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Recent Posts
- 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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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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. 
Category Archives: Uncategorized
For those who think the Fourth Amendment is “dead” …
Lexis added 155 search cases to its database in the last 48 hours. It’s going to take a while to get caught up.
WaPo: A police department is handing out coupons, not tickets, to people who follow the law. Not everyone is thrilled.
WaPo: A police department is handing out coupons, not tickets, to people who follow the law. Not everyone is thrilled. By Antonia Noori Farzan:
NBC2 News: Can police search your car for medical marijuana after you leave a dispensary?
NBC2 News: Can police search your car for medical marijuana after you leave a dispensary? by Delia D’Ambra: Attorneys are becoming concerned these patients could fall victim to law enforcement overreach and have their rights violated and not even know … Continue reading
SF Chronical: DNA hearings: SF officers gave suspect in rapes alcohol test even though they didn’t think he was drunk
SF Chronical: DNA hearings: SF officers gave suspect in rapes alcohol test even though they didn’t think he was drunk by Evan Sernoffsky: San Francisco police never smelled alcohol when they pulled over Orlando Vilchez Lazo last year. They never … Continue reading
The Atlantic: On the Road, Police Power Has Few Limits
The Atlantic: On the Road, Police Power Has Few Limits by Sarah A. Seo: Officers have wide discretion when they pull over motorists. And the courts keep giving them more.
Finished all three book supplements over the weekend
Getting back to the blog. Why do all three editors want the supplement by mid-July?
FL4: Gratuitious references to SWs before jury became prejudicial character evidence; reversed
Two references to search warrants at defendant’s premises became prejudicial character evidence by seeking to link him to other drugs. Conviction reversed. Dawson v. State, 2019 Fla. App. LEXIS 10847 (Fla. 4th DCA July 10, 2019):
SierraWave.net: Inyo County, Bishop Paiute Tribe Reach Settlement [re searches, seizures, and arrests]
SierraWave.net: Inyo County, Bishop Paiute Tribe Reach Settlement:
NYT: Russia Sanctions Froze His Fortune. Can the 4th Amendment Unlock It?
NYT: Russia Sanctions Froze His Fortune. Can the 4th Amendment Unlock It? by Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum
D.Kan.: In a civil case, the court takes judicial notice of a search warrant in PACER in the same court
“The court takes judicial notice of the existence of the search warrant as part of its own files and records from judicial proceedings which do not convert motions under Rule 12(b)(6) into motions for summary judgment. See Tal v. Hogan, … Continue reading
PA: Franks challenge fails for failure to plead
Defendant’s Franks challenge fails for failure to even plead enough. “Appellant never alleged that the police made deliberately false statements or made statements with a reckless disregard for the truth in asserting that McKnight had witnessed the shooting.” Commonwealth v. … Continue reading
ABAJ: Lawyer count in US increases 14.5% from decade ago …
ABAJ: Lawyer count in US increases 14.5% from decade ago; these 5 states have highest number of active attorneys by Debra Cassens Weiss When I became a lawyer in 1973, there were 250,000 American lawyers. Today it’s 1,352,027.
NBC: Facebook lawyer says ‘there is no privacy,’ hinting at the challenges of Zuckerberg’s pivot
NBC: Facebook lawyer says ‘there is no privacy,’ hinting at the challenges of Zuckerberg’s pivot by Ben Popken: Some privacy advocates remain concerned that Zuckerberg’s ‘privacy-focused vision’ leaves the company’s core business of data-targeted ads mostly unscathed.
OH3: Def’s failure to show actual innocence defeats his claim he never saw SW to challenge it
Defendant claimed he never knew about any search warrants in his case, but he was served with one when he was arrested and his place searched. Even so, there is no indication that he would have prevailed on any search … Continue reading
CA11: Petr’s successor habeas claim for new evidence of a 4A violation doesn’t show actual innocence
“Petroff asserts that each of his claims rely on ‘the same newly discovered evidence.’ However, Petroff does not appear to actually describe what the new evidence he has obtained is at any point. Moreover, Petroff’s central argument appears to be … Continue reading
CNN: Judge orders public release of Michael Cohen search warrants
CNN: Judge orders public release of Michael Cohen search warrants by Katelyn Polantz & Kate Sullivan:
Anthony G. Amsterdam’s legendary Perspectives on the Fourth Amendment (1974) finally available online for free, after 45 years
Anthony G. Amsterdam, Perspectives on the Fourth Amendment, 58 Minn. L. Rev. 848 (1974).
American Enterprise Institute: Would privacy legislation actually improve people’s privacy?
American Enterprise Institute: Would privacy legislation actually improve people’s privacy? by Jim Harper: The likelihood of federal privacy legislation has waxed and waned many times over the last two decades. It’s presently in a waxing phase, so it’s worth reviewing … Continue reading
LATimes: Weed smuggling arrests at LAX have surged 166% since marijuana legalization
LATimes: Weed smuggling arrests at LAX have surged 166% since marijuana legalization by Joseph Serna: Emboldened by legalization and facing only light punishment if captured, more and more smugglers are taking to the friendly skies in an effort to escape … Continue reading