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- IN: Overdose call led to EMS telling police what they saw and that led to SW
- NY1: A mental health defense waives REP in the medical records about it
- MA: When a likely Franks violation comes out at trial, def gets to reopen the suppression issue
- RI: Challenge to one sentence of 8-page cell phone records SW fails; totality has to be considered
- WaPo: Subpoena bill would curtail secretive tool used to target government critics
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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. 
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Update on author
The author has been out due to illness (not COVID-19 related!), and will begin updating this site again next week. It was to be two days in hospital, but will end up being 11-12.
Just Security: How Much Liberty Must We Give Up? A Constitutional Analysis of the Coronavirus Lockdown Proposals
Just Security: How Much Liberty Must We Give Up? A Constitutional Analysis of the Coronavirus Lockdown Proposals by Ahilan Arulanantham (“Benjamin Franklin once said that ‘those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither … Continue reading
Reason: Volokh Conspiracy: Restrictions on Interstate (and Intrastate) Travel in an Epidemic
Reason: Volokh Conspiracy: Restrictions on Interstate (and Intrastate) Travel in an Epidemic (are generally constitutional (whether they forbid travel to a particular place, or require travelers to be temporarily quarantined)) by Eugene Volokh
VT AG: Attorney General’s Directive to Law Enforcement on the Enforcement of the COVID-19 Emergency Order
VT AG: Attorney General’s Directive to Law Enforcement on the Enforcement of the COVID-19 Emergency Order: The Executive Order 01-20 does not authorize road closure or the establishment of roadblocks, checkpoints or the authority to demand identification. You will continue … Continue reading
Corporate Counsel: Microsoft Chief Legal Officer Applauds Washington’s Recently Signed Facial Recognition Law
Corporate Counsel: Microsoft Chief Legal Officer Applauds Washington’s Recently Signed Facial Recognition Law by Dan Clark (“Washington’s new law shows how regulation and market forces can move forward together in a way that advances innovation to meet public needs,” Brad … Continue reading
Courthouse News: San Francisco OKs $369,000 Settlement for Journalist Targeted by Police
Courthouse News: San Francisco OKs $369,000 Settlement for Journalist Targeted by Police by Nicholas Iovino (“A journalist whose home was raided by police will get $369,000 from San Francisco taxpayers under the terms of a settlement approved by the city’s … Continue reading
NYTimes: Justice Department Watchdog Cites More Flaws in FBI’s Handling of Surveillance Warrants
NYTimes: Justice Department Watchdog Cites More Flaws in FBI’s Handling of Surveillance Warrants by Reuters (“The FBI has failed to properly maintain supporting documentation when seeking surveillance warrants, raising questions about the factual underpinnings of the warrant applications and violating … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Video of contents of car satisfied inventory
Defendant argues the inventory was really investigatory. He doesn’t claim anything was missing or lost. He also was on someone else’s property at 5 am, so there was no need to leave it there because the owner couldn’t assent, assuming … Continue reading
W.D.La.: Def was uninvited guest without standing
The USMJ found defendant was an uninvited guest in the place searched who lacked standing. The evidence supports the findings. Hearsay is admissible in suppression hearings, but it doesn’t matter; if it were removed, it doesn’t change the outcome. United … Continue reading
CA1: Community caretaking function can apply to dwellings, too, when there’s a public safety issue
Following other jurisdictions, the court holds that the community caretaking function applies to private residences as well. Here, the plaintiff was acting erratically and his wife called the police. It was reasonable to seize his guns when he was sent … Continue reading
ColumbiaMissourian: Meet Officer Drone, the Columbia Police Department’s new tool
ColumbiaMissourian: Meet Officer Drone, the Columbia Police Department’s new tool by Connor Giffin:
D.N.M.: Officers had PC to believe def was inside for execution of arrest warrant
The officers had at least a fair probability that defendant was inside for execution of the arrest warrant in Arizona and the case was indicted in New Mexico. The standards are different between the Ninth and Tenth Circuits, so which … Continue reading
National Constitution Center video on the importance of jury duty
This is the video from the National Constitution Center’s exhibit on the right to trial by jury. It is the most underrated video on YouTube. After the attacks on the Roger Stone jury, I persuaded the trial judge in my … Continue reading
CNS: San Francisco to Pay $369,000 for Police Raid of Journalist’s Home
Courthouse News Service: San Francisco to Pay $369,000 for Police Raid of Journalist’s Home by Nicholas Iovino (“The city of San Francisco will pay $369,000 to settle claims over its police raid on a journalist’s home and office this past … Continue reading
NYTimes: When the Police Stop a Teenager With Special Needs
NYTimes: When the Police Stop a Teenager With Special Needs by Michele C. Hollow (“People with autism or other special needs may repeat words, avoid eye contact and run from authorities.”)
OR: Stop of def for being either involved in accident or material witness to it lacked RS
Defendant was in a vehicle that passed by the scene of a one vehicle accident the police were working. The officer somehow decided that the occupants of the passing vehicle had knowledge of the stop, and he engaged in a … Continue reading
CA9: Facebook copying an account for a coming SW was not a seizure
Facebook’s merely copying defendant’s account for a search warrant was not a seizure. United States v. Perez, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 5541 (9th Cir. Feb. 21, 2020). Probable cause existed for plaintiff’s arrest for constructive possession when she was found … Continue reading
WV: Court order generally needed to send in wired CI
West Virginia requires an intercept order for officers to send in a wired CI to record a drug transaction, but exigency is an exception, which the court finds. It is determined on the totality of the circumstances. State v. Howells, … Continue reading
Reason: Bivens Liability and Its Alternatives
Reason: Bivens Liability and Its Alternatives by Will Baude (“If the Court is going to abolish the 20th century remedies, can we at least have the 19th century remedies back?”)
The Recorder: California’s Appellate Courts Are Fine-Tuning When Juvenile Offenders Are Subject to Warrantless Searches
The Recorder: California’s Appellate Courts Are Fine-Tuning When Juvenile Offenders Are Subject to Warrantless Searches (“Although California’s First District Court of Appeal did not rule on the constitutional questions raised in the appeal, the court blocked the attorney general’s attempt … Continue reading