar, he won nearly 25 search and seizure appeals, one of which became an ALR Annotation.

B. Disclaimer and Other Legalese:
1. LexisNexis® has no connection to this web site.
2. The use of this website does not constitute the rendering of legal advice by the author to the reader.
3. Without access to the printed book and its current paper supplement, parts of this electronic supplement may appear to or be misleading. Therefore, readers run the risk of taking something out of context.
4. Every effort is made to update this web site daily before 9 a.m. Eastern and to periodically Shepardize® the citations. As stated above in A.3.a., I have a day job and answerable to courts, clients, and other obligations. And, I try to have a life. All of this sometimes limits this website to being updated late in the day or only every other day. It happens. I can tell by usage statistics that visits really start after 9 a.m. Eastern, so that is my goal.

C. Copyright Notices
1. Readers are free to cut and paste the content of this website for e-mails or CLE papers as long as they note the source of the material as this website, www.fourthamendment.com and Search and Seizure (3d ed. 2000). As stated below, no copyright is claimed by me in material that I quote, so that source must be noted.
2. Quotations from articles and cases are intended to be covered by the fair use doctrine of the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 107. There is no intent to infringe. Besides, I don't have the space, and I want readers to go to the original for the full text. A good lawyer always checks the source (at least they used to).
3. © 2003-05 by John Wesley Hall, Jr. No copyright claimed by the author in quotes from other sources.