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- MD: Under Bruen, mere possession of a handgun outside the home is no longer RS; Terry stop doesn’t include looking in a bag
- 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
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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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)
ACLU on privacy
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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
CA6: Entrapment is not a defense to a search warrant
Entrapment is not a defense to a search warrant, so CoA denied. Neeley v. United States, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 29144 (6th Cir. Nov. 5, 2025). The motion to suppress for lack of jurisdiction to serve warrants is denied. It’s … Continue reading
D.N.D.: Tactical decision not to raise every 4A issue def can think up
Not raising before conviction all the conceivable Fourth Amendment claims defendant thought were useful was a reasonable tactical decision. Perez v. United States, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 220629 (D.N.D. Nov. 7, 2025). “As the trial court noted, approximately one minute … Continue reading
WaPo: Justice Department struggles as thousands exit — and few are replaced
WaPo: Justice Department struggles as thousands exit — and few are replaced by Perry Stein (“The Justice Department has lost thousands of experienced attorneys and backfilled a fraction of the open jobs, in part because of a lack of qualified … Continue reading
NPR: Immigration agents have new technology to identify and track people
NPR: Immigration agents have new technology to identify and track people by Jude Joffe-Block (“Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is acquiring powerful new surveillance tools to identify and monitor people. They include apps that let federal agents point a cell … Continue reading
NY: The smell of a decomposing body in a Brooklyn apartment was plain smell for finding source
Defendant had no standing to contest the opening of an apartment refrigerator finding a decapitated body. This was plain smell. The officers could smell the decomposing body, and that was enough to open the refrigerator door. People v. McGee, 2025 … Continue reading
CA9: Accidentally killing the hostage was subject to qualified immunity
Summary by the court: “The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal of a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against the City of Henderson, its police department, and several police officers arising from the shooting death of 12-year-old Joseph Hawatmeh, who … Continue reading
TNR: Confirmed: ICE Is Arresting American Citizens—and Lying About It
The New Republic: Confirmed: ICE Is Arresting American Citizens—and Lying About It by Harry Litman (“A government that flouts the Fourth Amendment and then lies about it to courts and the people has crossed a moral and legal frontier.”)
D.N.M.: SW nondisclosure order denied for lack of supervisor certification
In re Application for AT&T Non-Disclosure Order, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 218179 (D.N.M. Nov. 4, 2025), is denied for lack of certification from a supervising official as required by statute. Defendant was subject to a probation search waiver, and there … Continue reading
FL4: Welfare check entry valid despite mixed motives
A welfare check that is objectively reasonable isn’t unreasonable because of a mixed motive to arrest if necessary. State v. Leiby, 2025 Fla. App. LEXIS 8339 (Fla. 4th DCA Nov. 5, 2025). The police had (plenty) of probable cause to … Continue reading
E.D.Cal.: No sealing SW materials without a showing of justification from government
The government’s motion to seal search warrant materials from a year ago because the investigation is ongoing is denied for lack of a showing of justification. In re Matter of Application by United States for Search Warrant to Search, 2025 … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: No standing in husband’s cell phone searched in Syria; no REP in NCEM database
“Defendant Halima Salman is charged with receiving military type training from a foreign terrorist organization in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2339D.” The government maintains a database of who is involved in military activities overseas: NMEC. Defendant’s … Continue reading
CA6: Applying PC deference, there was PC for this warrant based on informant hearsay
“Applying this deference here, we conclude that the state judge properly found probable cause based on the informant’s claims that Howard stored illegal drugs at his apartment. The officer’s affidavit adequately established the informant’s reliability and basis of knowledge. First, … Continue reading
I’m behind reading sixth editions page proofs
3500 pages, three volumes
404 Media: DHS Gives Local Cops a Facial Recognition App To Find Immigrants
404 Media: DHS Gives Local Cops a Facial Recognition App To Find Immigrants by Joseph Cox:
ProPublica: “I Don’t Feel Safe”: Black Memphis Residents Report Harassment by Trump’s Police Task Force
ProPublica: “I Don’t Feel Safe”: Black Memphis Residents Report Harassment by Trump’s Police Task Force by Wendi C. Thomas & Katherine Burgess (“Trump’s Memphis Safe Task Force promised to focus on violent criminals, but after being stopped for no apparent … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: Some assistance to foreign police under MLAT doesn’t require suppression
Defendants are accused to a cocaine conspiracy of trafficking from South America to Europe through the US. The government obtained information from European counties via MLAT, and whatever assistance they gave to help gather information didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment. … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Without seeing the video of the occurrence referred to in SW affidavit, court can’t find PC
The affidavit for warrant refers to a video of an occurrence, but, without seeing the video, the USMJ can’t decide probable cause for the warrant. Otherwise, it’s ratifying the officer’s conclusions, mentioning being a “rubber stamp.” In re Search of … Continue reading
techdirt: The Kavanaugh Stop’s Legacy: 50 Days, 170+ Detained Citizens, Zero Answers
techdirt: The Kavanaugh Stop’s Legacy: 50 Days, 170+ Detained Citizens, Zero Answers: