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Recent Posts
- 404 Media: Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Using Flock to Stalk People
- Cal.1: Entry by robot, drone, tear gas, and flash bang was with PC after def refused to come out on a SW and AW
- CA8: Def’s connection to property searched was so tenuous he had no standing; no one claimed to know him
- D.Mass.: Inventory valid despite there being no impoundment policy
- CA6: The smell of burnt MJ in a car is still PC for driving under influence even where personal possession is legal.
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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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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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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. 
Author Archives: Hall
D.Neb.: Admitted state law jurisdiction violation still not 4A unreasonable
Despite the criminal charges being dropped because city officers were outside their jurisdiction, the whole matter was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment because reasonableness doesn’t depend on state law violations. Kosiba v. Kleine, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 139379 (D. Neb. … Continue reading
D.Conn.: False dog alert may not mean anything
Alleged false alerts of a drug dog may not be at all because the dog could have smelled residual odor of drugs from some other time. United States v. Manson, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138590 (D. Conn. Aug. 9, 2023) … Continue reading
Kansas Reflector: In Marion County newspaper raid, a grim threat to Kansans’ First Amendment rights
Kansas Reflector: In Marion County newspaper raid, a grim threat to Kansans’ First Amendment rights by Clay Wirestone:
NY Albany: Text message confession to molestation to wife was still covered by marital privilege when she disclosed to police
Defendant confessed to his wife by text message to molestation of his nephew. Despite her consenting to turn it over to the police, he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the message and marital privilege still applied. People v. … Continue reading
NJ: <6 second delay between 5 am announcement and entry violated state constitution
Less than six seconds between announcement and entry at 5 am violated the state constitutional guarantee for announcement before entry. Defendant was not known to ever be violent. State v. Nieves, 2023 N.J. Super. LEXIS 84 (Aug. 9, 2023):
D.Mont.: Dispatch’s reasonable mistake in reporting on arrest warrant doesn’t violate 4A
A reasonable mistake by dispatch in reporting on an arrest warrant doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. Under Heien, “Reasonability is not equivalent to perfection, and so the Fourth Amendment allows for officials to make some mistakes, giving them ‘fair leeway … Continue reading
D.C.Cir.: SW nondisclosure order under SCA was reasonable under 1A
The district court’s nondisclosure order under the Stored Communications Act to Twitter’s search warrant account holder was a reasonable restriction on free speech to prevent destruction of evidence or other feared actions. The order was limited to 180 days and … Continue reading
OH10 finds that medical records are sufficiently analogous to CSLI that a SW is required to get them
OH10 finds that medical records are sufficiently analogous to CSLI that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy and a search warrant, not a subpoena, is required. State v. Rogers, 2023-Ohio-2749, 2023 Ohio App. LEXIS 2707 (10th Dist. Aug. 8, … Continue reading
OH10: Officer’s lack of knowledge of Covid extension of licenses was not reasonable mistake under Heien
The officer’s mistake of law in not knowing that an executive order that vehicle licenses expiring during Covid March 9, 2020 to December 1, 2020 remained valid was unreasonable under Heien. Heien requires ambiguity, and this wasn’t. Also, an unreasonable … Continue reading
CO granted review: Does IP address at one house permit a search of neighboring houses, too, if the signal reaches there?
Does IP address at one house permit a search of neighboring houses, too, if the signal reaches there? That’s not the question exactly, but close enough. Dhyne v. People, 2023 Colo. LEXIS 779 (Aug. 7, 2023)*:
M.D.Fla.: A records preservation request to cell phone providers was not a seizure
A records preservation letter sent to cell phone providers was not a seizure, let alone an unreasonable one. The records were later secured by search warrant. United States v. Zwiefelhofer, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 134679 (M.D. Fla. Aug. 2, 2023). … Continue reading
M.D.Tenn.: 4A unreasonable search clause may apply to excessive damaging search
In executing a search warrant unreasonably causing excessive and unnecessary property damage, the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment almost never applies, but the Fourth Amendment’s unreasonable search clause may. Slaybaugh v. Rutherford Cty., 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 149105 (M.D. … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: PC to believe a person lives at a particular address can be wrong and still be sufficient
Probable cause to believe a person lives at a particular address can be wrong and still be sufficient. “Vaughn also challenges the sufficiency of the affidavit on the ground that it failed to establish probable cause that he lived at … Continue reading
CA8: Motion to suppress via motion for judgment of acquittal results in plain error review
Defendant’s motion to suppress was made as a motion for judgment of acquittal, so it was subject to plain error review, which it was not. United States v. Thornton, 2023 U.S. App. LEXIS 20109 (8th Cir. Aug. 4, 2023). “The … Continue reading
OH1: RS went stale by the time def was seen again days later
There was no reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop days after he was seen on the street. “Perhaps if the officers had stopped J.T. and his red-sweatshirt-wearing companion nearby the church immediately after the shooting, the totality of the circumstances could … Continue reading
CA11: Outsider to case has no standing in Mar-a-Lago SW litigation to challenge PC
Plaintiff, a citizen who is essentially a person on the street with no particular interest in the case, has no ability to intervene in the Mar-a-Lago search warrant case to argue lack of probable cause, something conceded by the parties. … Continue reading
Army: Affidavit for SW didn’t show why text messages would still be on def’s cell phone; but harmless error
The government did not show in the affidavit for search authorization that text messages would logically be found on his cell phone corroborating a sex crime victim. Nevertheless, he wasn’t prejudiced by it. United States v. Geranen, 2023 CCA LEXIS … Continue reading
NBC: Detroit woman sues city after being falsely arrested while 8-months pregnant due to facial recognition technology
NBC: Detroit woman sues city after being falsely arrested while 8-months pregnant due to facial recognition technology by Mirna Alsharif & Cristian Santana (She was alleged to have committed a carjacking three weeks earlier despite being 7½ months pregnant. “‘Ms. … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Sentence enhanced for destruction of subpoenaed emails found in later search
The government subpoenaed emails from defendant. Suspecting that some were deleted, a search warrant was issued for his account, and the missing emails were found. Thus, the sentence was enhanced for destruction of evidence under U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1. United States … Continue reading