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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)
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--Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (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
Post and Courier: Thousands of arrest warrants for low-level offenders recalled under directive from South Carolina’s chief justice
Post and Courier: Thousands of arrest warrants for low-level offenders recalled under directive from South Carolina’s chief justice by Andrew Knapp:
E.D.Pa.: Def’s car could have been searched under auto. exception but police got a SW and took 8 days to search; not unreasonable under the circumstances
Defendant’s car was seized with probable cause for involvement in a series of bank robberies, and it could have been searched without a warrant under the automobile exception. The police got a search warrant instead and took eight days to … Continue reading
WA: Appeal should have been from dismissal after granted suppression order; appeal dismissed
State couldn’t appeal a suppression order after it moves to dismiss a case. It should have appealed the dismissal order or both. State v. Cruz, 2017 Wash. LEXIS 997 (Nov. 2, 2017). Dropping a coat with a gun in the … Continue reading
Just Security: Opinion: Can Defense Counsel Ever Be Lawfully Surveilled by the Government?
Just Security: Opinion: Can Defense Counsel Ever Be Lawfully Surveilled by the Government? by Charles J. Dunlap, Jr.: Could there be any circumstance where the surveillance of defense counsel in a terrorism case might be ‘defensible’?
U.S. Sentencing Guidelines 30 years old today
The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines went into effect November 1, 1987, though they were at least three years in production. The U.S. Sentencing Commission has numerous publications on dealing with Guideline issues. All changes go into effect November 1st each year. … Continue reading
KS: Warrantless teargassing of house wasn’t under the “civil authority” exclusion under the insurance policy for the damage
Execution of a search warrant might be excluded from insurance coverage on a home under the “civil authority” exclusion under the policy, but here the search was based on the suspect’s flight into the house while wanted for a violent … Continue reading
WaPo: D.C. police oversight agency says complaints are rising over searches
WaPo: D.C. police oversight agency says complaints are rising over searches by Peter Hermann: A D.C. police oversight board says it has received an increased number of complaints about officers conducting searches of people, vehicles and houses without obtaining proper consent, … Continue reading
NYTimes: Dismayed by Trump, Head of Drug Enforcement Administration to Leave
NYTimes: Dismayed by Trump, Head of Drug Enforcement Administration to Leave by Michael S. Schmidt: The acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration will resign at the end of the week, according to law enforcement officials, who said he had become … Continue reading
The Guardian: Opinion: Why the decriminalisation of marijuana is a civil rights cause
The Guardian: Opinion: Why the decriminalisation of marijuana is a civil rights cause by Al Sharpton: Generations of Americans – mostly people of colour – have been crushed by aggressive laws on marijuana. It’s time for that to change.
Posts lost in the transition have been restored
Articles on constitutionality of Arpaio pardon for conviction for contempt for violating court order on 4A rights
Politico: Legal groups move to challenge Trump’s Arpaio pardon by Madeline Conway Truthout: Will Judge Overturn Arpaio Pardon? by Marjorie Cohn Slate: Was Trump’s Pardon of Joe Arpaio Unconstitutional? by Dahlia Lithwick DiversityInc: Arpaio Pardon Unconstitutional, Justice Groups Challenge by … Continue reading
TN: GFE to warrantless blood draw doesn’t apply to implied consent
The trial court did not err in suppressing the results of the warrantless blood draw performed on defendant because the State failed to show that the blood was drawn pursuant to a recognized exception to the warrant requirement, and implied … Continue reading
Fourth Amendment Localism, 93 Ind. L.J. forthcoming
Fourth Amendment Localism, 93 Ind. L.J. forthcoming, Wayne A. Logan (June 2, 2017). Abstract:
NLJ: Federal Judge Sues Judicial Conference Over Forced Mental Health Evaluation
NLJ: Federal Judge Sues Judicial Conference Over Forced Mental Health Evaluation by Cogan Schneier (claiming that the forced mental examination violates the Fifth and Fourth Amendments and separation of powers).
KY: Search incident of a cell phone between Riley cert grant and decision was unreasonable; no binding authority in state, so no GFE
Defendant’s cell phone was subjected to a search incident for it’s data between the cert grant in Riley and the decision. Riley was a new rule and retroactive. There was no binding authority in Kentucky at the time, so the … Continue reading
ACLU and EFF sue over border searches of smartphones
WaPo: Agents are increasingly searching smartphones at the border. This lawsuit wants to limit that. Fortune: ACLU, EFF Sue to Stop Phone, Laptop Searches at the Border NYTimes: Forced Searches of Phones and Laptops at US Border Are Illegal, Lawsuit … Continue reading
Recorder: This California Bill Would Restrict Immigration Enforcement in State Courts
Recorder: This California Bill Would Restrict Immigration Enforcement in State Courts by Cheryl Miller: A Los Angeles lawmaker says he’ll pursue a bill in January that would bar federal immigration agents from arresting or questioning undocumented immigrants in state courthouses unless … Continue reading
Atlantic: Can Cops Force You to Unlock Your Phone With Your Face?
Atlantic: Can Cops Force You to Unlock Your Phone With Your Face? by Kevah Waddell: Apple’s new Face ID technology raises questions about constitutional protections for personal devices.
The Hill: Sessions, Coats push for permanent renewal of controversial surveillance law
The Hill: Sessions, Coats push for permanent renewal of controversial surveillance law by Katie Bo Williams The nation’s top law enforcement leader and top spy on Monday urged Senate and House leadership to permanently renew a widely used but controversial U.S. … Continue reading
OR: Global plea agreement to dispose of 40 charges from a crime spree wasn’t IAC where no motions to suppress were shown plausible and plea clearly favored defendant
After becoming addicted to opiods for treatment from a injury, defendant went on a crime spree committing over 40 offenses. His attorney worked out a favorable global resolution of the case. Once in the pen, with buyer’s remorse, defendant decided … Continue reading