Archives
-
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
-
-
ABA Journal Web 100, Best Law Blogs (2015-17) (then discontinued)
-
-
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) -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links -
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
S.Ct. Shadow Docket Database
Federal Appellate Courts Opinions
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth Circuit
Seventh Circuit
Eighth Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh Circuit
D.C. Circuit
Federal Circuit
Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct.
FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts
Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG, SF
State courts (and some USDC opinions)
Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
S. Ct. Docket
Solicitor General's site
SCOTUSreport
Briefs online (but no amicus briefs)
Oyez Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com
-
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com $
Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
Westlaw.com $
F.R.Crim.P. 41
www.fd.org
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf)
Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)
-
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
Privacy Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
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)
-
“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
NPR: A Lawyer’s Advice For Black Men At Traffic Stops: ‘Comply Now, Contest Later’
NPR: A Lawyer’s Advice For Black Men At Traffic Stops: ‘Comply Now, Contest Later’: It’s been nearly a year since a police officer shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American 18-year-old, in Ferguson, Mo. Since then, more deadly police … Continue reading
CO: No REP in a jail call, particularly where there is a recorded warning on the call
Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his jail calls because he knew that they were recorded. The calls at issue were to “to coerce the victim not to testify” showing consciousness of guilt. People v. Degreat, 2015 COA … Continue reading
WaPo: Opinion: The complexities of traffic stops, from a police officer’s perspective
WaPo: Opinion: The complexities of traffic stops, from a police officer’s perspective by Peter Moskos: Little about policing is ideal. But that’s why we have police officers, to handle non-ideal situations. These often involve people who are lost, mentally ill, … Continue reading
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: So much for the “Ferguson effect”: Killings of cops are down 25 percent for the first half of 2015
WaPo: Radley Balko’s ‘The Watch’ Blog: So much for the “Ferguson effect”: Killings of cops are down 25 percent for the first half of 2015: Through the end of June, the number of officers killed by gunfire has dropped 25 … Continue reading
CNN: What are your rights during a traffic stop?
CNN: What are your rights during a traffic stop? (Video)
The Hill: Capitol Police Search Powers Provoke Constitutional Concerns
The Hill: Capitol Police Search Powers Provoke Constitutional Concerns by Hannah Hess: The trio of congressional officials who have exclusive control over traffic rules on the Capitol grounds are ordering a change that would enhance Capitol Police’s authority to search … Continue reading
Criminal Law 2.0 – Preface to the 44th Annual Review of Criminal Procedure
Criminal Law 2.0 – Preface to the 44th Annual Review of Criminal Procedure by Hon. Alex Kozinski: Although we pretend otherwise, much of what we do in the law is guesswork. For example, we like to boast that our criminal … Continue reading
The Atlantic: How Aggressive Policing Affects Police Officers Themselves
The Atlantic: How Aggressive Policing Affects Police Officers Themselves by Saki Knafo: One of the questions at the heart of the national debate over race and policing is why minorities are routinely arrested for petty offenses—drinking on the sidewalk, hanging … Continue reading
CA3: Def was stopped, and without reasonable suspicion, as officers advanced on him; the fact he took two steps back was still submission
There was no reasonable suspicion for defendant’s stop. The fact he backed up a couple of steps as officers advanced on him was not flight. “In sum, we hold that Lowe submitted to the officers’ authority by staying put in … Continue reading
NYTimes: What Did Lincoln Really Think of Jefferson?
NYTimes: What Did Lincoln Really Think of Jefferson? by Allen C. Guelzo: “Mr. Lincoln hated Thomas Jefferson as a man,” wrote William Henry Herndon, Lincoln’s law partner of 14 years — and “as a politician.” Especially after Lincoln read Theodore … Continue reading
WaPo editorial: The Declaration’s dual traditions: Broad equality, and equality for whites
WaPo editorial: The Declaration’s dual traditions: Broad equality, and equality for whites by Danielle Allen: This Fourth of July, like the preceding weeks, will be painful, following the Charleston massacre — a devastating example of the lofty ideal of human … Continue reading
“If you want to make crime pay — ‘Go to Law School.’”
“If you want to make crime pay — ‘Go to Law School.’” –Whitey Bulger Boston Globe: Bulger’s advice to local teens: Don’t waste your life (June 28, 2015)
NYTimes: After Arrests, Quandary for Police on Posting Booking Photos
NYTimes: After Arrests, Quandary for Police on Posting Booking Photos by Jess Bidgood: SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. — Sheena Foley was stunned and chagrined last month when a traffic violation — she had rolled through a stop sign while driving without … Continue reading
The Guardian: Google eavesdropping tool installed on computers without permission
The Guardian: Google eavesdropping tool installed on computers without permission by Samuel Gibbs: Privacy campaigners and open source developers are up in arms over the secret installing of Google software which is capable of listening in on conversations held in … Continue reading
LA: Probationer in the house of another probationer during a PO home visit was searched with RS
Defendant was a probationer in the house of another probationer when the other probationer was subjected to a home visit. After finding marijuana in the bedroom, the officers conducted a protective search of defendant and found drugs. The search was … Continue reading
DE: No IAC where third-party consent, no standing, and desire to distance def from gun
Defense counsel was not ineffective for not seeking suppression of a gun in a capital case where the gun was his father’s and in his father’s house and his father consented to the search. Aside from the voluntariness of the … Continue reading
CA2: Innocent 9/11 detainees arrested in 2002 stated a claim for relief for conditions of confinement in federal detention
After 9/11, 762 people were detained, some without the slightest probable cause. This case arose in 2002 after these plaintiffs were detained, held for months, sometimes in conditions sounding like they were war criminals, and later released. It’s a really … Continue reading
The Hill: Senators push warrants for spying in the skies
The Hill: Senators push warrants for spying in the skies by Julian Hattem: “Americans’ privacy rights shouldn’t stop at the treetops,” said Sen. Ron Wyden.
WaPo: Afternoon links: Missouri AG’s report finds mass racial discrepancy in traffic stops
WaPo: Afternoon links: Missouri AG’s report finds mass racial discrepancy in traffic stops by Radley Balko: ● Missouri attorney general’s report finds that black drivers in the state are 75 percent more likely to be pulled over, although white drivers … Continue reading
D.Nev.: FBI Internet repair ruse case dismissed after gov’t says it can’t proceed; hasn’t decided whether to appeal
Yesterday, the District of Nevada dismissed the Phua case, the FBI Internet repair ruse case, after the government conceded it had no evidence. Whether it will appeal hasn’t been decided. LVRJ: Judge dismisses World Cup-linked betting case against Malaysian businessman … Continue reading