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Recent Posts
- MO: When officers came with an arrest warrant, def’s admission he had a firearm justified the entry
- PA: Shining flashlight into hole in a shoebox was a search; there was a REP in the closed box
- CA5: Accidentally shooting the man who disarmed the shooter from a residence was not a constitutional violation
- CA9: False evidence to arrest violates due process
- CA6: The SW affidavit here was thin, but it wasn’t completely bare bones, so GFE applies
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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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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
N.Y.Co.: Installing software on a cell phone to protect its data before search wasn’t unreasonable
“The Court is further unpersuaded by the Defendant’s assertion that the installation of software, aimed at preserving evidence rather than conducting a search, on the Defendant’s cellphone was an improper or unconstitutional intrusion. The manner in which law enforcement handled … Continue reading
MT: When officers lawfully get ID, they can run it
Running defendant’s name after lawfully asking for ID led to a warrant, and it was all reasonable. State v. Fish, 2026 MT 12 (Feb. 3, 2026)*: At no point during his interaction with Fish did Deputy Kammerzell breach the Fourth … Continue reading
N.D.Ind.: Alleged sexual assault during citizen ride along stated 4A claim
Alleged sexual assault during a citizen ride along in a police car stated a Fourth Amendment claim. Hess v. Garcia, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22018 (N.D. Ind. Feb. 3, 2026). “Based on our precedent involving the use of pepper spray, … Continue reading
GA: Visitor has no REP in common areas of host’s home
The MV’s grandmother suspected defendant was molesting her granddaughter. She placed a video camera in the living room. It was obvious with a red light on it, and there was a sign that a camera was in use. He moved … Continue reading
CNS: House Democrats demand DHS scrap memo allowing warrantless entry of homes
CNS: House Democrats demand DHS scrap memo allowing warrantless entry of homes by Benjamin S. Weiss (“House Democrats demanded the Department of Homeland Security rescind a controversial directive allowing federal immigration agents to forcibly enter people’s homes without a signed … Continue reading
ID: Potential for destruction of evidence on cell phone was justification for its seizure
Defendant was reported for video voyeurism of his stepdaughter in the bathroom, and police got his phone, telling him they were seizing it. Then they got a warrant. The potential for destruction of evidence was sufficient justification for a warrantless … Continue reading
NPR & AP: ICE can’t make warrantless arrests in Oregon unless there’s risk of escape, judge rules
NPR: ICE can’t make warrantless arrests in Oregon unless there’s risk of escape, judge rules via AP (“U.S. immigration agents in Oregon must stop arresting people without warrants unless there’s a likelihood of escape, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. … Continue reading
TX1: Motion to suppress after officer testified at trial not timely
Defense counsel’s motion to suppress coming during trial at the end of the officer’s testimony wasn’t timely. Brown v. State, 2026 Tex. App. LEXIS 1014 (Tex. App. – Houston (1st Dist.) Feb. 3, 2026)* (unpublished). An automobile exception search can … Continue reading
GA: Curtilage for 4A purposes isn’t the same for defense of the home from an intruder
Curtilage for Fourth Amendment purposes isn’t the same for defense of the home from an intruder. Graham v. State, 2026 Ga. LEXIS 25 (Feb. 3, 2026):
WaPo: Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon
WaPo: Homeland Security is targeting Americans with this secretive legal weapon by John Woodrow Cox (“In October, a retiree emailed a DHS attorney to urge mercy for an asylum seeker. Then DHS subpoenaed his Google account and sent investigators to … Continue reading
D.Ariz.: No standing to raise fruit of poisonous tree argument because “it’s not his tree”
No standing to challenge the stop of a car he wasn’t in or wasn’t his. United States v. Flores-Mendivil, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20776 (D. Ariz. Feb. 2, 2026)*:
N.D.Iowa: Nexus shown to cell phone in harassing letters case
The ubiquity of cell phones makes them likely sources of evidence in crimes. Here, there was [at least a slim] nexus to the cell phone and iPad being involved in sending harassing letters. United States v. Goodman, 2026 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
D.Minn.: No continuing preservation order for state BCA v. federal investigators in Pretti killing
The State of Minnesota obtained a search warrant for DHS investigative materials, which was ignored, and then sued DHS over its investigation into the Alex Pretti killing. The District of Minnesota still applies the presumption of regularity and declines to … Continue reading
D.S.D.: “Dismissal of an indictment is not an appropriate remedy for a Fourth Amendment violation.”
“Dismissal of an indictment is not an appropriate remedy for a Fourth Amendment violation. United States v. Chavez, 705 F.3d 381, 386 (8th Cir. 2013).” It may be for a due process violation. United States v. Pryor, 2026 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
N.D.Ga.: 28-day delay in getting SW for phones wasn’t unreasonable here
Defendant was driving a car with a fraudulent VIN but claimed he knew nothing about that, having borrowed the car. Other things in the car added to probable cause to believe he was involved in frauds, and that ultimately led … Continue reading
OH6: Search claim resolved in criminal case is collateral estoppel in forfeiture
This is a forfeiture after defendant lost his search claim in his criminal case. The search issue is res judicata or collateral estoppel in the forfeiture. State v. Pitts, 2026-Ohio-292 (6th Dist. Jan. 30, 2026). Defendant’s superseding indictment raising the … Continue reading
ND: When the main way into a house is through the garage, no violation of curtilage to enter
While this house was being worked on, the way in was through the garage and door inside there, not the front door. Therefore, police were able to come through the garage to knock. Therefore, no violation of curtilage making the … Continue reading
CA9: No QI for knowingly presenting material false testimony in support of a warrant
No qualified immunity for knowingly presenting material false testimony in support of a warrant. Gibson v. City of Portland, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 2646 (9th Cir. Jan. 29, 2026). As to Franks: “Even if there were a material omission, inclusion … Continue reading