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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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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
USA Today: FBI ran website sharing thousands of child porn images
USA Today: FBI ran website sharing thousands of child porn images by Brad Heath: WASHINGTON — For nearly two weeks last year, the FBI operated what it described as one of the Internet’s largest child pornography websites, allowing users to … Continue reading
New book: The Fourth Amendment in Flux: The Roberts Court, Crime Control, and Digital Privacy
New book: The Fourth Amendment in Flux: The Roberts Court, Crime Control, and Digital Privacy by Michael C. Gizzi & R. Craig Curtis (available May 24, 2016)
Just Security: Content Is Content, No Matter How Small
Just Security: Content Is Content, No Matter How Small by Jeffrey Vagle: Recently, Orin Kerr and I had a brief conversation on Twitter regarding the Fourth Amendment and the content/non-content distinction. Specifically, Orin asked those of us who subscribe to … Continue reading
New law review: “How the Fourth Amendment and the Separation of Powers Rise (and Fall) Together”
Aziz Z. Huq, How the Fourth Amendment and the Separation of Powers Rise (and Fall) Together, 83 U.Chi.L.Rev. 101 (2016):
D.Ariz.: Defs’ motion for summary judgment denied in DOJ case v. Maricopa County for discrimination against Hispanics
In a wide-ranging opinion (just released on Lexis) on Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s actions as Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, issue preclusion from a prior suit against the County would be applied (Ortega-Melendres v. Arpaio, 836 F. Supp. 2d 959, 969 … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: Pretrial detainee can’t sue over false arrest yet
Defendant was pretrial detainee suing over his arrest. At this stage, the § 1983 suit should be dismissed without prejudice because it might implicate whether he was wrongfully charged in the first place and thus violate Heck. Ferguson v. Alabama, … Continue reading
WaPo: In fatal traffic stops, black motorists are killed more often
WaPo: In fatal traffic stops, black motorists are killed more often by Wesley Lowery: According to a Post database of police shootings, one in three people killed by police after a traffic stop was black — even though whites and … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: Dog alert shown not reliable in an immigration checkpoint case
“In this case, the Highway 86 checkpoint [at El Centro, CA] is a permanent checkpoint operated solely by Border Patrol agents. During the past three year period, there were approximately 1,746 apprehensions at the checkpoint, including 1,579 immigration-related apprehensions and … Continue reading
KY: Simmons error requires objection to preserve claim; no plain error because Fifth Amendment not self-executing
A Simmons error of use of defendant’s suppression hearing testimony showing standing and control over the place searched was not subject to plain error analysis. An objection is required. Commonwealth v. Taylor, 2015 Ky. LEXIS 2012 (Dec. 17, 2015):
AL: Anonymous tip of obvious and easily obtained details was not PC
“[T]he anonymous tip upon which Detective Harrison relied merely provided a range of details relating to easily obtained facts and conditions existing at the time the tip was made. ‘[T]he anonymous tip did not contain facts which are ordinarily not … Continue reading
The Bill of Rights was ratified today in 1791, 224 years ago
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FL: Inevitable discovery requires prosecution to prove warrant was actually being sought, not just thought about
Bondsmen looking for a fugitive saw a grow operation at defendant’s house. They told the police who came and conducted a warrantless search by coerced consent. Falling back to inevitable discovery, the prosecution is required to prove they were getting … Continue reading
OR: Consent to search a car didn’t include a fannypack
Consent to search a car did not include containers. “A reasonable person would not have understood the scope of the deputies’ interest in the car to extend to the contents of the zipped fanny pack found under the passenger’s seat … Continue reading
WaPo Police Shootings Database
WaPo: Police Shootings Database (921 this year at the time of this post).
Texas Observer: Homeland Insecurity
Texas Observer: Homeland Insecurity by Melissa del Bosque: Want to run drugs, smuggle migrants and get away with it? Join America’s biggest law enforcement agency.
Inst. for Policy Innovation: Is SEC’s Power Grab More Important Than the Fourth Amendment?
Inst. for Policy Innovation: Is SEC’s Power Grab More Important Than the Fourth Amendment? by Tom Giovanetti: It turns out that the SEC is holding up ECPA reform in an attempt to parlay more agency power. It’s a power grab, … Continue reading
The treatise is on sale through 12/31
The treatise is on sale through December 31st. www.lexisnexis.com/save25 or call 800-223-1940 and mention code “Save 25”
FourthAmendment.com recognized in ABA Journal’s Blawg 100
Coming in Dec. 1 ABA Journal, online today. To those who voted, thank you. I didn’t know I was nominated this year. I was told by somebody I was last year but obviously didn’t make it then.
D.Nev.: Execution of SW in def’s home and moving him to basement for questioning made it custodial subject to Miranda
“No circuit court has held that an occupant must be Mirandized as a matter of course when the police execute a search warrant in the home.” The nature of a search is, of course, police dominated by definition, and, in … Continue reading
NYTimes: How the F.B.I. Can Detain, Render and Threaten Without Risk
NYTimes: How the F.B.I. Can Detain, Render and Threaten Without Risk by Patrick G. Eddington (Opinion): Eight years after Mr. Meshal’s rendition, his case ended up before a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District … Continue reading