Archives
-
Recent Posts
- TN: RS didn’t develop to continue stop; second stop based on first suppressed
- CA4: Traffic stop immediately became firearms investigation; suppressed
- CA10: Disagreement over spelling of street name didn’t make warrant fail particularity; GFE at least would apply
- VA: Statutory requirement to provide SW papers only applies to “places of abode”
- D.Idaho: Not unreasonable for PO to hand over def’s cell phone to LEO for extraction after RS developed from Snapchat app
-
-
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: Immigration arrests
C.D.Cal.: Bivens not extended to ICE workplace arrest
Bivens will not be extended to an ICE workplace arrest, per Egbert. Hernandez v. Dep’t of Homeland Sec., 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61367 (C.D. Cal. Mar. 9, 2026):
E.D.Cal.: AUSA avoids sanction for refusing to answer court’s 4A question in ICE case; the petitioner had already been released
AUSA in an immigration detention case was directed to respond to the detainee’s Fourth Amendment claim and completely failed, only repeating the government’s theory of the case. Petitioner was finally released. The AUSA doesn’t get sanctioned, but the court is … Continue reading
W.D.Wash.: Habeas not remedy for immigration arrest without PC
Even if an immigration arrest lacked probable cause, habeas isn’t the remedy. Reyes v. Hermosilla, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41279 (W.D. Wash. Jan. 15, 2026)*:
D.Minn.: Preliminary injunction granted against immigration arrests under 8 U.S.C. § 1159(a) because they violate 4A
Preliminary injunction granted against immigration arrests under 8 U.S.C. § 1159(a) because they violate the Fourth Amendment. U.H.A. v. Bondi, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 40545 (D. Minn. Feb. 27, 2026)*:
OR: Stop became a seizure when questions turned to travel plans
“Applying those principles here, we conclude that, under the totality of the circumstances, defendant was seized, at the latest, at 8:53 a.m., when Smith’s questions changed from general questions about defendant’s or P’s identity, to more probing questions about what … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Use of confidential taxpayer information to conduct immigration arrests and entries is enjoined
The use of confidential taxpayer information by ICE for immigration raids without any statutorily required procedures is enjoined. There is also the problem of no judicial warrant from judicial officer, just an immigration judge if at all. Cmty. Econ. Dev. … Continue reading
NPR & AP: ICE can’t make warrantless arrests in Oregon unless there’s risk of escape, judge rules
NPR: ICE can’t make warrantless arrests in Oregon unless there’s risk of escape, judge rules via AP (“U.S. immigration agents in Oregon must stop arresting people without warrants unless there’s a likelihood of escape, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: Arias deportation stayed, habeas granted, citing 4A and Declaration of Independence
Arias v. Noem, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20726 (W.D. Tex. Jan. 31, 2026) [they are detained in Texas]: Before the Court is the petition of asylum seeker Adrian Conejo Arias and his five-year-old son for protection of the Great Writ … Continue reading
NYT: ICE Expands Power of Agents to Arrest People Without Warrants
NYT: ICE Expands Power of Agents to Arrest People Without Warrants by Hamed Aleaziz & Charlie Savage (“An internal memo changed the standard from whether people are unlikely to show up for hearings to whether they could leave the scene.”) … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: The exclusionary rule doesn’t apply to grand jury evidence
Under Calandra (1974), there’s no basis for dismissing an indictment because it might be based on an illegal search. The search was valid anyway because it was based on the consenter’s apparent authority. United States v. Jones, 2026 U.S. Dist. … Continue reading
MS.now: Federal immigration agents keep shooting at drivers. We tracked 15 cases since July.
MS.now: Federal immigration agents keep shooting at drivers. We tracked 15 cases since July. By David Noriega & Kay Guerrero (“After each shooting, federal agencies claimed the drivers tried to ram agents with their vehicles. But the claim often falls … Continue reading
AP: Immigration officers assert sweeping power to enter homes without a judge’s warrant, memo says
AP: Immigration officers assert sweeping power to enter homes without a judge’s warrant, memo says by Rebecca Santana: Federal immigration officers are asserting sweeping power to forcibly enter people’s homes without a judge’s warrant, according to an internal Immigration and … Continue reading
AP: What to know about the warrants most immigration agents use to make arrests
AP: What to know about the warrants most immigration agents use to make arrests by Safiyah Riddle and Valerie Gonzalez:
N.D.N.Y.: Def’s immigration arrest was unreasonable and the product is suppressed
Defendant’s immigration arrest was unreasonable and the product is suppressed. United States v. Juarez-Lopez, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 269401 (N.D.N.Y. Dec. 18, 2025)*:
WaPo: ICE shift in tactics leads to soaring number of at-large arrests, data shows
WaPo: ICE shift in tactics leads to soaring number of at-large arrests, data shows by Marianne LeVine, Emmanuel Martinez & Álvaro Valiño (“The agency has moved away from focusing on arresting migrants at local jails to tracking them down in … Continue reading
CA3: Going into a well-known drug house for 2 minutes was RS for stop
Defendant was frequenting a well-known drug house. He went in for less than two minutes and came out. The stop was with reasonable suspicion. The patdown revealed a wad of cash by plain feel. United States v. Thomas, 2025 U.S. … Continue reading
CNS: Judge orders Trump administration to halt warrantless immigration arrests in District of Columbia; Kavanaugh’s concurrence in Perdomo isn’t the law
CNS: Judge orders Trump administration to halt warrantless immigration arrests in District of Columbia by Ryan Knappenberger (“A federal judge Tuesday night ordered the Trump administration to cease its campaign of arresting immigrants in Washington, D.C. without a warrant or … Continue reading
S.D.Cal.: ICE detention of asylum claimant was without PC and due process and it’s unrebutted
Petitioner is an Iranian national here under a claim of asylum. He was arrested and detained by ICE agents on the street. His Fourth Amendment and due process claims over his detention are unrebutted by the government and taken as … Continue reading
LAT: ICE is grabbing U.S. citizens, defying its own rules and the Constitution
And Justice Kavanagh said this wouldn’t happen: LAT: ICE is grabbing U.S. citizens, defying its own rules and the Constitution by Raul A. Reyes:
TNR: Confirmed: ICE Is Arresting American Citizens—and Lying About It
The New Republic: Confirmed: ICE Is Arresting American Citizens—and Lying About It by Harry Litman (“A government that flouts the Fourth Amendment and then lies about it to courts and the people has crossed a moral and legal frontier.”)