Archives
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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
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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)
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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) -
“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: Computer and cloud searches
D.D.C.: It took the govt years to search def’s computers, and the court has to balance that huge delay with the truth-seeking function in resolving it
In a fraud case, the government took years to search the computers. A second warrant was obtained for some. The government doesn’t get to undo the delay by a new warrant, but the deterrence rationale of the exclusionary rule applies. … Continue reading
OH3: Cell phone search can extend to cloud storage it’s connected to
Defendant gave consent to search his cell phone, and the court notes, without deciding, that other courts have held that such consent would reach his data stored on the cloud or another server. That issue doesn’t, however, have to be … Continue reading
MS: Failure to include SW materials anywhere in record was waiver of issues about it
Failure to include the search warrant materials anywhere in the record, either as an attachment to the motion or an exhibit at a hearing, is waiver for appeal on whether the warrant was properly issued. Burdine v. State, 2026 Miss. … Continue reading
E.D.Pa.: “computer(s), smart device(s), cellular phone(s), gaming console hardware(s), software, digital storage media, and their associated peripherals” is particular
In a child pornography case, “computer(s), smart device(s), cellular phone(s), gaming console hardware(s), software, digital storage media, and their associated peripherals” is particular enough. United States v. Margerum, 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65406 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 26, 2026):
OR: A year of public internet portal monitoring required a warrant under OR Const.
A year of monitoring of internet use at a public portal where the company providing the portal cooperated with the police was state action. “[T]he state’s year-long surveillance of defendant’s internet activities was a search under Article I, section 9.” … Continue reading
Va.L.Rev.: Fourth Amendment Trespass and Internet Search History
Alec J.H. Block & Joseph W. Paul, Fourth Amendment Trespass and Internet Search History,111 Va. L. Rev. Online 188 (2025). Abstract:
MN: No REP in text message in recipient’s device
The sender of an electronic message has no reasonable expectation of privacy in it where it ends up. State v. Bonnell, 2026 Minn. LEXIS 69 (Feb. 25, 2026):
GA: Def let someone use his computer, and they found letters they turned over to the police in a private search
Private search: Defendant let someone use his computer and that person found two incriminating letters which were turned over to the police. Bunn v. State, 2026 Ga. App. LEXIS 110 (Feb. 25, 2026).* The parties agreed that references to the … Continue reading
S.D.N.Y.: No REP in what is shared with a cloud AI program
There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in what is shared with a cloud AI program, even if it’s in anticipation of litigation. Therefore, no attorney-client privilege in what the client shares with AI trying to help his attorney. United … Continue reading
C.D.Cal.: Suit over seizure of guns on mental health order dismissed
Officers had a court order under Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 8100 for taking plaintiff’s guns because of a mental health hold. They came to his house but he was gone. They talked to him through his Ring doorbell. … Continue reading
Cal.2d: NDO in SW to Microsoft doesn’t violate state statute or 1A
A nondisclosure order in a search warrant to an electronic service provider does not violate state law or the First Amendment. Microsoft Corp. v. Superior Court, 2026 Cal. App. LEXIS 17 (2d Dist. Jan. 14, 2026):
D.S.D.: No standing in employer’s laptop
2255 petitioner fails on standing to contest of search of this laptop. Based on all the court can see, including the PSR description, the laptop belonged to his employer, not him. All the electronic devices of the employer were seized. … Continue reading
WaPo: Your chatbot keeps a file on you. Here’s how to delete it.
WaPo: Your chatbot keeps a file on you. Here’s how to delete it. by Geoffrey A. Fowler (“A clickable guide to fixing the complicated privacy settings from ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini and Meta AI. … Try this: Log in to … Continue reading
CNS: North Carolina man asks Fourth Circuit to nix child porn flagged by Google algorithm
CNS: North Carolina man asks Fourth Circuit to nix child porn flagged by Google algorithm by Steve Garrison (“A North Carolina man convicted of possessing child pornography asked the Fourth Circuit on Friday to toss out evidence that Google automatically … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Electronic evidence seized in one investigation of Comey cannot be searched years later for evidence in another; return ordered under Rule 41(g)
When the government retained electronic evidence obtained from a lawyer under a warrant, concluded the investigation, and then, years later, searched the information again in a different investigation, the remedy here was order of immediate return to the lawyer and … Continue reading
Reason: CBP Agents Held This U.S. Citizen for Hours Until He Agreed To Let Them Search His Electronic Devices
Reason: CBP Agents Held This U.S. Citizen for Hours Until He Agreed To Let Them Search His Electronic Devices by Jacob Sullum (“A federal lawsuit argues that the agency’s policy of perusing travelers’ personal data without a warrant or probable … Continue reading
D.D.C.: Warrantless computer search ordered stopped
An attorney whose computer was seized and copied gets a TRO against further searches on a prima facie showing of its warrantless search. Richman v. United States, Civil Misc. Action No. 25-0170 (CKK) (D.D.C. Dec. 6, 2025):
E.D.Mo.: Neither RS nor PC required for electronics search at border
Neither reasonable suspicion or probable cause is required for a border search of electronic equipment. Here, it was at Newark airport. United States v. Bill, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 234680 (E.D. Mo. Dec. 2, 2025). Defendant who had 19 prior … Continue reading
Above the Law: Washington Post Analysis Shows We Are Talking Too Much And Getting Questionable Advice From LLMs — And It May All Be Discoverable [How about the subject of a search warrant?]
Above the Law: Washington Post Analysis Shows We Are Talking Too Much And Getting Questionable Advice From LLMs — And It May All Be Discoverable by Stephen Embry (“It’s incumbent on all of us to do all we can to … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Seeing handgun reasonably led to handcuffing to see if def had permit on him
Officers suspected defendant was carrying a weapon, and they saw it as they approached. Under state law, he had to have the permit on him. “So, were the officers’ following actions (handcuffing Pettes and putting him in the squad car) … Continue reading