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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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To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $ -
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General (many free):
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Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources
FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download)
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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)
ACLU on privacy
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NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
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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
NYT: Final Word on U.S. Law Isn’t: Supreme Court Keeps Editing
NYT: Final Word on U.S. Law Isn’t: Supreme Court Keeps Editing by Adam Liptak: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has been quietly revising its decisions years after they were issued, altering the law of the land without public notice. The … Continue reading
In trial
You’ve likely noticed posts are behind. I’ve been in trial prep and have a week and a half drug, gun, and shooting conspiracy trial starting Tuesday. Today, we had to exchange and turn in exhibits and witness lists, and we … Continue reading
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center
NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center: NACDL’s Domestic Drone Information Center aims to be a one-stop source of cutting-edge information on the proliferation of drones inside the United States. It collects news from leading publications across the nation; features a comprehensive … Continue reading
ChicagoTribune: NSA data-gathering may run into California roadblock
ChicagoTribune: NSA data-gathering may run into California roadblock by Sharon Bernstein, Reuters: SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) – The federal government would need a warrant from a judge if it wants the cooperation of California officials in searching residents’ cellphone and computer … Continue reading
Boston Globel: How privacy became an American value
Boston Globe: How privacy became an American value by Ted Widmer: The Fourth Amendment grew from a showdown in Boston’s North End
The Atlantic: What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs?
The Atlantic: What If U.S. Cities Just Stopped Participating in the War on Drugs? by Jake Cole: As gridlock has become the norm in Washington, U.S. cities are increasingly going it alone in the search for solutions to the country’s … Continue reading
NYT: Robbery Suspect Tracked by GPS and Killed
NYT: Robbery Suspect Tracked by GPS and Killed by Joseph Goldstein and Michael Schwirtz: Relying on a GPS device placed in a decoy pill bottle, police officers tracked an armed man suspected of robbing a pharmacy on Friday afternoon and … Continue reading
NYT: The Polarized Court
NYT: The Polarized Court by Adam Liptak: WASHINGTON — WHEN the Supreme Court issued its latest campaign finance decision last month, the justices lined up in a familiar way. The five appointed by Republican presidents voted for the Republican National … Continue reading
M.D.Ala.: Scrivener’s error in time of issuance of SW is corrected
The time of the warrant of 10:31 pm was clearly a scrivener’s error because it was issued at 9:31 pm. Therefore, the search warrant did not issue after the search began, and the motion to suppress is denied. United States … Continue reading
WaPo: Volokh: A law review title pun that has run its course
WaPo: Volokh: A law review title pun that has run its course by Orin Kerr: I’m not a fan of using puns in the titles of law review articles. But many authors writing about Fourth Amendment law seem unable to … Continue reading
New Law Review Article: Spillover Across Remedies
Michael Coenen, Spillover Across Remedies, 98 Minn. L. Rev. 1211 (2014). Abstract: Remedies influence rights, and rights apply across remedies. Combined together, these two phenomena produce the problem of spillover across remedies. The spillover problem occurs when considerations specific to … Continue reading
WaPo: Volokh: My defense of the third-party doctrine, and a response to Randy and Stewart
WaPo: Volokh: My defense of the third-party doctrine, and a response to Randy and Stewart by Orin Kerr: With my co-bloggers Randy Barnett and Stewart Baker debating Smith v. Maryland and the third-party doctrine, I figured I would offer some … Continue reading
Oregon Live: Mandatory immigration detainers are unconstitutional: Guest opinion
Oregon Live: Mandatory immigration detainers are unconstitutional: Guest opinion by Elliott Young: On April 14, a federal magistrate judge in Portland, Janice M. Stewart, ruled that Clackamas County violated Miranda Olivares’ Fourth Amendment rights protecting against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” … Continue reading
WaPo: Just another day in the drug war
WaPo: Just another day in the drug war by Radley Balko Back in 2011, police in Framingham, Massachusetts conducted a drug raid that cost an innocent man his life.
NYTimes: News Analysis: In Surveillance Debate, White House Turns Its Focus to Silicon Valley
NYTimes: News Analysis: In Surveillance Debate, White House Turns Its Focus to Silicon Valley by David E. Sanger: Nearly a year after the first disclosures about the National Security Agency’s surveillance practices at home and abroad, the agency is emerging … Continue reading
Business Insider: Liberal Supreme Court Justice Comes To The Defense Of Scalia
Business Insider: Liberal Supreme Court Justice Comes To The Defense Of Scalia by Corey Aawar Liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made some surprisingly positive comments about fellow Justice Antonin Scalia during a recent Wall Street Journal interview. … Continue reading
SCOTUSBlog: Commentary: From the bench to the podium
SCOTUSBlog: Commentary: From the bench to the podium by Lyle Denniston: In ways large and small, the idealized expectation that the Supreme Court will stay outside the political arena continues to diminish in a country with polarized partisanship and fragmented … Continue reading
Legal Intelligencer: State Justices Say Telephones Exempt From Wiretap Act
Legal Intelligencer: State Justices Say Telephones Exempt From Wiretap Act: Holding that telephones are expressly exempt from the devices prohibited by the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act regardless of how they’re used, the state Supreme Court has ruled … Continue reading
Wurie and Riley: The two most important privacy cases of the decade; press is underwhelmed
WaPo: Justices wary of unlimited cellphone searches by AP: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court seemed wary Tuesday of allowing police unbridled freedom to search through cellphones of people they arrest, taking on a new issue of privacy in the face … Continue reading
W.D.Pa.: Estranged wife still had enough connection to the home to consent to a search after she found bombs
Estranged wife still had enough connection to the home to consent to a search after she found bombs. United States v. Weaver, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 58384 (W.D. Pa. April 28, 2014): In general, courts have found that an estranged … Continue reading