Archives
-
Recent Posts
- USA Today: Cell phone SW for cause of crash
- Treatise on sale to 11/1
- MD: While protective sweep information made it into SW affidavit, there was PC without it
- N.D.Ga.: A Customs forensic search of a cell phone away from the border was still a border search
- CA6: State officer’s arrest for violation of federal MJ law likely wouldn’t violate 4A
-
Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
-
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: Good faith exception
TN: 2012 cell phone search had to be evaluated by law at that time on PCR
Defendant’s post-conviction claim on the 2012 search of his cell phone fails because it wouldn’t have been granted back then. Blunkall v. State, 2019 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 11 (Jan. 4, 2019).* The CI’s information was significantly corroborated by observations … Continue reading
W.D.N.C.: Defendant has standing in rental car under Byrd but loses under GFE under binding circuit law
On remand from the Fourth Circuit, the court determines that Byrd applies and defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the car he rented. As for the good faith exception, the court finds that it is bound by circuit … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: The affidavit for a search warrant does not need to allege a specific statute was violated
The affidavit for a search warrant does not need to allege a specific statute was violated as long as the issuing magistrate can conclude that a criminal offense likely occurred. The facts alleged determine the scope of search. United States … Continue reading
IA: Def answered door in underwear with apparent semen stains; police there with SW for sex abuse with minors
Defendant was under investigation for sexual abuse of minors. “[T]he police went to Heggebo’s house to execute a search warrant. Heggebo answered the door wearing only shorts. The police seized Heggebo’s shorts because the shorts had apparent semen stains on … Continue reading
CA6: GFE applies to evidence of nexus, too
While this court has struggled with what is sufficient nexus, the evidence of nexus here is more than minimal and clearly satisfies the good faith exception, too. United States v. Ardd, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 35389 (6th Cir. Dec. 18, … Continue reading
TX7: Carpenter applied retroactively where def preserved issue
Defendant raised a Carpenter CSLI issue pretrial, and he prevails. Carpenter held retroactive (despite citing Davis). Dixon v. State, 2018 Tex. App. LEXIS 10340 (Tex. App. – Amarillo Dec. 13, 2018):
Cal.2: SWs must be executed reasonably, and facts determine who has the burden of proof
A search warrant must be executed reasonably, and it depends on which side has knowledge of what for the burden of proof. Here, the issue involves a blood draw at a hospital, and defendant has access to that information, and … Continue reading
CA9: PC was so lacking for two tracking warrants that GFE does not apply
Probable cause for two tracking warrants was so completely lacking that it was unreasonable to rely on them, and the good faith exception does not apply. United States v. Lopez-Zuniga, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 33096 (8th Cir. Nov. 26, 2018):
TX1: No REP in a contraband cell phone in a halfway house
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a contraband cell phone possessed by a sex offender in a halfway house. The phone was subject to search like any other personal property, and defendant had a prohibition against possession of … Continue reading
W.D.N.Y.: PC was a close call, so the court finds GFE applies instead
Probable cause is a close call here. The USMJ found probable cause and that the good faith exception applied. On review of the R&R, the court applies only the good faith exception to find the search valid. United States v. … Continue reading
FL4: Violating statute obtaining CSLI in 2001 suppressed, and no GFE
Police obtained defendant’s CSLI in 2001 by subpoena and without a court order contrary to statute. Defendant argued a search warrant was required. Then Carpenter was decided in 2018 requiring a warrant. The state violated the statute requiring a court … Continue reading
ID: Affidavit for SW doesn’t have to be signed in judge’s presence
The search warrant was properly issued on affidavit. It didn’t have to be signed in the presence of the judge. An oral affidavit has to be, but this isn’t. State v. Hensley, 2018 Ida. App. LEXIS 49 (Nov. 16, 2018). … Continue reading
D.Minn.: Second SW cured defects in first
First search warrant probably violated the Fourth Amendment, but another was sought that omitted everything about the first search warrant, including what was found. The second was valid, and the good faith exception applied. United States v. Eggerson, 2018 U.S. … Continue reading
CA4: Info known by officer but not included in affidavit can be considered in applying GFE
Defendant’s phone was lawfully seized incident to his arrest and then geting a search warrant. “We agree with the district court that the evidence obtained from Thomas’s phone is admissible under Leon. Our precedents make clear that in assessing an … Continue reading
M.D.Fla.: Whether a state court judge could issue a ping order that crossed state lines is governed by GFE
A state court judge issued a ping order and the phone crossed state lines. Was it a tracking order or an SCA order? “The Court sees no need to venture further into the quagmire of tracking devices, the SCA, and … Continue reading
CA6: Affidavit for SW failed both PC and nexus, but GFE applied: affidavit was detailed and 62 pages
The affidavit for the search warrant here failed to show both probable cause and nexus, and the court details why. However, the 62 page detailed affidavit detailing the whole investigation was not bare bones by any means, and the good … Continue reading
OH5: To prove GFE doesn’t apply, the defense has to show bad faith [never mind that the burden is on the govt in GFE]
Officers could conduct a protective sweep when executing a search warrant. “In the case at hand, there was no testimony regarding bad faith on part of the officers who searched the residence where Appellant was hiding.” State v. Davis, 2018-Ohio-4368, … Continue reading
CA6&4: There clearly was PC for the SWs
“The affidavits supporting the searches of Sullivan’s apartment and vehicle overwhelmingly established probable cause to believe that Sullivan committed voyeurism, burglary, and possession of criminal tools.” “The search warrants for Sullivan’s vehicle, apartment, and computer were all sufficiently particular. The … Continue reading
CA9: Playpen warrant violated Rule 41(b)(1), but GFE still saved it
A Network Investigative Technique (NIT) warrant (“Playpen” warrant) issued by a magistrate judge in the Eastern District of Virginia exceeded the general territorial scope identified in Fed. R. Crim. P. 41(b)(1) and was thus void ab initio because it authorized … Continue reading