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Recent Posts
- OH1: SW for residence justified seizure of text messages about drug transactions received during execution of warrant
- Cal.2: CA OSHA had the authority to subpoena records over a workplace death, but this one was overbroad
- CA6: ChatGPT’s opinion that evidence was “newly discovered” for a successor habeas is wrong
- N.D.Cal.: Tribe’s suit over overbroad SW can proceed
- DE: Warrantless entry in DUI case unreasonable
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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)
--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. 
Author Archives: Hall
CT: Entry onto def’s deck was for community caretaking function
The officer’s entry onto defendant’s deck here was of a community caretaking function to inform defendant that a loved one was going to the hospital. It was like a knock-and-talk. State v. Kuehn, 2022 Conn. Super. LEXIS 2075 (Sep. 13, … Continue reading
D.Neb.: Eviction of unruly hotel guest is loss of REP in room as soon as decision is made, even without statute authorizing it
Eviction of an unruly guest from a motel or hotel results in a loss of the renter’s reasonable expectation of privacy even if there is no statute governing it. Thus, the proprietor can hand over the keys to the police … Continue reading
WaPo: 6 questions about flying with marijuana, answered
WaPo: 6 questions about flying with marijuana, answered | What to know about federal laws, TSA and flying with CBD by Natalie B. Compton:
MA: Ptf stated claim for unjustified community caretaking entry to investigate alleged elder abuse
Plaintiff was caring for a 95-year-old retired priest. She stated a claim for a Fourth Amendment violation for a warrantless entry into her house, in part, under the community caretaking function without justification. Gallagher v. S. Shore Hosp., Inc., 2022 … Continue reading
IL: Police car computer report stopped car had no insurance was presumptively reliable basis for stop
Defendant’s car was licensed in another state, so the state’s window tint law didn’t apply, and that couldn’t be a basis for the stop. However, the car was uninsured per the police computer system. “We further note that Campbell’s reliance … Continue reading
D.P.R.: “A motion to suppress is not a discovery tool.”
Defendant’s motion to suppress searches of cell phones is denied because he doesn’t show any standing in the phones that were searched. “A motion to suppress is not a discovery tool. Without a basic factual premise, the Court cannot discern … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Running passengers’ IDs was outside mission of traffic stop
Running the IDs of the passengers and checking on the probation or parole status was beyond the mission of the traffic stop. Motion to suppress granted. United States v. Taylor, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 182023 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 4, 2022). … Continue reading
The Guardian: Surveillance shift: San Francisco pilots program allowing police to live monitor private security cameras
The Guardian: Surveillance shift: San Francisco pilots program allowing police to live monitor private security cameras (“The trial would give law enforcement access to live footage by consenting residents, a departure from the city’s previous stance.”)
WA: ID officers participating in WA permitted at common law and not barred by 4A or statute
A child pornography investigation in Idaho led to a search warrant in a neighboring county in Washington. The Washington officers inviting Idaho officers to participate in aiding the search did not violate statute or the Fourth Amendment. It was permitted … Continue reading
KS: “Best practices” in a search protocol isn’t usually constitutionally required
Applying “best practices” to a search protocol isn’t usually constitutionally required. State v. Fudge, 2022 Kan. App. LEXIS 37 (Sep. 30, 2022):
TX1: Order to return cell phone in murder investigation was without jurisdiction
The trial court’s order ordering return of a cell phone seized in a murder investigation was void and reversed. “‘Suppression of evidence and return of property are not the same relief.’” Defendant had not yet been indicted, so the trial … Continue reading
ProPublica: Mississippi’s Missing Search Warrants Prevent Scrutiny of No-Knock Raids
ProPublica: Mississippi’s Missing Search Warrants Prevent Scrutiny of No-Knock Raids (“No-knock warrants authorize police to burst into someone’s home unannounced. Search warrants are supposed to be filed at the courthouse, but they’re missing from many of Mississippi’s justice courts.”)
CA4: Bank robbery def abandoned the getaway car and his cell phone in it
“[T]he district court did not clearly err by finding that Pridgen abandoned the getaway vehicle and his cell phone, and, thus, the court did not err by finding that he lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in those items when … Continue reading
CA5: Motel owner who opened room door without police asking was a private actor
Police attempted a knock-and-talk at a motel, but no one opened the door. The motel owner here was watching so he opened the door on his own. He asked the officers before he did, but they said they needed a … Continue reading
OH6: Consent to search cell phone obtained by telling def it would get his phone back sooner was involuntary
Defendant’s consent to search his phone was merely acquiescing to a claim of lawful authority because it was told if he consented he could get it back faster. State v. Seem, 2022-Ohio-3507, 2022 Ohio App. LEXIS 3314 (6th Dist. Sep. … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Policy of using SWAT team to enter without announcing in every drug case states a failure to train claim
Plaintiff’s unarmed decedent was shot and killed by the St. Louis PD SWAT team in a no-knock drug raid of the wrong house. Plaintiff stated a claim that the affidavit for search warrant omitted critical facts that undermined probable cause. … Continue reading
D.Mass.: 6 mo. old info in a drug SW application was stale, and no GFE
The information in a drug search warrant was six months old. No reasonable officer would believe it showed probable cause, despite a magistrate signing off on it. It is “so lacking” in its showing that the good faith exception does … Continue reading
OH10: Window tint violation justified impoundment and inventory, even though discretionary
Under the inventory policy, the police had the discretion to impound vehicles with excessive window tint, even though they did not apply impoundment uniformly. State v. Hall-Johnson, 2022-Ohio-3512, 2022 Ohio App. LEXIS 3308 (10th Dist. Sep. 30, 2022). An investigation … Continue reading
NY2: Franks claim has to be fully developed; it’s more than just a false statement
Franks claim fails for failure to show how the alleged false statements undermined the probable cause. “The defendant failed to meet his burden of controverting the warrant, as he failed to analyze, must less establish, that after the excise of … Continue reading