Archives
-
Recent Posts
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
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)
-
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
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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)
-
“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
CA11: 4A violation isn’t actual innocence claim for habeas
An alleged Fourth Amendment violation is not an actual innocence claim for habeas. “Fourth, he argues that he is actually innocent given that he was denied his right to counsel when investigators continued to interrogate him, despite his unequivocal request … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Conduct that is objectively innocent, too, must have something suggesting criminality to be RS
Conduct that is objectively innocent, too, must have something suggesting criminality to be reasonable suspicion. United States v. Hamilton, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71876 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 19, 2022)*:
E.D.Va.: Guest of renter of hotel room had standing
A guest in a hotel room had standing because the renter permitted him to stay there. As for the merits of the search, inevitable discovery applies. United States v. Stein, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71316 (E.D.Va. Apr. 18, 2022). Officers … Continue reading
WaPo: Opinion: Democracies shouldn’t surrender to a future of limitless surveillance
WaPo: Opinion: Democracies shouldn’t surrender to a future of limitless surveillance (“‘Almost all governments in Europe are using our tools.’ This boast from the chief executive of Israeli spyware company NSO Group reveals the extent to which surveillance software has … Continue reading
Reason: Houston Says Businesses Must Install Surveillance Cameras and Cops Can View Footage Without a Warrant
Reason: Houston Says Businesses Must Install Surveillance Cameras and Cops Can View Footage Without a Warrant by Elizabeth Nolan Brown:
D.Me.: Search under state bail condition was with RS and alternative ground
Defendant was on a state bail condition that authorized warrantless searches. In a traffic stop, the officer had at least reasonable suspicion of drug activity in the vehicle. The search was reasonable under both. As to the bail condition, there … Continue reading
Bloomberg: Justices Reject Case Over Phone Search in Parole Breach Arrest
Bloomberg Law: Justices Reject Case Over Phone Search in Parole Breach Arrest by Andrea Vitorio (“The U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider whether law enforcement officers can, without a warrant, search a cell phone belonging to a man who was … Continue reading
M.D.Pa.: Missing dashcam video of stop and search not shown to be material
The missing dashcam video was not shown to be material. Defendant’s drug paraphernalia was in plain view and it was readily apparent what it was. That led to an automobile exception search. United States v. Griffith, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: Violation of state SW statutes and rules not a 4A violation
Violation of state statutes or rules in issuing search warrants is not a Fourth Amendment issue. And, nexus was shown: “So interpreting the affidavit, and based on the totality of the circumstances including the role cell phones generally play in … Continue reading
D.N.M.: Community caretaking seizure of car off private property unreasonable
The impoundment of the car defendant was driving (although not his, he has standing) was unjustified. It was on private property and not impeding any traffic. The community caretaking function did not justify it. There was no standardized impoundment policy, … Continue reading
The New Yorker: How Democracies Spy on Their Citizens
The New Yorker: How Democracies Spy on Their Citizens by Ronan FarrowThe inside story of the world’s most notorious commercial spyware and the big tech companies waging war against it.
USA Today: Opinion: Prisons overuse strip searches to dehumanize people like me. End this horrific practice now.
USA Today: Opinion: Prisons overuse strip searches to dehumanize people like me. End this horrific practice now. (“New York, where I was incarcerated, should respect the bodily integrity and human dignity of those it holds in prison, as should every … Continue reading
NJ: Court order for cell phone passcodes is a 5A question; 4A inquiry erroneously included
“The State appeals the denial of its motion to compel a cell phone passcode from defendant, C.J.L. The State argues the motion court erred by overlooking critical ownership evidence and misapplying the foregone conclusion doctrine, effectively importing Fourth Amendment principles … Continue reading
CA8: Court can consider GFE rather than decide PC
“‘[T]his Court ‘may consider the applicability of the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule,’ without addressing whether probable cause exists.” Here, there was enough to likely show probable cause so the officer reasonably believed in the validity of the warrant. … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: No blanket rule passengers can be asked pedigree questions during traffic stop
There is no blanket rule that passengers in a traffic stop can be asked their pedigree information. The cases the government rely on are pre-Rodriguez and of no real value. Here, those questions extended the stop. United States v. Wright, … Continue reading
CA11: QI for officers sued in Florida spa video surveillance case
Plaintiff’s § 1983 case over the video surveillance in the East Sea Spa case (see here) fails on qualified immunity for lack of clearly established law. Thompson v. Indian River County Sheriff’s Office, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 10266 (11th Cir. … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: USDJ doesn’t second guess USMJ’s credibility determinations in the R&R
USDJ doesn’t second guess USMJ’s credibility determinations in the R&R on a motion to suppress. United States v. Bowman, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69156 (E.D.Tenn. Apr. 14, 2022).* A bag left outdoors at an apartment complex for more than a … Continue reading
Kansas Reflector: Kansas law enforcement routinely produces error-filled reports on seized cash and property
Kansas Reflector (via Rawstory): Kansas law enforcement routinely produces error-filled reports on seized cash and property by Duane Schrag:
E.D.Ark.: City’s court order made clean up and removal of ptf’s property reasonable
Plaintiff was told for years to clean up his property from unsightly construction materials and equipment. After many failed efforts to get him to do so, the city obtained a court order to remove the property. It removed nine trailerloads … Continue reading