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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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"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
E.D.Wis.: Illegal patdown led to arrest and detention and confession which led to false ATF form; all suppressed because no intervening circumstance
“Defendant witnessed a crime. Rather than leaving the scene, he remained to talk to the police. The police then violated his Fourth Amendment rights by subjecting him to a suspicionless pat-down, and the ATF took advantage of his arrest on … Continue reading
NM: DA criticized for failing to consolidate codefendants for appeal of suppression order
The writ of cert in this case is quashed. There were two cases that should have been noted as companion cases by the DA when the appeals were filed and weren’t. That was important information that bore on avoiding inconsistent … Continue reading
The Atlantic: How To Deal With the Police
The Atlantic: How To Deal With the Police by Terrance Ross: A workshop is teaching students how to handle confrontations with law enforcement, but some fear the class only reinforces negative stereotypes of cops.
NYTimes: Supreme Court Justices Admit Inconsistency, and Embrace It
NYTimes: Supreme Court Justices Admit Inconsistency, and Embrace It by Adam Liptak: WASHINGTON — There is an art to admitting mistakes on the Supreme Court. Justice Antonin Scalia demonstrated the proper technique in a dissent last week. There are three … Continue reading
TN: Entry into backyard under pretext of using back door to knock-and-talk violated curtilage
The backyard and back porch of defendant’s house was clearly curtilage, and it violated the Fourth Amendment to do a knock-and-talk at the backdoor. It was 200′ from the road and nothing back there could be seen from the front. … Continue reading
USA Today: Police stop pursuing nearly 79,000 fugitives
USA Today: Police stop pursuing nearly 79,000 fugitives by Brad Heath: Accused rapists, murderers are allowed to escape, and the victims aren’t told.
NY Times: In New York, Public’s Video Helps Police, for a Change
NY Times: In New York, Public’s Video Helps Police, for a Change by Benjamin Meuller: It has become a familiar scene for New York police officers: the glow of tiny cellphone screens illuminating a nighttime struggle between them and people … Continue reading
CA10: Failure to raise a Fourth Amendment claim in a forfeiture case precluded a later § 1983 case
Failure to raise a Fourth Amendment claim in a forfeiture case precluded a later § 1983 case over the same issue. Campbell v. City of Spencer, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 23700 (10th Cir. December 16, 2014):
EFF: Feds can’t get around Fourth Amendment via automated data capture
EFF: Feds can’t get around Fourth Amendment via automated data capture by Cyrus Farivar: At hearing for years-old digital snooping case, EFF and DOJ lawyers face off Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation OAKLAND, Calif.—A federal judge spent over four hours on … Continue reading
HuffPo: 5 Things You Need to Know About Illinois New Eavesdropping Law
HuffPo: 5 Things You Need to Know About Illinois New Eavesdropping Law by Dan Johnson: In the past few days, there has been a flurry of information about SB 1342, a pending rewrite of Illinois eavesdropping statutes. Some say it … Continue reading
NYTImes: More Police Officers to Get Body Cameras
NYTImes: More Police Officers to Get Body Cameras by AP: Los Angeles and Houston next major cities See WaPo: 7000 in LA by summer
The New American: Well-respected Federal Judge Says Privacy Is Overrated
The New American: Well-respected Federal Judge Says Privacy Is Overrated by C. Mitchell Shaw: The most cited legal scholar of the 20th century, Judge Richard Posner, says the NSA should have free range to “vacuum all the trillions of bits … Continue reading
SCOTUS: Mistake of law can justify a stop on reasonable suspicion; Heien v. North Carolina
Heien v. North Carolina, 2014 U.S. LEXIS 8306 (Dec. 15, 2014): Mistake of law can justify a stop on reasonable suspicion. [So ironic for Bill of Rights Day.] The Syllabus:
Bill of Rights Day, Dec. 15.
December 15th is Bill of Rights Day. The Fourth Amendment became law 224 years ago today.
NYTimes: Court Weighs Facebook’s Right to Challenge Search Warrants on Users’ Behalf
NYTimes: NY Court Weighs Facebook’s Right to Challenge Search Warrants on Users’ Behalf by James C. McKinley: The thorny issue of Internet privacy was taken up by a New York State appeals court on Thursday, as judges seemed to be … Continue reading
WaPo: N.Y. man sues FBI in bid to lift decade-old gag order
WaPo: N.Y. man sues FBI in bid to lift decade-old gag order by Ellen Nakashima: A New York man who ran a small Internet company has sued the Justice Department to lift a 10-year-old gag order that accompanied a national … Continue reading
WA: Trial court erred in dismissing CP case because feds wouldn’t cooperate with defense counsel
The trial court abused its discretion in dismissing a child pornography case made by federal agents who turned the case over to the state just because the state did not produce the agents for interviews about the search. The party … Continue reading
Mayberry Sheriff’s Dept. by Bruce Plante
By Bruce Plante, Tulsa World (Dec. 1, 2014). Speaking of Mayberry, see this MRAP from the Bryant, Arkansas Police Dept.’s Facebook page in the same color, posted October 27th (via Arkansas Times today): Uncanny. Creepy, actually. Especially if you’ve been … Continue reading
NY Times: Body Cameras Worn by Police Officers Are No ‘Safeguard of Truth,’ Experts
NY Times: Body Cameras Worn by Police Officers Are No ‘Safeguard of Truth,’ Experts Say by Vivian Yee and Kirk Johnson: Michael Brown’s family, on the night of the Ferguson grand jury decision, called for all police in the United … Continue reading
HuffPo: Houston Police Chief Calls Drug War A ‘Miserable’ Failure, Says Feds Need To Lead Reform
HuffPo: Houston Police Chief Calls Drug War A ‘Miserable’ Failure, Says Feds Need To Lead Reform by Matt Ferner: The drug war is a “miserable” failure and the federal government needs to take the lead on reforming marijuana policy, Houston … Continue reading