Archives
-
Recent Posts
- VA: Body cam video of valid arrest would not be suppressed
- NM: Trial court’s finding of consent is reversed because the court engaged in its own internet investigation beyond what the parties provided
- Reason: No Warrant, No Suspicion, No Problem: Flock and Border Cellphone Searches Excluded From 4th Amendment Rules
- Reason: Flock’s Gunfire Alerts Raise a New Fourth Amendment Question
- N.D.Ohio: Car in driveway was on curtilage and plain view prohibited
-
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: Issue preclusion
D.Colo.: A shared driveway is not curtilage
A shared driveway is not curtilage. United States v. Vasquez, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 230603 (D.Colo. Dec. 2, 2021). 2254 petitioner admits that he had a full and fair opportunity to litigate his search issue and did. The fact he … Continue reading
DE: Officer’s use of fictitious “friend” account didn’t violate REP in Facebook account
The officer violated no reasonable expectation of privacy of defendant by creating a fictitious Facebook account and then getting “friended” by defendant. Then on defendant’s Facebook account, the officer saw that defendant parolee had firearms. That led to a valid … Continue reading
FL1: Alleged statutory violation for seizing alcohol abusers not subject to any exclusionary rule
An officer’s alleged violation of statutory procedures for dealing with alcohol abusers they encounter is not subject to an exclusionary rule. Nothing in the statute even suggests it. Jones v. State, 2021 Fla. App. LEXIS 15097 (Fla. 1st DCA Nov. … Continue reading
CA9: No standing in pole camera surveillance of house of another
Defendant doesn’t have standing to challenge prolonged pole camera surveillance of the property of another. Also, there was reasonable suspicion on the totality including collective knowledge to extend defendant’s stop for a drug dog. United States v. Cruz, 2021 U.S. … Continue reading
Misc.
There was probable cause for the first and second search warrants for child pornography on defendant’s devices (took ~100 pages to say that). No exclusionary rule; good faith exception applies, too. United States v. Pena, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 218914 … Continue reading
W.D.Tex.: Stone bar applies whether 4A challenge made or not; could it have been?
“The Stone bar applies to ‘to all claims arising under the Fourth Amendment,’ including challenges to the seizure of evidence, Hughes v. Dretke, 412 F.3d 582, 596 (5th Cir. 2005) and even to claims ‘where the petitioner did not avail … Continue reading
CA9: Heck claims should be dismissed without prejudice
Heck claims should be dismissed without prejudice in case the plaintiff can invalidate the conviction. Lund v. California, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 32096 (9th Cir. Oct. 26, 2021). The case has a helpful explanation of Heck:
CA11: Bag dropped to feet when def arrested couldn’t be searched incident to arrest; no safety concern
Officers accosted defendant to arrest him, and he dropped a paper bag. It could not seriously be argued that the bag contained a weapon. Moreover, the government did not argue abandonment. The district court erred in not granting the motion … Continue reading
CA6: One controlled buy from a house is PC for SW
One controlled buy is probable cause for a search warrant of a house. Regular drug trafficking from there not required. United States v. Roberts, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 30737 (6th Cir. Oct. 12, 2021). Mere disagreement with the state court’s … Continue reading
E.D.Wis.: Threat to arrest high school student for social media post about Covid violates 1A
Officer’s threatening to arrest a high school student and her parents for disorderly conduct if she didn’t take down a social media post about her exposure to Covid violated the First Amendment. Cohoon v. Konrath, No. 20-cv-0620-BHL (E.D.Wis. Sept. 24, … Continue reading
E.D.Ky.: Sex offense victim’s uncorroborated statements supported issuance of SW for defendant’s email account
Sex offense victim’s uncorroborated statements supported issuance of a warrant for defendant’s email account. A victim is not treated the same as an informant for probable cause purposes. United States v. Deleon, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 182049 (E.D.Ky. Sept. 23, … Continue reading
N.D.Cal.: Officer accessing Automated License Plate Reader database not unreasonable search
An Oakland officer’s accessing the local Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) database was not an illegal search nor a violation of the Fourth Amendment. That information helped to provide information to enable police to apply for a GPS tracking warrant … Continue reading
WI: Checking traffic detainee’s compliance with prior bond conditions violated Rodriguez
Defendant was stopped for a traffic offense, and defendant was on bond from a pending case. The officer decided to inquire into defendant was in compliance with the bond terms. That exceeded the normal incidents of a traffic stop. State … Continue reading
W.D.Mo.: Even if pretextual, this stop was otherwise reasonable
The traffic stop here was reasonable even if pretextual. United States v. Brown, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 155885 (W.D.Mo. July 30, 2021).* There was justification for defendant’s stop: driving 100 mph and other traffic violations. United States v. Young, 2021 … Continue reading
CA11: New facts of alleged illegal search already ruled on not appropriate for successor habeas
Defendant’s attempt at a successor habeas on four grounds includes one that there is new evidence that he was wrongfully arrested. That was previously addressed before the new evidence claim, and it’s denied. “ An applicant cannot create a new … Continue reading
N.D.Ohio: Habeas claim SW fake was barred by Stone
Defendant litigated his motion to suppress before this 2255. His claim now that the warrants were fake is barred by Stone. Davison v. United States, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 150386 (N.D.Ohio Aug. 9, 2021). The fact the CI may have … Continue reading
E.D.Mich.: Officers could accompany POs where there was fear def engaged in criminal conduct
It was not unreasonable for law enforcement officers to accompany defendant’s parole officer on a parole search because of concerns defendant was involved in criminal conduct. United States v. Davis, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 147629 (E.D.Mich. Aug. 6, 2021). “Brewster’s … Continue reading
N.D.N.Y.: Stone also bars arrest claims
Lack of probable cause for an arrest is also not cognizable in habeas under Stone v. Powell. Shortell v. Kickbush, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 146938 (N.D.N.Y. Aug. 5, 2021). Defendant’s 2255 search and seizure IAC claim is really just an … Continue reading