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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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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)
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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
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: This week in drug raids
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: This week in drug raids: The latest in busted doors, dead dogs and dead bodies. … Meanwhile, the Drug War Chronicle reports that 49 people were killed in police drug war operations in 2016, … Continue reading
AntiWar.com: There’s Little Reason To be Optimistic About Trump and Privacy
AntiWar.com: There’s Little Reason To be Optimistic About Trump and Privacy by Lucy Steigerwald:
MA: A suppressed statement can’t be kept from the press
A suppressed statement cannot be suppressed from the press under the First Amendment. Commonwealth v. Chism, 2017 Mass. LEXIS 4 (Jan. 4, 2017):
Rare: Donald Trump has no interest in the Fourth Amendment
Rare: Donald Trump has no interest in the Fourth Amendment by Lucy Steigerwald:
ID: State’s failure to make offer of proof of justification for exigency left void in record that supports trial court’s findings
The district court affirmed the magistrate court’s conclusion that there was no exigency for a warrantless blood draw. The state sought to offer evidence of unavailability of magistrates, to which the defense successfully objected and it was struck. On this … Continue reading
The biggest big business in America is not steel, automobiles, or television. It is the manufacture, refinement and distribution of anxiety.
–Eric Sevareid, This Is Eric Sevareid (1964)
WaPo: Fatal shootings by police remain relatively unchanged after two years
WaPo: Fatal shootings by police remain relatively unchanged after two years by Kimbriell Kelly, Wesley Lowery, Steven Rich, Julie Tate and Jennifer Jenkins:
N.D.Cal.: Conversations outside courthouse were entitled to REP [on reconsideration]
Surreptitious recordings outside the San Mateo courthouse of persons talking amongst themselves were entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy because they talked such that others could not overhear them except with planted recording devices. The court will conduct a … Continue reading
Leading candidate for case name of the year
United States v. Zachary Stanley Knows His Gun, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160429 (D.Mont. Nov. 2, 2016)
Treatise 30% off through 1/5 — semi annual supplements start 7/1
Instead of $473, it’s $331. Also, in a new program by Lexis, supplements to this book will be issued twice a year starting in June or July which also means the Lexis version of the book will be far more … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: Affidavit and warrant for Anthony Weiner’s and Huma Abedin’s laptop computer posted on court’s website
Considering the public’s right of access to judicial materials, concisely explained by the court, a redacted version of the search warrant for Anthony Weiner’s and Huma Abedin’s laptop computer is filed on the S.D.N.Y.’s website (affidavit and warrant here). In … Continue reading
Seattle Times: Oregon study finds racial disparities in drug convictions
Seattle Times: Oregon study finds racial disparities in drug convictions by AP: That conviction disparity held true in methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine cases statewide, according to a study by the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission.
Mississippi adopts new Rule of Criminal Procedure, search and seizure in Rule 4
In re Adoption of Mississippi Rules of Criminal Procedure, 2016 Miss. LEXIS 524 (Dec. 13, 2016)
Bill of Rights Day — 225 years ago today the Bill of Rights was ratified
In a 50 lb meth conspiracy jury trial
So postings will be erratic. Some already written ahead to post later.
MO: Def’s rejection of consent by reference to lawyer was not invocation of lawyer for later statement
“However, assuming arguendo, Defendant partially invoked his Fifth Amendment rights by saying, ‘I ain’t signing shit without my attorney,’ in response to a request to search his home, his right to counsel still was not violated. The mere utterance of … Continue reading
Law.com (editorial): Lawyers Must Be Ready to Fight for the Rule of Law
Law.com (editorial): Lawyers Must Be Ready to Fight for the Rule of Law: It remains to be seen whether the rule of law will be upheld as it has been in the past, or whether it will be betrayed from … Continue reading
Miami New Times: Miami Gardens Cop Says He Was Fired for Reporting Illegal Stop-and-Frisks
Miami New Times: Miami Gardens Cop Says He Was Fired for Reporting Illegal Stop-and-Frisks by Brittany Shammas: Between 2008 and 2013, Miami Gardens Police ran what one public defender called ‘New York City stop-and-frisk on steroids.’…Now a former Miami Gardens … Continue reading
Police One: How license plate readers are helping one California PD catch more criminals [a paid ad on PoliceOne.com by the seller]
Police One: How license plate readers are helping one California PD catch more criminals by PoliceOne BrandFocus Staff Police in La Verne use fixed LPR cameras to create a virtual fence around the city The following is paid content sponsored … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: Cell phone could be searched at border on finding of cocaine in car
Finding 16.52 kg of cocaine in a car at the border was probable cause, and seizure of the defendant’s cell phone was proper. Therefore, it did not matter whether or not the cell phone was “forensically” searched or “cursorily” searched … Continue reading