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Recent Posts
- IL: A backpack is not as personal a repository of stuff as a purse or wallet; officers ordered it left in vehicle for safety reasons and it was inventoried
- DE: Cell phone SW was limited by time and data sought, so it was not a general warrant
- 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
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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)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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
Privacy Foundation
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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
HPCWire: Do You Own Your Cloud Data? Third-Party Doctrine Says No
HPCWire: Do You Own Your Cloud Data? Third-Party Doctrine Says No by Alex Woodie (“Your data is yours, right? It seems like a simple question, but thanks to a little-known loophole in federal law, US regulators can access your private … Continue reading
IN: Stolen vehicles in yard doesn’t support SW for their records, and no GFE
Defendant was suspected of stealing trailers, and they were seen at his house. This did not justify a search warrant for documents in his house. In addition, the good faith exception did not apply. Thomas v. State, 2025 Ind. App. … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Use of stop sticks was a seizure
The use of stop sticks was a seizure, but here it was justified. United States v. Jordan, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 86127 (W.D. Mo. Apr. 4, 2025).* There was nexus for defendant’s place, and the Franks claim isn’t material. United … Continue reading
CA4: Where materiality fails under Franks, falsity doesn’t matter
The district court concluded that there was no false statement for Franks purposes, but that doesn’t even have to be decided. It certainly wasn’t material. Hedgepeth v. Nash Cty., 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 10868 (4th Cir. May 6, 2025).* It … Continue reading
ProPublica: The DEA Once Touted Body Cameras for Their “Enhanced Transparency.” Now the Agency Is Abandoning Them.
ProPublica: The DEA Once Touted Body Cameras for Their “Enhanced Transparency.” Now the Agency Is Abandoning Them. by Mario Ariza (“An internal email obtained by ProPublica said the agency made the change to be ‘consistent’ with a Trump executive order. … Continue reading
CA1: Notable Bivens dismissal by its dissent: retired Justice Breyer
A Bivens claim, not specifically a Fourth Amendment claim, fails because of a different context from existing caselaw. The claim fails 2-1. What’s interesting is that retired Justice Breyer was on the panel, and he dissented that the claim should … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Being made to leave during search of premises is not a seizure
Defendant was made to leave the premises while a search occurred inside, and that was not a seizure of his person. United States v. Arcadipane, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 82688 (M.D. Fla. May 1, 2025). Defendant, a sex offender on … Continue reading
DC: 2 am parking lot encounter was without RS
A radio dispatch of a suspicious vehicle on an apartment complex’s lot was so broad as to be meaningless. The trial court erred in relying on it. When the officer pulled up on the car, two occupants in the back … Continue reading
IL: Paperwork discrepancies permitted a truck safety inspection
Continuation of a commercial moving truck stop for a safety inspection was reasonable after there were “paperwork discrepancies.” People v. Ivanchuk, 2025 IL App (4th) 241230, 2025 Ill. App. LEXIS 856 (May 1, 2025). Mere negligent omissions for a Franks … Continue reading
AF: Military search authorization orally supplemented was subject to GFE
There were multiple military search authorizations, and the request here was orally supplemented before issuance expanding the particularity. Also, the good faith exception applies. United States v. Johnson, 2025 CCA LEXIS 193 (A.F. Ct. Crim. App. May 2, 2025). A … Continue reading
D.Neb.: First time CI was corroborated
This first time CI, arrested the day before, was corroborated and there was probable cause. United States v. Schelling, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 83754 (D. Neb. May 2, 2025).* There was reasonable suspicion with collective knowledge, and the search warrant … Continue reading
E.D.Mo.: Carpenter does not protect ISP information
Carpenter creates no protection for ISP subscriber information. No Due Process rights were violated though a § 1509 summons. United States v. Meyrand, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 84060 (E.D. Mo. May 2, 2025).* This court declined to abandon the automobile … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: Lack of a SW signature cured by GFE
“Defendant argues that the warrant is facially deficient because the affidavit lacked a signature, a panel of the Eleventh Circuit has considered and rejected this argument. See United States v. Gordon, 686 F. App’x 702, 704 (11th Cir. 2017) (holding … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: SW application wasn’t defective because it used “reasonable cause” instead of “probable cause”
The search warrant application wasn’t defective because it used “reasonable cause” instead of “probable cause.” They are interchangeable. United States v. Tundo, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 84283 (W.D.N.Y. May 2, 2025). Four months of pole camera surveillance on the front … Continue reading
D.N.J.: Admin SW can’t be quashed before execution
The company here refused an OSHA administrative inspection, so OSHA got an administrative warrant. Then the company moved to quash. Citing In re Anthony Marano Company, 556 F. Supp. 3d 890 (N.D. Ill. 2021), the court holds there is no … Continue reading
CA4 (en banc): Geofence warrant was in good faith; no decision on merits
The Fourth Circuit dodges deciding the merits of geofence warrants by going with good faith in a per curiam virtually summary affirmance with 124 pages of concurring and dissenting opinions. Having heard the excellent, spirited oral argument, this was where … Continue reading
NYT: Judge Temporarily Blocks Border Patrol’s Stop-and-Arrest Tactics in California
NYT: Judge Temporarily Blocks Border Patrol’s Stop-and-Arrest Tactics in California by Kate Selig (“Border Patrol agents carried out sweeps in California’s Central Valley. Lawyers argued that people were stopped and arrested based on their skin color.”)
techpolicy: Reverse Keyword Search Warrants and the Threat to Online Privacy
techpolicy: Reverse Keyword Search Warrants and the Threat to Online Privacy by Abigail Zislis (“Online privacy rights, already limited in the United States, face new threats from the advent of reverse keyword search warrants. In recent years, local and federal … Continue reading
MA: Extraterritorial citizen’s arrest power doesn’t permit seizures of cell phone and removal back home
Officers went to New Hampshire on a criminal investigation for a Massachusetts crime, and they ended up seizing defendant’s cell phone to preserve evidence, bringing it back to Massachusetts where it was searched. The common law power of citizen’s arrest … Continue reading