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- 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
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- CA6: State officer’s arrest for violation of federal MJ law likely wouldn’t violate 4A
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Feedspot’s Best Legal Blogs and Websites 2023-2026,
also, firm website Top 90 Criminal Law Blogs 2026 -
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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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FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf)
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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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"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: Good faith exception
CO: Once a dog alerts on a car, there is PC, and putting dog in car wasn’t unreasonable
Once a dog alerted on a car during a stop that was valid up to that time, putting the dog inside the car wasn’t unreasonable. The officers had probable cause at that point. People v. Bailey, 2018 CO 84 (Oct. … Continue reading
VA: CSLI obtained before Carpenter was valid
CSLI obtained in 2012 and 2015 was lawful at the time before Carpenter, so the good faith exception applies. (The case was GVR’d because of Carpenter.) “We adopt the analytical framework set forth in Chavez. Appellant’s CSLI was acquired in … Continue reading
E.D.Tenn.: No standing in a shipped package found in another’s car where def’s name not on box as sender or recipient
Defendant had no standing to challenge the search of a previously shipped package located in another person’s vehicle that had his name nowhere on it as recipient or sender. Also, the search of the package was valid by consent and … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: CSLI obtained 7 years before Carpenter was in good faith
Defendant was tried in 2011. He was scheduled to be sentenced in 2018. He filed a motion to reopen the suppression hearing of his CSLI obtained under the SCA because of Carpenter. Denied; good faith exception applies. United States v. … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Pre-Carpenter CSLI survives with GFE; Riley didn’t foretell Carpenter
Defendant was a suspect in a series of bank robberies, and a court order was obtained for his CSLI in 2016. Defendant’s argument that Riley foretold Carpenter is rejected. It wasn’t enough to forecast a clear outcome. The good faith … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: The number of people reviewing an affidavit for SW is relevant to GFE
The affidavit was not bare bones, and it provided a nexus to the place to be searched. In addition, the good faith exception applies. United States v. Taylor, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 164231 (E.D. Tex. Sep. 17, 2018), adopted, 2018 … Continue reading
CA2: On GVR after Carpenter, Second Circuit also holds GFE applies to 2011 SCA order
Defendant’s CSLI case was GVR’d by SCOTUS after Carpenter. His SCA order was issued in 2011. “Prior to Carpenter, all six courts of appeal to have considered the question had held that the government acquisition of electronic data from third … Continue reading
CA6: Dist.Ct. erroneously suppressed over two kgs of heroin; the affidavit for SW showed a reasonable inference drugs would be found at home and GFE applied
The district court suppressed over two kilos of heroin finding that the affidavit for search warrant didn’t show probable cause and nexus to the defendant’s house. The Sixth Circuit reversed on both the probable cause and nexus issue and it … Continue reading
WI: No REP in a computer left running online P2P
Wisconsin follows the uniform rule from all other courts and holds that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in computer files available on eDonkey P2P network under either the Fourth Amendment or the state constitution. State v. Baric, 2018 … Continue reading
NE: Reliance on pre-Birchfield law meant GFE applied
The officer’s objective reliance on pre-Birchfield law meant the good faith exception applied. State v. Nielsen, 301 Neb. 88, 2018 Neb. LEXIS 158 (Sep 15, 2018). Pre-Carpenter CSLI by SCA order without probable cause was the law prior to Carpenter, … Continue reading
IL: Unambiguous traffic statute wasn’t subject to Heien good faith mistake argument
The traffic statute defendant was alleged to have violated was unambiguous, and the court finds defendant didn’t violate it. Therefore, there can be no reasonable good faith reliance on the statute to salvage the stop. People v. Walker, 2018 IL … Continue reading
CA4: Pre-Carpenter gathering of CSLI subject to GFE
Pre-Carpenter gathering of CSLI subject to good faith exception. United States v. Christian, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 25580 (4th Cir. Sep. 10, 2018). Defendant didn’t object to the R&R recommending denial of his search claim, and the R&R is adopted. … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: Pre-Carpenter obtaining CSLI under SCA was valid under GFE
CSLI obtained in January 2017 via the Stored Communications Act were admissible after Carpenter via the good faith exception. United States v. Pleasant, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 150406 (E.D. Pa. Sep. 5, 2018).* Defendant argued that the affidavit for the … Continue reading
N.D.Ill.: Shots fired 911 call and citizen report led to car; protective sweep of back seat was permissible
Chicago police officers received a man on the street report (treated as anonymous but reliable) that shots were just fired from a particular vehicle. There were also 911 calls about the shots. The vehicle was shortly seen, and that was … Continue reading
W.D.Ky.: Facially valid arrest warrant not undermined by def’s claim he had an alibi for crime
Defendant argues that the execution of the arrest warrant on him in his own house was invalid because he had an alibi for the time of the crime. That’s not up to the executing officers. The warrant was facially valid. … Continue reading
CA4: Where CI only provided info for SW, he wasn’t a material witness for trial so no reason for disclosure shown
Defendant didn’t make a showing to get the CI’s identity under Roviaro. The CI was merely the source of information to get the search warrant and he wouldn’t be a witness at trial. There wasn’t even a sufficient showing to … Continue reading
W.D.N.C.: Davis GFE applied to GVR after Byrd, as happened in Byrd
Defendant’s case was GVR’d after Byrd. On remand, the court finds that the government’s good faith reliance on prior precedent makes this search valid, and the court notes that the same thing happened to Byrd on remand. United States v. … Continue reading
D.Mass.: Complete failure of PC denied govt GFE
The court finds that “the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule does not apply here. Contrary to the government’s assertion, this case directly fits the Supreme Court’s admonition in Leon that ‘[s]uppression … remains an appropriate remedy if the … Continue reading
OH3: Arrest warrant issued without required sworn narrative was executed by other officers in good faith so no suppression
The arrest warrant didn’t have a sworn narrative because it wasn’t signed. The warrant was issued and entered into the state database. Officers executing the arrest warrant acted in good faith, and the arrest would not be suppressed. State v. … Continue reading
N.D.Ala.: No REP in bank records under still settled law
“Petitioner argues that the IRS’s summonses to Bank of America and Regions Bank violate his Fourth Amendment rights. … The Eleventh Circuit recently considered and rejected a Fourth Amendment challenge to an IRS summons directed towards a bank because the … Continue reading