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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
Reason: It’s Bill of Rights Day. Do Americans Still Care?
Reason: It’s Bill of Rights Day. Do Americans Still Care? by J.D. Tuccille (“The greatest threat to protections for our freedom may be people’s fear that people who disagree with them are exercising their rights.”)
techdirt: DOJ Headed By William Barr Asked To Explain Warrantless Bulk Data Collection William Barr Authorized 27 Years Ago When He Was The Head Of The DOJ
techdirt: DOJ Headed By William Barr Asked To Explain Warrantless Bulk Data Collection William Barr Authorized 27 Years Ago When He Was The Head Of The DOJ by Tim Cushing:
NV: OT: Relying on Kyllo, a digital blog is covered by the newpaperman’s privilege in confidential sources
Off topic, but significant: A digital news blog is covered by the nearly 50-year-old Nevada statute on protecting news sources and under the anti-SLAPP statute. Relying on Kyllo, the court finds that new technology has to be recognized under existing … Continue reading
Reason: Massachusetts Police Test Out Robot Dogs. Is Dystopia on Its Way?
Reason: Massachusetts Police Test Out Robot Dogs. Is Dystopia on Its Way? by Scott Shackford Don’t be afraid of the robopups, but make sure we leash law enforcement to keep officers from misusing them.
W.D.Tex.: Def shows a “substantial question” of the legality of his search for bail pending appeal of his conviction
Defendant showed a substantial enough question for appeal on the legality of a protective sweep that led to a plain view, so he gets bail pending appeal. United States v. Roark, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 198264 (W.D. Tex. Nov. 15, … Continue reading
Adventures in federal court in Springfield MO
I tried a ten count wire fraud and money laundering case in the Western District of Missouri in Springfield this past week. The jury convicted. The last 30 minutes was the most interesting, and gratifying: As we came back for … Continue reading
In a week long federal trial
Which is why postings have been so sporadic for the last ten days and will be through Friday
Lexology: Courts continue to consider intersection of Fourth Amendment and technology: without a warrant, retrieval of car’s electronic data unconstitutional, but surveillance on hunting property permissible
Lexology: Courts continue to consider intersection of Fourth Amendment and technology: without a warrant, retrieval of car’s electronic data unconstitutional, but surveillance on hunting property permissible by Brian J. Willett
CA10: When the police destroy your house in aid of the police power because of a barricaded suspect, it’s not a taking under the 5A
When the police destroy your house in aid of the police power because of a barricaded suspect, it’s not a taking under the Fifth Amendment. [The Fourth Amendment is not cited.] Lech v. Jackson, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 32393 (10th … Continue reading
CA6: Codef’s appeal from same suppression hearing already affirmed, so that’s law of the case [even though he didn’t get to brief it, so how fair is that?]
The codefendant’s appeal on the same grounds, from the same suppression hearing was affirmed in July. That’s law of the case as to this defendant. United States v. Thompson, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 30910 (6th Cir. Oct. 16, 2019). “Carter … Continue reading
CA11: There was RS others were in the house to justify a protective sweep which includes opening a closet
Officers had specific and articulable facts of persons that might be in the house, so a protective sweep was permitted. This included opening a closet door where an assault rifle was found. United States v. Solano-Mendoza, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS … Continue reading
KY: No right to advice of DUI rights in Spanish
“On the strength of Rhodes, we hold law enforcement officers satisfy KRS 189A.105(2), which requires a suspected drunk driver be ‘informed’ of specific rights and consequences associated with Kentucky’s implied consent law as expressed in KRS 189A.103, by reading the … Continue reading
OH10: Post-conviction petition alleging Franks violation has to be factually specific
Defendant in his post-conviction petition doesn’t show sufficient falsity to undermine the search warrant. State v. Edwards, 2019 Ohio App. LEXIS 3977 (10th Dist. Sept. 26, 2019).* Factual disputes preclude appeal of a denial of qualified immunity to a police … Continue reading
NYT: Opinion: Privacy Is Not Your Responsibility
NYT: Opinion: Privacy Is Not Your Responsibility by Charlie Warzel (“The idea that you have control is an insidious illusion.”)
Search issues resolved on appeal can’t be considered in post-conviction
Petitioner’s 2255 Fourth Amendment claim was already decided on direct appeal and can’t be raised now. Felix v. United States, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 154587 (M.D. Fla. Sept. 11, 2019).* Same with this state conviction. Haithcox v. State, 2019 MT … Continue reading
WaPo: A man live-streamed his traffic stop. He recorded police fatally shooting him.
WaPo: A man live-streamed his traffic stop. He recorded police fatally shooting him. By Katie Mettler (“It remains unclear what prompted police to use lethal force.”)
DE: State failed to show exigency for “hot pusuit,” or even pursuit
The state failed to show exigency for hot pursuit. Defendant fled to a dwelling where he was a frequent guest. There was no indication of a risk of destruction of evidence. State v. Foreman, 2019 Del. Super. LEXIS 416 (Aug. … Continue reading
NC: Def outside cleaning his car when police showed up for drug raid couldn’t be detained under Summers
When the police showed up to search the premises, defendant was outside cleaning his car. His detention cannot be justified by Summers as a known recent occupant of the premises. His conviction is reversed. State v. Thompson, 2019 N.C. App. … Continue reading
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Editorial: Marijuana haze: Police struggle to keep up with new laws on pot
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Editorial: Marijuana haze: Police struggle to keep up with new laws on pot: There is a clear need for better training on medical marijuana and on search and seizure.
CA3: Guilty plea waives a 4A claim, and the plea is the basis of conviction, not the search
A guilty plea waives a Fourth Amendment claim. The plea is the basis of conviction, not the search. United States v. Porter, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 22990 (3d Cir. Aug. 1, 2019):