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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
- 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
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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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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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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)
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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
D.Minn.: Complete failure of showing nexus fails PC and GFE
The affidavit for the search warrant completely failed to show nexus to defendant’s house and drugs. Complete lack of nexus does not support the good faith exception either. United States v. Rios-Uscanga, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68991 (D.Minn. March 13, … Continue reading
E.D.N.Y.: 791 days of GPS tracking of a parolee suppressed
Back on December 29th was this post: E.D.N.Y.: 791 days of GPS tracking of a parolee to catch others in a DTO was [somehow] not unreasonable. On review, Judge Weinstein finds that intense tracking violated the Fourth Amendment and there … Continue reading
MD: Issue on appeal more nuanced and different that one presented to the trial court
Defendant’s issue on appeal is more nuanced, yet not the same as the one argued before the trial court, so there is no authority to decide it. So, the court does for the sake of argument, and it finds nexus. … Continue reading
TN: No consent to blood draw where def pulled out of car at gun point and told his blood was being taken
Defendant did not freely and voluntarily give his actual consent because he was pulled over by police officers, ordered out of his car at gun point, read the implied consent form, and informed that officers would hold him down and … Continue reading
Texas finally adopts the Davis good faith exception to its statutory exclusionary rule
Texas finally adopts the Davis good faith exception to its statutory exclusionary rule to a pre-Jardines dog sniff in a wide ranging and scholarly opinion surveying all the federal circuits on Davis and attenuation. McClintock v. State, 2017 Tex. Crim. … Continue reading
E.D.Tex.: Cell phone + drug case = PC to search cell phone
Drug dealers commonly use cell phones to ply their trade, and that was stated in the affidavit for the search warrant. The USMJ signed the warrant for cell phones, too. Accordingly, the search warrant was executed in good faith. United … Continue reading
CA4: Pre-Rodriguez stop was valid under law at time
Rodriguez was decided after the stop, and the circuit recognized de minimus delays in the stop. Moreover, the stop is not calculated merely by time: “Under Digiovanni and other pre-Rodriguez cases, that Deputy McMurray may have been able to end … Continue reading
CA10: GFE saves general warrant where affidavit specific and affiant served the warrant
Where officers obtained a warrant and searched two cell phones seized at the time of defendant’s arrest, the search warrant was invalid because it did not satisfy the particularity requirement since it did not identify either of the phones that … Continue reading
AZ: Computer search warrants get greater scrutiny; this one lacked all particularity and no GFE applies
Computer search warrants get greater scrutiny. The search warrant for defendant’s computer lacked any particularity, and it could not be saved by the good faith exception. State v. Dean, 2017 Ariz. App. LEXIS 12 (Jan. 12, 2017):
E.D.Mo.: SW description was defective but reference to affidavit and GFE saves it
The warrant was defective on its face, only authorizing a search of the person of the accused. The affidavit for the warrant, however, was more detailed and described places and things: a hotel room and a Mercedes. The officer sought … Continue reading
D.V.I.: Telephonic warrant requirements were complied with and GFE didn’t apply
The telephonic search warrant here failed the requirements of Rule 41, including the verbatim reading of the warrant to the issuing judge, and didn’t mention that they also wanted to search a car that was omitted from the warrant. The … Continue reading
IL: GFE does not apply to seizure under a statute later held unconstitutional
Defendant was stopped and relieved of a handgun by the police and charged with it. Four years later, the state supreme court held that possession of a handgun alone, without criminal purpose, violated the Second Amendment. Defendant gets the benefit … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Attempt to show nexus was “bare bones,” and GFE doesn’t apply
Defendant was suspected of a robbery, and he had some thin connection to a house he’d been kicked out of because of a domestic dispute. He’d been seen taking the trash out and his car was there once. The court … Continue reading
TN adopts good faith exception for unsigned affidavit but sworn officer in 2007 DP case
The officer in this case hurriedly prepared an affidavit and warrant to search defendant’s property. When printing it, he didn’t notice that the document was typed for legal size paper but the printer had only letter size in it. He … Continue reading
DE: Search incident of book bag left in car for FTA arrest violates Gant
Defendant was a passenger in a vehicle stopped for a brake light violation. The officer found an outstanding warrant for failure to appear and defendant was arrested and put into the patrol car. The search of defendant’s book bag back … Continue reading
Cal.: The good faith exception doesn’t save a cell phone search that wasn’t even valid before Riley in California
The good faith exception doesn’t save a cell phone search that wasn’t even valid before Riley in California. “In People v. Diaz (2011) 51 Cal.4th 84 (Diaz), we held that, incident to a custodial arrest, police may search through data … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: CSLI warrant didn’t show PC on informant information or timeliness; GFE did not apply
The prospective CSLI warrant failed to show probable cause on the facts of informant hearsay or overcome staleness, and the motion to suppress is granted. (Also, the owner of a cell phone has standing to challenge GPS tracking of his … Continue reading
SD: Exigent circumstances justified warrantless entry into def’s apartment in case there was an injured victim inside
Exigent circumstances supported the warrantless entry into defendant’s apartment. A witness told the police he’d been asked to move a body and he did move a heavy suitcase, big enough to hold the body of a woman. He didn’t know … Continue reading
E.D.N.C.: No PC for GPS information from any phone that connected to the target phone; and no GFE
“Because the first pen order allowed officers to retrieve GPS location information about any phone which contacted the target phones, and nothing in the affidavit shows the relation between those contacting phones and the underlying criminal activity, the magistrate judge … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Facebook SW had thin but sufficient showing of PC, and GFE applied
The police had information that armed robbers were communicating on Facebook about their plans. The affidavit of probable cause as to this defendant’s Facebook account was thin, but it was similar to that of the other defendants and it still … Continue reading